Post by Liz Oxandale

It’s a beautiful morning here in Guatemala and we just finished a breakfast of panqueques, fruit salad and biscotti.  Last night the rain was pretty significant so it’s great to see the sun – this will hopefully enable us to catch up on some work.  We have a packed day and I’m already catching up on our day yesterday!

Anyhow, yesterday was our first work day in San Gregorio.  The children of the community are on vacaciones so they were hanging out with us most of the day while we worked and while we waited for the late morning, early afternoon rains to cease – which took a while.  As a group we had four main projects to tackle for the day.  Four of us spent time on the roof painting the metal rods that were put in should the need for a second level ever arise.  We took turns working to clean the windows which proved to be a harder job than one would imagine!  However, this was not nearly as hard nor risky as the job of digging the sanitary hole or poso.  Our two younger men travelers braved the trek down into this hole and dug their hearts out.  We have 2 meters more to dig – approximately 6 feet – and some major boulders to get through first. We may not finish this week but seeing our group members’ heart to get as much done as they can is awesome.  Finally, many members worked to sift the dirt and soil that comes from the hole that is being dug.

This is one of the most striking things I learned/saw yesterday is how efficiently these citizens use their land and resources.  From the dirt that is dug from the sanitary hole they sift it to make a fine sand that can then be mixed with rocks and then with water and cement mix to create the cement used to build the building and also the columns needed for the poso.  There is no machinery digging the 20 foot hole and no cement truck pouring the cement.  IT IS INCREDIBLE.

We were slowed down by the two hour rain but for part of the time it was for lunch.  Another incredible fact: our lunch on site was not a brown bag lunch.  We were brought hot lo mein made by the cooks from the hotel where we stay.  Fresh tortillas, fruit and juice accompanied the main meal.  Yesterday they drove from San Lucas Tolíman to bring this.  However one of our group members who has been before said that ordinarily they hop on a chicken bus with all the food and serving ware and then walk from the main road all the up to the work site which is quite an uphill jog.

We were able to interact a lot with the community kiddos during the rain with books and jokes and then throughout the rest of the afternoon with games and such.  We worked until about 4:30 and made our back to San Lucas Tolíman.

Our night consisted of a talk by an impressive young man in the community who is also the son of our hosts here at Posada los volcanes, Mike.  Mike is a university student in environmental issues and gave us a talk on the water issues that exist in Guatemala.  He was incredibly articulate and exceptionally kind to talk with us and prepare visual aids on short notice.  We then walked to the municipal building where another community member prepared a talk on his program helping young boys find alternatives to street life through boxing.  He is (apparently) a champion boxer from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and invited us to watch the program and invited us to leave a donation J.  While the talk and event seemed pretty purposeful to seeking money, it was amazing to see these 10ish young boys dedicate time to exercise and boxing.  Furthermore, these kids were not dressed in athletic clothes as we think of them, they had on whatever they could find which included dress shoes or tennis shoes that were barely staying together.  So regardless of the bluntness and questionable details of our presenter, any money was going to a worthy cause.

We had a late dinner and rested for today.

Because I’m already behind, I will make my account of today’s events short and the pass the torch onto my mother to recount the details from this evening’s activities.  Today was great because the rain was short-lived compared to yesterday.  We continued on many of the jobs from yesterday and made progress.  Many of our group members also attended a traveling health clinic that was visiting San Gregorio from Stanford.  There was one doctor and two students.  I was not there so cannot describe the details but no those who attended were impressed.

We stopped a bit early to come home and clean up before we are meeting with leaders of San Gregorio on any questions we have about the school and its future.  Then we are off to a special Evangelical church service where none other than Pastor Ted Pierce will be given a sermon.  What and exciting time!