Fight Malnutrition in Rural Guatemala

For the last 2 weeks we have been working on our outdoor cooking area at our office.

We will be using this space for our expanded nutrition and cooking classes that your generous donation supported. We are very excited as we have many groups that are wanting to take the classes and receive a plant. Our first classes will start in the 2 weeks and will be on Chaya.

All we needed was a covered cement pad attached to our office....but  that required us to build a structural wall AND move a ton of large rocks( one had to be chiseled away).

As you can see from the pictures this was not an easy task!!! It also shows the challenges involved in gardening in this village that is filled with rocks.

This area will enable us to use an energy efficient wood burning stove which will increase the number of women ( & men) cooking. It will also give us a safe place to secure the propane tank.

We have also been doing staff training session on cooking with chaya.

We already have one wonderful cooking teacher, Maria.

She however has limited Spanish and does not read or write so we want to pair her with a more formally educated person.I

In this culture men DO NOT make tortillas….so on every opportunity we have them give tortilla making a try.

We want to be able to have classes in the morning and afternoon. We also are insuring that there will be 2 teachers at each session and at least one teacher speaks Tzu'tujil. This is very important as many moms and grandma's in the village do not speak Spanish.