Hola from Guatemala! The past two days have been awesome. Yesterday we landed in Guatemala City and drove about an hour to Antigua where we are staying this week. Our hotel, Mesón del Valle, is really nice with an outdoor garden with a fountain in the middle. After a long day of travel on Monday, we got right to work today building homes. By the end of the work day, we laid the foundations for two houses.
Before getting on trucks up to the work site (on the side of Volcan del Agua, an inactive volcano), we walked around the Parque Central in Antigua. At this main square, there were young kids who would often come up to us and ask to shine our shoes. We said no. We also saw some police officers with fully automatic weapons; it definitely was a shock for me to see those guns up close and personal. On the way to the works site, we sang A capella in the back of the pick up truck. The best song was “Don’t Stop… Believing” by Journey. As we rode along, the locals would sometimes look at us and laugh. I thought that was weird because I felt completely normal, but when you think about it, to these people we looked completely ridiculous in our athletic shorts and bandanas and Oakley Sunglasses.
The families we are building the homes for live in extreme poverty, probably making under $800 a year for a family of 11. The kids were helpful in construction and so were the Guatemalan workers leading the project. One of the major problems we encountered as we dug the foundations was running into the family’s old buried trash since they couldn’t afford to have it picked up by the garbage service.
I would have to say my Spanish is rusty at best and communication consisted of a mixture of hand signals, broken English, and some good ole fashioned Spanglish. As the week progresses I hope my Spanish improves. I felt like an alien when the kids would laugh at my sad attempts at complete sentences.
After a long day on the job site, we played soccer with the natives and another group from Britain on a community court at the end of an alleyway. When we were playing soccer with them it was really interesting because in Atlanta you never see random kids all coming together to play soccer, it made me see how different our lives are in Buckhead, our culture is not nearly as community centered. Needless to say we won -sick bruh.
After a bumpy ride back, everyone hopped in the shower to remove layers of cement and dirt. We chilled and relaxed while playing some cards and then we went to Las Palmas, an excellent restaurant where the Cappuccino was sublime along with the flan. Right now we are about to settle into an evening of poker and apples to apples. Basically it’s a fiesta in the Mesón del Valle. Adios!
Dylan and Wiley
Before getting on trucks up to the work site (on the side of Volcan del Agua, an inactive volcano), we walked around the Parque Central in Antigua. At this main square, there were young kids who would often come up to us and ask to shine our shoes. We said no. We also saw some police officers with fully automatic weapons; it definitely was a shock for me to see those guns up close and personal. On the way to the works site, we sang A capella in the back of the pick up truck. The best song was “Don’t Stop… Believing” by Journey. As we rode along, the locals would sometimes look at us and laugh. I thought that was weird because I felt completely normal, but when you think about it, to these people we looked completely ridiculous in our athletic shorts and bandanas and Oakley Sunglasses.
The families we are building the homes for live in extreme poverty, probably making under $800 a year for a family of 11. The kids were helpful in construction and so were the Guatemalan workers leading the project. One of the major problems we encountered as we dug the foundations was running into the family’s old buried trash since they couldn’t afford to have it picked up by the garbage service.
I would have to say my Spanish is rusty at best and communication consisted of a mixture of hand signals, broken English, and some good ole fashioned Spanglish. As the week progresses I hope my Spanish improves. I felt like an alien when the kids would laugh at my sad attempts at complete sentences.
After a long day on the job site, we played soccer with the natives and another group from Britain on a community court at the end of an alleyway. When we were playing soccer with them it was really interesting because in Atlanta you never see random kids all coming together to play soccer, it made me see how different our lives are in Buckhead, our culture is not nearly as community centered. Needless to say we won -sick bruh.
After a bumpy ride back, everyone hopped in the shower to remove layers of cement and dirt. We chilled and relaxed while playing some cards and then we went to Las Palmas, an excellent restaurant where the Cappuccino was sublime along with the flan. Right now we are about to settle into an evening of poker and apples to apples. Basically it’s a fiesta in the Mesón del Valle. Adios!
Dylan and Wiley
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