Scaffolding, Schools and Spanish

Hola Atlanta desde Antigua - the city of eternal spring. The sky above Volcan de Agua this morning was very clear and the temperature was just right. Everything around us looked extra gorgeous, which was perfect because the group as a whole was lacking a little fire when we woke up. A couple group members even slept in a little extra this morning. Dylan took a five hour energy drink that helped him get at least half way through the day. None the less, we had a very productive day building the homes. The four walls are almost to the final height. A new obstacle today was the extra height which forced us to build scaffolding in order to reach the top of the cinder block walls to fill in each gap with cement.
About halfway though the day, around 11:00am, three members from Team Green and three from Team White (Sebastian, Kohler, Anne, Katie, Hannah, and Ashley) as well as Daniel and the two Bills walked nearly a quarter mile up the road to the local all-boys school in Santa Maria de Jesus. We brought them school supplies including notebooks, pencils, pens, and markers as well as a soccer ball and a basketball. Daniel, Kohler, and Sebastian played a soccer game with the kids on the cement court between the classroom buildings. Many of the remaining 600 boys tried to hide from Anne and Hannah until the cameras came out and they welcome the prospect of getting their pictures taken. While the one group was at the school, the rest of us became very familiar with concrete. Weston mixed a lot of concrete with Maestro (aka Damien) who is the “master”, or man of the house. He was a pro. The group at the school then returned to the worksite and ate lunch with the rest of the group. After adding 4 more levels of cinder blocks to the house, leaving us with a total of 10 levels (about 5’6” tall), we were done for the day and started packing up.
After showering, changing, and napping, all of which felt amazing, we attended our Spanish school around the corner from around 4 to 5:30; our language teacher is the man! We learned mucho. At 6:30pm, we went to dinner at La Esquina (“the corner”), a local joint, and had an awesome dinner - even though it took and hour and 50 minutes. All in all, we are making progress with our homes and we’re having a blast as we learn more Spanish from the locals and enjoy awesome Guatemalan food.

Mucho Amor,
Kohler and Weston