CHS Guatemala 2019

My favorite quote yesterday, "I've never laughed so much in my life!"  Followed by several responses of "I know" and "Me too!" These students are beyond amazing. Our next 3 days we are building stoves and latrines, as well as continuing to work on the house.  Lots of hard physical work, but I'm going to bet the most rewarding for most. The smiles on their faces each day are priceless. Time for breakfast.  Stay tuned for updates this evening.  And by the way, the students would not be AT ALL disappointed to hear from you on the blog (hint, hint).

¡Hola! We started the morning off with another delicious breakfast in the hotel. Everyone was excited for the day ahead. Breakfast consisted of fruit, pancakes, and coffee. The walk from the hotel to the lake is short, when we arrived the boat we were going to take hadn't arrived yet. This resulted in a photoshoot with a gorgeous view of the mountains in the back. We got on the two-story boat and were off for an hour long ride to San Juan. For the majority of the boat ride, people took pictures, laughed, and enjoyed the view from Lake Atitlan. Once we arrived in San Juan, it was gRiNd time, a long hike up a steep hill, only to be late for mass. The church in San Juan was beautiful and everyone enjoyed the similarities and differences between their mass and ours. It seems to be more laid back here, but the thing with Catholic mass, it is all the same. Some us made some friends during mass, as well. Next on the agenda was the honey tour-- i...

Buenos días, Just want to let you know what we are up to today. We stay up late giggling and blogging so I haven't even read what the girls wrote in the blog last night. Today is our cultural day.  We will take a boat across Lake Atitlan to San Juan.  Lake Atitlan is the largest lake in Central America, formed by a volcanic crater many, many years ago.  (How's that for historical accuracy!?) We will start our day with mass in San Juan.  You'll have to wait until this evening to hear about our adventures today. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers. PS  Pictured about is Rigo (Rodrigo).  We built a new stove and a new latrine for his family yesterday.  He likes to play soccer, which is what he did with us during breaks with a ball Kian brought for the family.

We woke up at 6:25 and ate breakfast at 7. Everyone put their work clothes on and met downstairs for our morning devotion. Larkin did it and did a great job! We were split into three different groups of 7 and set off to work. Two groups went to build stoves and latrines, and the other group went to work on the house. The two groups that were building stoves and latrines went to the same place and were working close together. We all realized how fortunate we are for what we have, and how differently the people here live. Their house has dirt floors and is in open air, and the bathroom that they had before we came was pretty gross (we all went in the corn field). We also realized that the people here are so happy with what they have, and so generous and grateful for our help. We spent two hours mixing mud and carrying bricks for the stove, cutting up wood for the latrines, and splitting bricks with machetes. After that we had a snack...

Quickly touching in to share our morning view. The bus is waiting for us as we depart for our morning of work.  We are splitting up into 3 groups today.  The jovenes will fill you in later.  All are doing great.  Lots of laughter and smiles. Hasta luego.

¡Hola Amigos! We hiked up at least 8 million and three stairs to the lookout over Antigua. The view was unbelievable. We could see the volcano Fuego erupting from the top. We took a lot of pictures before hiking back down. We walked around Antigua for a little bit before going back to the hotel to leave for Panajachel. The bus ride to Panajachel was about 3 hours, but we stopped for lunch at Chichoy. We had soup and chicken with potatoes. For dessert we had pineapple and papaya pie. The rest of the bus ride was winding through the mountains with lots of beautiful view of Lake Atitlan. The hotel in Panajachel, Hotel del Lago, is on the edge of Lake Atitlan. The rooms have balconies with amazing view of the lake. All of our rooms are on the second floor, except Walter who is by himself on the fourth floor. Once we were settled in we had a welcome meeting with three of the leaders of Sololá, the people we will be building a house for, and some of the people f...

Buenos días.  After much needed rest, we are enjoying breakfast and a beautiful view of Antigua.  (as seen in the photos).  Volcán Fuego is puffing smoke in the background.  No worries, it's just a friendly greeting to us. We have a morning adventure planned in Antigua, after which we will travel to Panajachel about 2.5 hours on a bus.  We'll stop for lunch on the way.  The next stop will be from some of the students, and they can tell you about the adventures we are about to have today. Cool morning mountain air.  Beautiful flowers.  Birds are singing. Words for the day:  excited.  pumped. Hasta luego.