Arlaine Cervantes
Throughout her life, Arlaine has co-owned and/or managed a variety of successful, small businesses in North America and Mexico including the first full service real estate brokerage in La Paz, BCS, and the construction and development, over the past 17 years, of a well-know bed and breakfast inn and gift shop where Guatemalan weavings are sold.
During that time, Arlaine traveled the region extensively and, after a chance visit to Guatemala in 1990, she was hooked. She had never before encountered such a precious place where the colors, the textiles and the evident spirituality of the people were so alive. Since that time, with few exceptions, she has returned annually for extended visits where an increasing understanding of the concomitant sorrows of Guatemala; poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease; has been unavoidable. Due to issues of shame and abandonment in her own childhood, she was particularly sensitive to the impact of these sorrows on the Guatemalan children.
For the past 5 years she has used her increasing time in Guatemala to pursue a personal commitment to the country she has come to love. Today, the organization she has founded -- Niños del Lago -- gives shape to that commitment which is to enhance the experiences, ideas and opportunities available to the children of Guatemala by providing them access to special study and nature programs at a dedicated facility near Lago Atitlán.
Arlaine currently resides about 4 months of the year in La Paz, Mexico and the remainder of the year in Panajachel, Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.
