Several weeks ago we had a CLARA conference here in Guatemala. AMG was in charge of hosting the conference for this year as last year Nicaragua and Haiti each hosted the conference. CLARA stands for Caribbean/Latin America Regional Alliance which consists of 3 organization from Haiti, 1 from Colombia, 2 from Nicaragua, and 1 from Guatemala. Woord en Daad Holland sponsors these conferences in which representatives from each of the partner organization attend to learn, discuss, and plan. Last year we had two conferences but starting this year there will only be one conference a year. Initially the idea of working together as an alliance did not seem to be very practical nor beneficial, but now that we have met together 3 times we are seeing some benefit from working together. 
The 5 days of meeting where held in the tourist and colonial town of Antigua. Although we spent most of the days in meetings from 8:00 in the morning till 5:00 in the afternoon and some times into the early evening we spent one day going around visited a number of AMG projects. We first visited the head office and the largest AMG school in the city. From there we went to see the dump and then drove several hours to Balanya to visit a rural school belonging to AMG. After spending several hours there we went to visit the AMG camp in Chimaltenango where we had dinner and spent time socializing.
The week went well and the attendants said it was the best conference so far. The food was great as were the accommodations. People also enjoyed the fact that they could leave the hotel in the evening or early morning and walk around the town.
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