Happy Mother's Day...Again!Mother's Day is always on May 10th in Guatemala, and as most things in Catholic Central America, holidays have a more religious twist down here. Mother's Day is more about a celebration and thanks giving for the Virgin Mother, Mary icons, and religious events predominated the day's celebrations. We took a long lunch today (Nathan, Sarah, Lauren and myself)...and walked around Santa Maria de Jesus. The central square was full of venders and colorful Mayans. I even tried some delicous street food.
For Sarah and I, returning to Santa Maria de Jesus was very enjoyable and our second day of working was even more fun than yesterday. We had built a couple of houses here two years ago on the outskirts of town, but now have an urban building experience. Our family has two young boys and a slew of cousins. We spend most of our time lifting blocks and buckets of morter mix, but when ever we sit down we are pounced upon by the children. While in the middle of town, there are agricultural pastures, planted fields and grazing horses scattered on the steeper
hillsides in town. As usual, the poorer families live on steep hillsides with poor farming land. To support the family, the father takes work in Antigua (30mintues away) and doesn't seem to be home by the time we leave at 5pm.Speaking of being at the job site until 5pm; if anyone has read prior blogs, they would relize that the work used to be different in prior years. For many reasons, the work load has been condensed and we now build a whole house from digging a footer and pouring a foundation to putting on a roof and painting in just 5 days. Now its not a big house, but its still a LOT OF WORK. We used to work at a more leisurely pase, taking 6 or 7 days; the new condensed work load has left us all very sore and tired...we'll check in with you again tomorrow.
Toran.
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