Week 2 Day 1

Hola from Antigua,

Out with the old and in with the new... Toro Loco, Sarah, Lorena, Kelly, Patrík, and Katí left this morning cerca de 6:00 a.m. (making far too much noise two hours before the new crew had to wake up to go to work). I hope you all made it home safely. I already miss you guys, but I’m also looking forward to living and working with another group of wonderful people this week. The week two crew consists of Taylor (I was sick before I got here) Hicks, Patrick (I lost my name tag on the way to work)Lyons, Olivia (not Olswick) Elswick, and Izzy (can you dump it?) Hernandez-Cruz. Of course Fred and I are here again, también.

So, we woke up this morning and made peanut butter and Nutela sandwiches (best I’ve ever had) because we were out of jelly. Taylor was not feeling well and so stayed home. Don’t worry, she is feeling better now, and will be ready to work mañana. We took a bumpy back-of-the-pickup-truck ride up the side of a mountain where Patrick lost the name tag he had received all of fifteen minutes ago. Of course Olivia’s name tag was wrong, as if we weren’t having enough trouble learning people’s names to begin with. We ended up in a small town called Santa María de Jesús,

This week we are constructing a house for a family of six: Mom, Dad, and four girls. I only remember the names of two daughters, Marissa (Maritza) and Jenny (Yenny), the ones that were not so shy. Marissa and one of the other daughters were at school until lunch time. I think they are around seven or eight years-old. Jenny is five, I believe, and the last niña is just a baby. Mom carried her around all day. Dad worked very hard with us all day, but did not talk much.

We started out the work-day dumping sand, sand, and more sand. For some reason, “Izzy can you dump it?” became the quote of the day. The sand was used to make concrete, which would later be used to fill the foundation of the house. First, though, we had to dig a trench around the outside of the house. As Patrick Lyons put it, “We had muscles that hurt, which we never knew we had.” After laying the foundation, we had a short lesson and exercise in mortar application. We laid one row of concrete blocks, and that was it.

Now, before we get ready for day two, I would like to leave you hanging by a cliff. In some ways, the people of Guatemala are more mature than the people living in the United States, despite their lack of education, money, and technology. We can and will learn so much from these people. We have already seen so many amazing sights in one day. These are some of the things that stood out to us:

• How quickly people have to grow up here, and the effect that has on a person’s appearance and attitude.
• How close together people live, and despite their limited options, the grace and happiness with which they share everything.
• How small the people are here, which probably results in part from a lack of nutrition as children.
• How happy the children can be living with nothing.


-Nathan (Granolabar) Curd