By Sylvia Daigle Garcia
Instead of learning on the ground, we returned to the academic side in our visit to Guatemala. We’ve seen how working and learning on the ground is vital for us to fully understand international development; however, today we were able to get the chance to remember the importance of professional research in our academic career.
Tomorrow ,we have the opportunity to have a conversation with the Canadian Embassy in Guatemala about our time here, but other than being a very exciting experience it’s also a nerve-wracking one. Thankfully today we took the time to discuss our game plan in the meeting and it definitely calmed our nerves about the whole experience.
Up next was our visit to zone 10 of Guatemala City, which was a humbling experience compared to the rural communities we witnessed throughout the delegation. One absolute highlight was a weirdly amazing sandwich, which gave us a perfect chance to relax, chant, and fuel up before our academic meeting. We were greeted by FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) Guatemala, a research institute for postgrads to continue social science research across Latin America with around 15 countries housing students across the globe. We spoke on topics in women’s sexual and reproductive rights, immigration, foreign extractivism (mining), and about the institute itself.
This day wrapped itself up with a calm evening back at the Casa San Benito convent, our promised “Adam Sandler night”, and the bittersweet goodbyes that are coming tomorrow.
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