Guatemala Service Learning--House Building and Service near Antigua

On Thursday, we built the house!  Half the team got the walls up during the morning work session and the other half put the roof on and cleaned up the site in the afternoon.  The family, consisting of a single mother and six children, are currently living in a single room, with a kitchen and wood stove behind.  Chickens and a rabbit share the living quarters.  The new house, for which the family has worked, will allow them more space and give the growing boys more room.  The family´s oldest son helped throughout the construction process.

While some team members were putting up walls, others of us were in a partnership school in Antigua.  This time the teacher had a series of activites with which our team assisted--making balloon lions in a kindergarten class and engaging in some physical education activities with older children.  Ed and Charlotte made the last sponsored child visit--Gustavo is the oldest of six or seven children living with parents in a small single room ¨¨apartment¨¨ in a village not far from Antigua.  We visited, took pictures, and played a card game with the children.  We cannot imagine living in such a small, dark space with so many people.  On weekends, the children visit grandparents in a nearby village where there is more room to play.

After the mid-day break Sophie, Dane, Travis and Taylor spent time with a youth group that meets here at Common Hope.  They took along the balloons we brought along with some of the other craft supplies--it didn´t take long to discover how creative the Guatemalan kids are.

Nan and Gregg worked in the day care provided by Common Hope for the youngest children of its employees.  For a while they entertained children with soap bubbles and then when the kids were down for naps, they helped the staff with cleaning toys.

Our dinner out was at Don Roderigez--a beautiful, old colonial building now restored to a fine hotel and restaurant in Antigua.