I am behind once again due to the nature of this trip! It is go, go, go and then sleep. There are so many remarkable events that
happen during these days that it would be impossible to write fast without
putting thought into these events. I am
going to first details the events that occurred yesterday and then write about
our final day today. We are now in
Antigua and tonight is all about our travel day tomorrow and tomorrow is all
about travel. The events that have
transpired over the past two days are the real reason to even write a Blog and
therefore I’ll end with the inauguration.
Yesterday (Friday) was interesting in that a few of our
group members were under the weather and a few others were wondering whether
the psychological effects of others being sick were getting to them or if
something was actually originating within themselves also. So, down two people, we made our way up to
the worksite a little later than usually.
We were fortunate to be able to get in a couple of hours of work –
primarily on rebar painting and window cleaning – before the torrential rains
and strong storms began. It is an extraordinary
occurrence to be in the midst of jungle vegetation, high on a mountain,
surrounded by volcanoes when a storm such as this hits. It is beautiful. The lightning appeared to be almost right
upon us and the thunder therefore was short of deafening. We were safe inside the sturdy school so
danger was not upon us but, again, it was incredible. I think my word for most things on this trip
can only be “Wow.”
Once the rains started to let up we made our way down to the
salon, the community building, where
we organized ourselves to pass out the gift bags of donations we had put
together from our church. Due to the heaviness
of the rain we were confident that work on the pozo and the school would not continue for some time. Many of the women and children were waiting
until the rains had ceased before emerging from their homes but little by
little they trickled in to meet us. They
did not know that we would be handing out gifts but thought they were coming to
begin decorating for the big inauguration for Saturday. We started with the few women whom had
arrived and slowly more and more began to come until finally they all seemed to
be there (kids included of course)! We told them that each bag contained a gift
from our church, something for the women and their families, letters from
children from the United States to read and much more. I (Liz) explained this all in Spanish and
then they went down the line of our church members and gave hugs. It was very fun to be able to provide this small
gift for them and their families.
After we completed the gift giving, we began decorating for
the big inauguration. Candace also gave
us a tour of the stoves that had been installed in some San Gregorio homes. This was another wonderful Transformational
Journeys and Rolling Hills cooperative project.
The open wood burning stoves that are typical in the homes in Guatemala are
extremely harmful to the health of those having to constantly breathe in the
smoke. These women graciously invited us
into their homes and showed us the stoves.
You can see from what looks like soot on the wall how important these
stoves are. The first kitchen we visited
had black soot stained on the wall from the original stove while the third
home, where a kitchen was built specifically to house the stove, was completely
empty of the residue. All of the women
were constantly thanking Candace for bringing these to them.
During one of our visits we asked about a little boy who had
his arm in a homemade sling. Most of us
had noticed this on our first visit at the beginning of the week and Candace
asked about it when she saw him yesterday.
His mother explained that he had a fall and had dislocated his arm. They were caring for it by keeping it
elevated in the sling but it was very swollen and needed attention. She was told by a visiting medical clinic to
take him to the department’s health center but she knew that even though
Guatemala claims that healthcare is free, anything more than a check of the arm
would not be. She said she had heard
that an X-Ray would cost about 150 Quetzales.
This is about 20 U.S. Dollars.
Ted immediately said “Done” and Candace explained that if we were going
to invest in helping this child it would also require paying the expenses of
getting him and his mother to and from the hospital, the X-Ray and whatever was
beyond. She estimated roughly 500
Quetzals to start. I told them that my
mom was given a donation from a friend before leaving for Guatemala and would
be more than happy to use the remaining 300 Quetzals toward this cause. Later at the hotel through collections among
ourselves we had in less than 20 minutes raised 900 Quetzals to help him with
his arm. This may seem small but as his
mother shared with us, if his arm was not taken care of, he would likely be
unable to use it for working with a machete, carrying things, etc. which could
ultimately mean being unable to earn a living.
It had been 8 days since he had fallen and through our donation he will
be taken to a hospital on Monday.
Hopefully with prayers and good doctor care, his arm will be
mended. He was a cute little guy and
never seemed to flinch from pain.
After we loaded the truck and headed home, we cleaned up for
a special dinner with the masons that were hired to work on the school project
from start to finish. We ate at a nice
restaurant in San Lucas Tolíman and we all had a chance to speak before eating. Some of us expressed our gratitude for
working so hard and expressed the notion that this project could not have
happened without them. Some of us were
of course emotional when expressing our sentiments because of the relationships
that were formed during our trips. It is a hard, hard thing to leave people
after only a week of knowing them. These
men, while living in a different country and under different circumstances are
not so different at heart. Ted gave a
beautiful speech before eating that said that our language is not different; we
all speak the language of God. This
makes us in some ways the same. He also
quoted John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave…..”. The masons
certainly gave of their time, hard work and spirits. Some of the masons spoke
as well and expressed their own appreciation for the consistent work and the
gesture of treating them to a meal at a restaurant – for some of them this type
of restaurant was a first. I also should
note that they each first gave thanks to God.
I am sorry that I did not know these men better for I did not have a
chance to work alongside them as much as other Rolling Hill’s groups. I can say that I respect them so much and am
proud of what they have accomplished.
The one that I personally knew the best, Aroldo, also shared his
personal of history of coming to work on the project of the school, and gave
thanks to his own crew for being so reliable and hard-working. He is one cool dude and we wish him and his
family forever the best. We then ate,
drank and were of course very merry.
Finally, as we had done earlier in the day with the women of the San
Gregorio community, we lined up to provide the masons with gifts from our
church and say some additional kind words.
It was a special time for us and them and I feel privileged to have
broken bread with the best masons in Guatemala!
We ended with a meeting about packing and such because after
we left today for the inauguration we would not be back to San Lucas
Tolíman. It was the last night at our
fabulous hotel, La posada de los volcanes,
with our wonderful hosts, Marbila and Felipe, and staff, Mary. We were so lucky to have this hotel be our
home this week!
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