La Historia: In a College President's Own Words

Several times each year Oglethorpe University President Larry Schall spends some of his “down time” in Guatemala. Back in February, OU students accompanied him during spring break for the university’s first international service trip.  This time, Schall has returned to co-teach an English class in a small Guatemalan town.

Amazing things always happen here. Here's another. On Monday, Jaime and I assigned homework and only two of the kids completed it. So, Tuesday, I told them if EVERYONE completed their homework, there would be a prize. Unfortunately, I cleverly used the word "Prisa" for prize. When i got home, I discovered prisa was "in a hurry", as in tengo prisa -- I am in a hurry. I could not imagine what the students thought I had told them. They had cheered wildly, so they must have believed it was something good. We brought candy on the wild chance each would have done "sus tareas".

Well, when we arrived we discovered everyone had their homework done. After we checked it, they asked where the pizza was. Prisa, pizza. Go figure. We recovered quickly and told them we would bring the pizza on Friday, our last day. They then explained that there was no school Friday (or at least that's what we thought they told us). We arranged to come at eight thirty in the morning Thursday to teach our two classes and then we would go get pizza and bring it back for lunch.

When we approached the school Thursday morning, three of the girls were waiting for us at the corner. That was odd as school started before eight. When we entered the school yard, the place was empty --completely barren --except for our 12 students and their teacher. Turns out there was no school Thursday OR Friday yet everyone of our students and their teacher came on their day off for our classes (and yes, our pizza). After class, we all walked through town hand in hand and had our very special meal together.

It gets harder to leave here each time.