Friday, July 18th Blog by Pat Strong

Today we arrived in Guatemala City, Guatemala to start our adventures arranged through Transformational Journeys. We drove through winding and sometimes bumpy roads to the town of San Lucas Toliman set amongst views of volcanoes. They grow coffee in this region and we saw many terraced areas of coffee plants. We will get to know the area more tomorrow and start our work on Monday. We will be building cook stoves for local homes to alleviate conditions that currently give little ventilation which then creates lung issues within the homes. The new stoves will also require less firewood and will be more efficient.  this will save valuable resources as well as labor. More photos to come on the process. We will meet the families we will be building the stoves for tomorrow. I am sure they are a bit nervous to meet us and we only hope to ensure them that we want to make their lives better. We are very much looking to share and learn about their culture in the process. By the end of the week we hope to have built 5-12 stoves for the families. There are currently nearly 65 families waiting for this improvement for their lifestyles. The women have had to come to meetings in advance to make sure they understand the process and what is expected of them. They are excited to meet us and to gain their new, well ventilated and efficient rang cook stoves. Photos above include some street scenes in San Lucas Toliman as well as a little birthday fun for our group. We enjoyed the delicious cooking of our hotel owner, Marbila and her sister in law, Mary,  who roasted tomatoes for a homemade sauce and then served us chicken, rice, tortillas and chocolate covered bananas and pineapple for dulces (dessert).