Loading up and heading out for the first day of CARE project visits. All photos by Jason Sangster © CARE 2001.

Mia Redd, coordinator of the Atlanta Youth Committee for CARE (AYCC), is directing the crowd surrounding her in front of Guatemala City's Princess Hotel.

Nineteen of us had arrived the night before: 10 Atlanta-area high school students; four CARE representatives; a three-person WSB-TV Atlanta news crew; Delta Air Lines' community affairs manager, Scarlet Pressley-Brown; and me, Mary Pflum, Web site writer.

Now we are being divided into three groups and separate vans to set out on our firstday's adventure in Guatemala.

"Group C!" Mia calls again, pointing CARE staffer Evelyn O'Reilly and three AYCC members in the direction of a van bound for Antigua, a 30-minute drive southeast from Guatemala City.

I am a member of Group B -- comprised of 17-year-old Marina Gurvich, 18-year-old Annie Lipsitz and 18-year-old Charles Ford. CARE photographer Jason Sangster is along to capture the day on film, and Elie Perez serves as our fearless translator -- without whom we all, literally, would be lost.

Within minutes, we are zooming through the outskirts of Guatemala City, 'oohing' and 'ahhing' over the lush terrain surrounding us. For the vast majority of us, this is our first time in Guatemala. And we are not disappointed.

The trees and grass are a rich shade of green; the sky, a yummy blue. The temperature is comfortable. June, we have learned, is actually the heart of winter in Guatemala -- a typically rainy season in which temperatures peak in the low 70s (Fahrenheit). We are fortunate today in that there is no rain.

"Look! Over there!" yells Charles excitedly. "It's a volcano!"

To our left, jutting upward proudly, we spy Antigua's volcano.

After a brief photo session, we are back on the road, concentrating on the task at hand: a tour of Guatemala's Paccoral School.

Annie Lipsitz shares some photos from home with the students.

The Paccoral School, like the Rincon Chiquito School Group A will visit in nearby Zaragoza, is part of CARE's Proesa Xtani' Project; a Delta Air Lines-sponsored program aimed at increasing access to credit for women and education for village girls. In the local dialect, Proesa means 'triumph' and Xtani' means 'girls.'

In 1995, the year leading up to the project's launch, only one out of eight girls in the area finished sixth grade. And only one out of 100 Mayan women who entered college went on to graduate.

Today, the CARE credit program designed to make educating girls affordable for village families is helping 1,335 girls attend school. And the girls are not only going to school, they're staying in school. This year, 122 village girls completed grammar school -- up from 33 girls in 1995.

Pulling up to the school, we are delighted to see a number of young girls and boys rushing out to greet us. They are dressed in vivid colors - reds, blues, greens. And their eyes are dancing.

"Hola!" calls out Annie, who has taken six years of Spanish class.

She and her AYCC colleagues are a source of wonder to the children.

Within minutes, they are being introduced to a classroom of Paccoral School fourth graders, ranging in age from 10 to 14.

They ask the AYCC representatives for their names, and want to know what they study.

Charles Ford, in class with his new Guatemalan friends.

Charles explains in Spanish that he enjoys studying politics, and wants to one day become a U.S. president. The children laugh in delight. During show-and-tell, the children continue to warm up to their American visitors. In one corner of the room, Annie introduces her new young friends to her family in Atlanta, with pictures in her photo album. In the opposite corner, Marina shows a circle of enchanted young girls photos from her Homecoming dance.

Following the show-and-tell session, it's time for a movie.

CARE Guatemala staffers dim the lights for the 30-minute Proesa Xtani' film, designed to drive home the importance of education in the region.

In the film, a village girl is ordered by her father to stop going to school after only three years of grammar school. Her boyfriend sides with her father, arguing that women in the region don't need formal schooling.

He extends an offer of marriage to the girl -- who still longs to go to school, but believes she has no other choice than to do what is expected of her by the men in her life.

While her brother goes to school and is doted on by her father, she enters into a life of hard labor. Her husband expects her to make money for their growing family, comprised of mostly girls and a boy. When he learns she is expecting their fifth child, he leaves her, complaining the child will likely be a girl.

Both mother and child die in childbirth, leaving the husband and father to mourn and to vow that, in the future, they will allow the girls in their lives to be better educated.

When the film is over, and the lights come up, the children are asked for their thoughts on the story. Hands fly up into the air and small heads nod when they are asked if they know of families in the region suffering from similar problems.

"What was the point of the film?" CARE project manager Robert Tubac asks the children. "Girls should be educated," answers a fourth grade boy in Spanish.

The AYCC representatives are thoughtful. "I was shocked by the film," says Marina, quietly watching the children around her.

Moments later, the children ask their AYCC guests to take seats outside for a very special presentation. Native music plays, and two young boys dressed in sombreros and carrying hoes over their shoulders emerge to demonstrate a harvest dance. Several more dances, as well as a fashion show highlighting traditional Mayan dress, follow.

The AYCC students are clearly moved by the dances, and by all of the efforts that have gone into making them feel welcome.

"Everyone was so hospitable," marvels Annie.

"They've been very kind and courteous. The presentation made me feel very humble," reflects Charles.

Moments later, we are escorted to the home of one of the grammar school students, 12-year-old Glenda. Glenda is in sixth grade and lives on a modest broccoli and strawberry farm not far from the school.

Her education is made possible, explain her parents, thanks in large part to the CARE Proesa Xtani' loan program. The program has helped her mother operate a small needlework business from home.

Glenda and her mother, Ofelia, demonstrate their skill on the loom.

The AYCC representatives watch in awe as Glenda's mother weaves brightly colored strings into an intricate flowered pattern that will one day make a blouse.

Similar weavings are displayed at the next stop of the day: the home of Rosalia Chan. Chan is a 43-year-old widow, and the mother of five children.

Thanks to a loan she took out more than five years ago to help manage plots of farmland, she is able to finance the education of her daughters. That's a priority, Chan says, since she was never able to get a good education - and now must work tirelessly to manage her broccoli and bean crops.

Charles, Annie and Marina admire Chan's neat rows of broccoli and engage her children in Spanish conversations.

By the time we leave the farm, Marina and Annie have succeeded in getting all of the children in the area to give them "cinco," the internationally-recognized method of slapping hands.

"This is a good day," sighs Charles contentedly in the van, on the way to Antigua, where Group B will join up with the other two groups.

And, indeed, it was a good day for everyone.

"Visiting the Proesa Xtani' project was probably one of the most educational moments I have experienced," says Scarlet Pressley-Brown of Delta Air Lines. "The Guatemalan students enjoy school so much, and their mothers are so proud to send them. I realized that if Delta didn't support this program, those schools wouldn't be there, and the children would lose a valuable opportunity."

Marina Gurvich finds that "High five" translates well.

As the Guatemalan sun starts to slip from view, and the sky turns a lovely shade of pink, all three groups gather on the second floor veranda of Antigua's Las Foralas Hotel to compare notes on their day.

Anneke Strachan and Tom Seamans of Group A share stories of a soccer game with Guatemalan youth and a gift of strawberries from the locals. Dara Watson and Meredith Schisler glow when talking about the beautiful old monasteries they toured.

And Rosemarie Wilde of Group C says she found the day nothing short of inspiring. Having observed some of CARE's work in the Antigua area, she smiles as she says, "Now I know what I want to do in ten years."

All three groups agree when it comes to what they want to do for the rest of the night -- that is, after an Internet chat session. With a wake-up call of 6 a.m. looming, the evening's most popular activity is, in a word, SLEEP!