Good Friday in Antigua

what an amazing day of sights. In two days we saw a somewhat sleepy town turn into a packed religious celebration. Processions, of which multiple occur simultaneously, are 12 hour affairs,
each one depicting a different event in the last few days of christ. Last night Marcia and I went to the central cathedral to witness the main event. there were thousands and thousands of people packed into the the central park across the way holding a candlelight vigil, and the grand procession with a float that was probably 60 feet in length, carried by probably 100 or so men in black robes. Proceeding the float were hundreds more men in black robes each with large incense burners making for an intense fog that we were thankful the wind was blowing away from us. Hard to describe using this incredibly dirty and not functioning very well keyboard but when we return there will be more pics posted. Lastly, all along the parade route were marvelously created ¨carpets¨ made by families whose homes are on the route made of mostly sawdust, flowers, fruits that are trampled and then quickly swept up after the procession passes by a cleaning crew. Incredible.

We leave tomorrow morning for Guate, as they call Guatemala City here, and the aeropuerto for our return trip to Seattle via Dallas.

Adios!

Mel

massage, latte, Holy Week and the closing celebration we missed

today was a day well deserved for Mel and Raquel. It was heaven to sleep in, have a long long hot shower, sip latte´s in Parque Centro, have a fondue lunch con Margarita y have a great massage. And....in the evening we saw our first Semana Santa processione.

Sorry about no pics, you know the story.

On the HFH side of things we called during the closing ceremony to congratulate Onofre on his new casa. Both Raquel and I were saddened to not be there with the rest of our team. Hopefully someone on our team will add to this post and give us all an update on what happened.

Mel

Don Gabriel the hotel owner passes away, a post from Jessie

We were surprised at how soon after Don Gabriel´s death all of this was done. The other interesting experience was a very slow moving procession from the church to (but not into) an imposing building that is used only during Holy Week, and back to the church. I joined the procession as it went past our hotel the first time. People with incense came first, then a platform with a large statue of Jesus and a small statue of Mary, then six nuns dressed in white and carrying candles, then the loud speaker system, and then about 250 people. All the women were in traditional dress. At each corner, the platform was lowered, and everyone knelt while scripture was read by one of the nuns, then a small homily, the Lord´s Prayer, and Hail Mary. No one carried rosaries. Then singing. Then the platform was again lifted and some very out-of-tune music was played. Everyone rose and walked slowly to the next corner, where this was repeated with new scripture and songs. Although I was the only gringo, and the only woman in slacks, no one looked at me or gave any indication I wasn´t welcome. It was very nice walking with all of these indigenous Guatemalans. Although the distance was, in all, perhaps a mile, I walked an hour and 45 minutes, and missed the first and last part of the procession.

Jessie Strauss

Not everything is peachy keen but......

but in the big picture all is well.

Mel´s version...... (Raquel´s version below)

After a weekend trip for 7 of us to the Nacional Parque Semuc Champey, and a lovely time it was with plenty of stories to go with it, we returned to find all was not quite right. In fact, I returned to find some items had been stolen from my room. My laptop, phone, chargers, credit card and drivers license were all gone! You can imagine my shock. The next part(s) are dramatically shortened because it would be small novel to tell the entire story.

In a nutshell, owner of hotel passed away, lots of sons and daughters who know very little of how the place is run, the three employess of the place dumbfounded, the two room cleaners in tears, police investigation and report (a short novel in itself), guatemalan lawyers, mucho phone calls to the U. S., luckily an interpreter from a peace corp group in town, a quick trip to guatemala city the next day, the morning spent at the U. S. Embassy (I forgot to mention my passport was also stolen), a night at a B&B in Guatemala City, a van ride to Antigua. Whew!

Anyway, Marcia and I are now on early R&R in Antigua. Like I said, we are fine, there will be some inconveniences to deal with upon return but now we are in for more adventure. We will be sad though as wE are going to miss the roof going onto Onofre´s home and the closing celebration in Uspantan. We spent some time looking around for a USB card reader today to no availE so unfortunately I can´t post any pictures (more stolen stuff). I´ll get the pics up eventually, you´ll enjoy the one, quite comical, of the policemen getting assistance from the inerpreter filling out the report. Oh yeah, while at the police station I met another Melvin!

Enough for now, and we´re looking forward to the beginning of Semana Santa (Holy Week) festivities tomorrow here in Antigua.

Adios!

Raquel´s version:

