Monday night and part of Tuesday

The medical center at El Yalu.

preparing beans for the market

bringing materials up to the house

Monday night dinner was delicious.  After dinner, some of us helped Oscar’s mother with taking the tips off green beans.  She sells the beans to the Wal-Mart in Guatemala City.  This really was interesting to see and do – how many times do we see produce in our own grocery stores that is from Guatemala?  And here Otter and I were in the very first steps of that process, helping prepare the food!

Monday night we started the EFL (English as a foreign language) training.  We initially heard there were going to be about 20 people.  The Friday before we came, there was only 5 people signed up.  When we went to the church to meet our group, over 90 people were there!!!  I am learning Guatemala time is very laid back and everything gets done whenever, including signing up for classes.  We were all very excited to see so many people.  Our reception again was warm, lots of hugs, laughter, and incredibly poor attempts at Spanish on my part.  We split into smaller groups to teach the first lesson of the week – basic Hello, My Name is, What’s your Name, etc.  In our group, we had children around 7 years old all the way to woman in their 70s.  I was so amazed to see the older people in our group who came to learn English.  It was such a wonderful opportunity to teach a few phrases of our language to people genuinely excited to learn it!  I wish I could get my class back home half as excited as learning.  By the end of the night, we were wiped out.  There were no problems falling asleep.

Tuesday started out as Monday, delicious breakfast, quick meeting for the day’s agenda, and then onto the bus back to El Yalu.  Its amazing how quickly the new and exciting becomes routine and familiar.  Our ½ mile walk to the home we were working in was well known by all of us now, and we knew which homes had the little children that would come out.  We pass by the central water station where the women were washing clothes and greeted all with our “holas” and “Buenos dias.”  The dogs, pigs, and chickens on the path are all familiar sights now, though this time I did see a horse in someone’s yard.  Everyone here ties up the animals to stay near their house.  In several homes, we saw a chicken tied by its leg to a post and baby chicks milling around her.  The cows are also tied up on trees, as are some of the pigs.  Others just wander up and down the path.

When we arrived at the home, we literally took buckets of dirt from the dirt path to mix with some lime and mortar for the ovens.  Otter learned some basic masonry work and helped place the mortar in between the bricks with a trowel.  After a little while, a pack of children had gathered and Otter, Deb, and I were singing songs and playing games with them.  Otter does such a great job of trying to learn espanol and truly enjoys playing with the kids.  A bunch of the girls definitely got a big kick out of Otter, every time he appeared they would giggle and hid their heads behind each other.  The children love having pictures taken of them.  They will all of a sudden stop playing and say “una foto una foto!”  They all then gather around the camera to see the picture that was taken.  We made several trips back and forth to the medical center to grab bubbles and chalk and other fun things to do with the kids at the home.

Oscar took us to a home where a stove had been completed before.  Earlier, the gentleman who lived there was telling another group what a profound effect the stove had on their lives.  Cooking over an open fire takes at least 6 pieces of wood to cook one pot of food, not to mention the health issues of inhaling the smoke.  The stoves now take 3 to 4 pieces of wood for 3 to 4 pots of food and the smoke leaves through a chimney.  The decrease in wood and decrease in smoke inhalation improves the quality of life for everyone in the home.  Some agencies in the past had just given people the stoves up front for free.  Not knowing how beneficial the stoves were or how to use them appropriately, the people would take apart the stoves and sell the pieces.  One of the differences with Oscar’s use is that each family must put forth $30 and he provides not only training, but followup for each family.  His goal is for all willing villagers of El Yalu to have a stove by 2014.  His short term goal is 30 stoves a year.  Right now, Oscar and his teams have put into place 21 stoves this year.  Its amazing what a man and his vision can accomplish with enough gutspa. 

Time for morning meeting – as always, more laterJ

Otter:

Yesterday, we went straight to building ovens. In the middle of working, two young little girls came and looked at what we were doing. So, I played a game of hide and seek with them. Pretty soon, some more kids started to appear in front of the house that we were putting the oven in. we started playing Spanish games, like duck duck goose, and stuff like that.

My mom and me headed back down to the place that we fed the kids at and grabbed some of the toys we got to give away. Bubble blowers and chalk. The road was all dirt, so we didn’t have any cement to draw on. Lucky for us, the people that we were making the stove for were tearing up their porch to put some of the ripped up concrete in the stove. I grabbed a hunk and showed them how to use the chalk on it. Then, we found some large squares and drew on those. I drew piggy. I bet he’s still there. I also showed them how to play tic tac toe. Pretty soon, It was time to head back to the bus. The bus would take us to Oscar’s house. For dinner, we had some delicious ribs. For desert: ice cream.

We were soon on the bus speeding to the place where we teach English. We got up to our room and waited for people to come. Me and Adam, [one of my amigos down here] stood and greeted the students as they came in. I got to teach my own lesson to everybody. Once the class was done, one of the students taught me three new phrases in Spanish. Nessicitas a uda? Do you need help? o-s beados [ I had to put the – in between the  o and the s because it auto corrected it to Spanish. When we got back to the hotel, I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Today, we are going to be feeding the kids again. Oh! I almost forgot! After we were done oven building, Sam, another one of my friends, and me played basketball with a soccer ball with the kids that were just hanging around in the playground. See you tomorrow!