Before we dive into the content from day 2, I wanted to share a photo of our whole group (plus a few of our interpreters) from our walk on day 1 in front of the Welcome to San Andres Itzapa sign! There are 25 high school students and 13 chaperones.

We had the chance to sleep in a bit this morning since we had such an early start the day before. Breakfast was served at 8am and once again the food was delicious! Eggs, pancakes, cereal, beans and tortillas were on the menu this morning.

After breakfast, the work crew arrived to the convent and we were able to gift them each a toolset. Each set had a new drill, saw, drill bit set and other miscellaneous items. They were extremely grateful for these tools and it was so fun to see their faces light up as they opened their bags. At 9am, we drove to Parramos which was about a 10 minute drive away. We broke into four groups and each set off with a contractor (they call them “masons”) and an interpreter in order to build a “tiny home” for a local family. Our interpreter was Elvis and our mason was Eddie – both were wonderful. We arrived to the home we were going to be working on and were warmly greeted by Emiliana and her two children Eduardo and Heidi. We were going to be building a bedroom for them attached to their current home. We split up the tasks and some of us started painting what would become the walls and others built the upper structure that the walls would attach to.

I am amazed at the homes here, it truly is nothing like we would ever see in America and makes you extremely grateful for the blessings we have. The room we were building consisted of cinder block walls that went up about 4-5 feet and then pieces of plywood on the upper half of the wall. The roof is a simple sheet metal roof with packed dirt floors. When we arrived the cinder block portion of the room was already built and the concrete dry so that we could get started on the top portion of the room. Several of us painted the plywood with and oil based paint in order to protect it from the water when it rains.

We worked for about 3.5 hours and during that time we got the upper part of the house done. No sooner did we have the roof on the room and the skies opened up and it rained on us. It was perfect timing as we were able to all gather in the new room we had built in order to stay dry. We will go back later this week to finish up the room. We then drove back to the convent for lunch. The sisters made us pasta with meat sauce, salad and watermelon for lunch.

After lunch we split into six groups and split off to go build chicken coops. Two of the groups stayed in San Andres Itzapa and the other 4 went back to Parramos. My group was one that stayed in San Andres Itzapa. Our interpreter was Elvis again and our mason was Danny. We rode in “tuk-tuks” up to the building site about 5 minutes away. We started off by clearing the space where the current chicken coop was at in order to level the ground and make room for the new structure.

We then sifted the sand and got ready to build the new structure. My main job was mixing the concrete. Everything is done by hand, so no electric drills or mixing tools, we put the sand and concrete mix on the ground near by and mixed those together. We formed a “volcano” with the mix, added the water to the middle and mixed it together with our shovels. It rained on us again while we were there, but just a light sprinkle so it wasn’t too bad. Three hours later we had put up a small cinder block lower structure (two cinder blocks high), put in a concrete floor and placed the posts for the four corners and the door. We will return later this week to finish the chicken coop, giving the concrete time to dry and cure fully. (My hands were pretty dirty – even with gloves – so not a lot of pictures of the progress on the chicken coop, I will try to remember to take some when we go back later this week.)

We walked back to the convent since it was all down hill and a pretty easy walk. As we were walking we came across a procession that was going through town celebrating Corpus Christi Sunday. We stopped to watch for a little bit before continuing our walk home. It was beautiful to see all of the people from town lining the streets to celebrate Jesus Christ!

We were the first group back to the convent so Elvis took us down the street and we were able to buy some ice cream from a local store. I then had a chance to shower and get cleaned up, which was wonderful because my legs were covered in concrete and mud!

At 6:30pm we celebrated Mass. Fr. Leonard is a priest from the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph (currently serving at Our Lady of Lourdes) who is with us on the trip. It is wonderful to have a priest with us to celebrate the sacraments.

After Mass we had dinner – tonight we had a ham and cheese quesadilla, mixed vegetables, soup (it was the same soup as last night and I remembered to ask what kind it was – turns out it was asparagus soup, which sounds odd, but was delicious), beans, bread, and tortillas. Dessert was a slice of pineapple.

Following dinner we had a quick “pow wow” where we were able to get together as a group and share about our experiences that day. It was wonderful to hear the stories and interactions that others were able to have with the families they were serving. One shared how the family who they built the house for in the morning was thanking them at the end and mentioned that by having a home of their own it restored their dignity. Again, a reminder to be grateful for all that we have and the ease with with we live our lives compared to the reality of life in Guatemala.

I was then able to spend some time in the chapel before heading to bed for the night.

Overall, it was a beautiful day! I know I am going to be sore tomorrow, but it was totally worth it and I am so excited for the rest of the trip! For now, good night from Guatemala!!

Mileage Tracker:

• 11,731 steps
• 5.15 miles