Habitat

This week I started working with Habitat for Humanity. On Tuesday I was finally able to get more information about what I would be doing, as the woman that answered my emails before wasn't very helpful. The day started with a motorbike ride to the town of Olintepeque which is about 10km from the centre of Xela. The driver dropped my off at the house that was under construction. They put me to work right away. When I arrived the house had most of the walls up and they were then making the sloped section of the wall that meets the roof. The house is entirely made of concrete blocks and has a metal roof. We finished the roof on Thursday and it is a simple metal structure made of typical corrugated sheets. I would imagine that the house will get quite cold at night as usually there is no heat in Guatemalan houses. The house itself is quite simple 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and living room but even after working on it for 3 days I am really getting to like it, and am looking forward to seeing it finish. There are 4 paid workers and the owner of the house was also working. I am the only volunteer at this time, although there was apparently a group from North Carolina that was working on it a couple weeks ago. Mostly I have been working as an unskilled labourer passing up concrete blocks, sheets of metal, concrete up to the workers on the roof who actually know what they are doing. It helps that I am tall and can reach quite high. It has been a bit of a problem knowing the names for various tools and so on in Spanish but usually it works out. Probably the hardest job was cutting the concrete blocks so that they would meet up flush with the sloped roof line. The only tool for the job was machetes. So it took quite a while to hack away at the concrete block using a dull blade. Often the block would crumble or break the wrong way so I would have to start again. The house is full of and surrounded by dust and dirt so I think that contributed to the cold that I have now, but I have a couple days off to recover. I will try to take a picture of it next week. The owner of the house and his wife are very nice, they made lunch for me the other day and I can see that they are getting quite excited to see that the house is almost finished.

I started taking salsa dance classes this week. So far I've had a couple of sessions and another one today. It has been pretty fun so far but still a bit of a challenge for me.

Back in Xela

Hey it´s been a while since I wrote anything here. The rest of my time at the lake was really nice. There are quite a few towns along the shore of the lake and they all have their own unique character. After San Pedro I went to San Marcos which is a lot smaller and has more of a spiritual vibe. A lot of people go there for the meditation centres, yoga, and all that stuff. It was a bit more slow paced so it was nice to sit in the hammock, read, and do some swimming. The lake was a perfect temperature for swimming and it was very clear off the rocks in San Marcos. I was there with David and Martha as we had to say goodbye to Harold. We then left David behind and headed to even smaller Santa Cruz. We stayed at a really cool place called La Iguana Perdida. Aside from no hot water it was a really relaxing place to spend a couple days. We even got a soccer game going with some of the people at the hostel and the locals who just seemed to appear from the hills. They were speaking the local Mayan language so of course I couldn´t figure out what they were saying. Around Santa Cruz we went on a nice hike for a couple hours to see the beautiful views of the lake, and also could see a lot of evidence of damage from Hurricane Stan. Next Martha and I headed to Panajachel the most touristy town on the lake. At least there were some good restaurants there although the street vendors would always try to sell us stuff when we were eating which got annoying sometimes.

After saying goodbye to Martha I headed back to Xela and then southwest to the Pacific Coast town of Champerico with a friend from Xela. It was about a 3 hour bus ride from Xela and gradually got warmer and warmer as the bus descended to sea level. Again there was more evidence of Stan´s damage with a few road washouts that still haven´t been fixed. I suspect it could take years to fix some of the roads and bridges. The beach town was a bit dusty and grungy and I didn´t see many foreign tourists, but the water was nice and it was good to have some hot weather for a change. Had some good seafood and did a bit of swimming in the big surf.

Back in Xela, the living is easy and I´m taking it easy this week. I am looking forward to starting a volunteer position with Habitat for Humanity on Tuesday morning. Also I´m going to be taking some dance classes next week. I will be learning salsa and merengue.
Adios!

Lago Atitlan

I´m here at Lago Atitlan for a few days, in San Pedro la Laguna. It is very beautiful here and since it is lower down, the weather is nice and warm but not too hot. Last two nights I met up with some friends from the Spanish School in Xela and we had a really fun time horseback riding yesterday. We rented horses for four hours and rode uphill from the lake to a coffee finca. The views were spectucular and it was interesting hearing about how coffee is made and the different types of coffee trees. Our guide Pedro explained that in some years the pickers and the owners of the land don´t make a lot of money, but this coming year is expected to be good. A lot of owners are abandoning their farms because it is more lucrative to have a business dealing with tourists than growing coffee. The people who make money in coffee are the packers, exporters, and of course the big coffee chains. The horses were pretty lively and we were trotting and sometimes galloping at full speed up the hill. We were laughing our asses off all the way, but after about 4 hours I was pretty happy to get off that horse.

One strange thing happened last week at the school. One of the teachers explained to me that there was this woman that wanted to meet me because she had heard thirdhand that I was from the same town. I thought that she was from Coquitlam or Vancouver, but it turns out she was from Cranbrook. She had gone to Juan Sisay school a few weeks earlier and it turns out that I worked with her dad at Tembec in Cranbrook. Her name is Laura Mercer. I guess it is a pretty small world after all!

Well I´m finished at Juan Sisay for now, but I plan to head back to Xela in 5 days, and then visit the Pacific Coast next week. After that I´ll find a volunteer position somewhere around Xela.

I guess there´s an election going on in Canada now. I was able to vote here from Guatemala without too much trouble. So, if I can vote from here I expect everyone reading this to be able to vote. No excuses!

I could say more, but i have to catch a ferry to the other side of the lake!
Hasta luego!
Matthew