Journey to Guatemala with the Florida FlyIns

On Saturday ABC News On Campus reporter Miles Doran blogged: I’m sitting on the floor next to the only power outlet I could find at Miami International Airport’s Gate D37. Eleven other University of Florida students are here, too. Half of them are asleep. We have a four-hour layover until our next flight takes us to class. Let me explain. … It’s called the Florida FlyIns — an international journalism course at the UF. For nine years now, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and professor extraordinaire John Kaplan has been teaching the course. Every year the class flies to a predetermined country and spends a week there, trying to tell its stories. Last year it was the Bahamas. The year before that it was Ecuador. This year the class is going to Guatemala. Specifically Zacapa, Guatemala. It’s about three hours east of Guatemala City. For the next seven days, from different points of view, and in different mediums, the 12 of us will document the ongoing hunger crisis in the country. According to the United Nations, nearly half of Guatemala’s children suffer from chronic malnutrition. This is a bittersweet trip for us. In the spring Kaplan was diagnosed with cancer. Although the professor is getting better, doctors won’t let him fly. It’s the first time he won’t be accompanying his class. The group is in capable hands, though. We’ll enjoy the rest for now, because as soon as it’s wheels down in Guatemala … class is in session.