Hola mi amigos! Our weekend of R & R was a great adventure, although not much rest was involved, and the relaxation part was up to individual interpretation. Seven of us used public transportation to get to Semuc Champey, which is definitely off the beaten path. We think the largest number of people packed into one of the 12 person vans we travelled in was 28. I have a bruise on my butt from being wedged into a seat for several hours. We also spent plenty of time riding standing in the back of small trucks. We stayed at a totally cool place in wood and thatch roofed huts, 2 bunk beds to a room, for about $4 per night. The food there was great, the climate much hotter than our build site, and the scenery gorgeous. We spent a day hiking into and swimming in these amazing pools that are on top of a limestone arch with a river rushing underneath. Hard to explain so you´ll have to take my word for it that it was truly beautiful. In the evening we hiked into a cave to watch all the bats fly out at sunset. This was not my favorite part of the adventure due to slipping regularly on the bat guano in the steep climbs of the cave, but all in all I loved the whole adventure, and we all had a blast together. As my subject line suggests, the next part is not as great. When we returned to our hotel in Uspantan, our room had been broken into and a bunch of Mel´s stuff was stolen, and just a bit of mine. Since the area we were travelling to was more remote, we had decided to leave our valuables behind in what was considered a very safe hotel. Mel´s passport, drivers license, credit card, laptop, I-phone, my phone, all of our cables and connectors and $160 US dollars were all stolen. My passport and US dollars were not taken from the room, and I had my credit and bank cards with me, so we are not penniless in Guatemala. Luckily we had copies of our passports that we had taken with us, which made it easier for Mel to get his replaced. We spent Sunday evening and Monday morning dealing with the hotel staff and the police, which truly was a fascinating experience. To add to the bummer of it for the hotel, the owner had died on Friday, and his children were having to deal with the situation during such a tough time for them. Apparently Uspantan has a reputation of being a very safe place and the hotel has never had a theft before, so they were pretty devastated. We ended up getting the help of an interpreter and the hotel had a lawyer help them and it worked out pretty well for everyone. They paid us the costs of the expenses that would not be covered by homeowners insurance, and the deductible. We cancelled our phones and Mel´s bank cards with the help of Dustin who we had left copies of everything with. Then on Monday afternoon Mel and I left our team behind and headed to Guatemala City to the US Embassy. This morning (Tuesday) after only 2.5 hours he got a temporary passport, and we headed to Antigua where we will reconnect with our team on Thursday. It is way too far (6 hour drive) to go back to Uspantan then turn around and leave again. We are bummed to be missing putting the roof on Onofre´s house, but not at all bummed to no longer be carrying cement blocks down that hill! Not at all what we had planned, but these trips are all about flexibility and going with the flow. We have all had a very interesting experience dealing with the Guatemalan police, and the process of getting a passport, which we never would have experienced, and we have learned some new lessons. Not to mention that we now suddenly have a couple of days to ourselves in a very cool town. Tomorrow will be the farewell party in Uspantan, and down here in Antigua Mel and I will be watching the preparations for Semana Santa, which is a major holiday down here for Holy week. And who knows.....we may even squeeze in a well deserved massage! That´s all for now folks. We are so grateful that we are all safe and that our cameras and memory cards were with us rather than in the hotel! Buenos Noches! Raquel

Our Guatemalan families

Hi all,

It was another scorcher today, but the walls on our house have been completed. I no longer have any use of my troweling arm, and after work when I was doing my laundry on our rooftop, I had to have help with the squeezing things out. Mel was happy to oblige! No such thing as a washing machine in Uspantan, so ring around the collar it is.

A little background on Onofre and his family (the homeowners of the house my team is building) He is 25, his wife is 26, and he has 2 kids who are in school in the mornings and on the worksite in the afternoons. The are delightful and Henry his son is very intelligent. We brought quite a few books in Español that he can read very easily. Onofre is a mason by trade so he is building his own home. I´m amazed and honored that he is allowing me to lay bricks on his home. ¨`Raquel is good¨´, he tells me regularly after checking my work.

Anyway, Onofre´s large extended family lives on a sort of complex on a hillside that over looks the town. He is still very much in town compared to the second site that the rest of our team is working on. Onofre paid a ´¨coyote¨to get him into the US a few years ago, where he worked in Atlanta for 6 months before he was deported in the middle of the night, loosing all his money and belongings. Of course everyone one here wants to go to the US, which has been true of every country I have been too. Onofre and his family will do well as he is intelligent and industrious. His home will be a dramatic improvement from his current situation.

The second home the other half of our team is building is only 5 minutes walk away, but much more rural and down a steep hill. Our team goes to there site to assist with hauling the cinder blocks down the hill when a truck load arrives and plunks it right in the middle of the road. They haul the gravel down the hill in burlap bags. The mom and 3 kids currently live in a tiny shack, while her husband works in Guatemala City and comes home every few weeks for a weekend. Yowzers do they need a new home!!! It will be so wonderful for them.

Tomorrow we quit at noon and 7 of us are hopping on a bus to go to Semuc Champey for some much needed R & R. A few days ago we were feeling bad about leaving work early, but that has passed!!! By afternoons we are so totally fried from the sun, the altitude and the manual labor. Some of our team is in their 70´s, and I told them that I want to be like them when I grow up.

Clowns in Town!

more to come but we spent a fun time at the local elementary school getting swarmed by kiddos!

Today in Guatemala

This has been the 2nd day of our build here in Uspantan. We have 2 building sites. One is farther along than the one I am workinig on. It has concrete block walls that are about shoulder height, and a Guatemalan mason who is quite chatty. He was living in Atlanta, and in the middle of the night had a visitation from immigration and was sent back here. He is charming. That house is very sunny and hot. I am working on a house on a slope in the woods, also concrete block. There is a lot of digging going on by the men in the group. They are digging out very hard clay out of the slope and putting it in the floor of the house, to build it up so that a concrete floor can be put in. It will be mixed on the ground, and then poured into place with buckets. I am cutting very heavy wire which is half the size of rebar, someone shapes into the shape of a C, and then I cut pieces of wire so that I can attach the c shapes to rebar, amkinig a kind of ladder whch is used to reinforce the concrete blocks. Everything is done by hand. We form a bucket brigade to bring concrete blocks down from the street above where a truck has left it. The group of people who are doing the build are very interesting, all college professors, physicians, teachers, etc., and all liberal. Habitat tends to have people who are somewhat churchy, but this group is unitarians and less religious than that. All were very excited about health care passing, and loved it that Laurie called me 3 minutes after the vote! We eat at a house at a very long table where breakfast and dinner are served buffet style. The food is good, and on our way out in the morning we pick up a sack lunch with 2 little sandwiches, an apple and some cookies. Not luxurious, but far more than the people who live here get. The people here are very warm and friendly, and I think that they thought that the sight of me walking down the street in my overalls today was quite hilarious. Most guatemalans hit me about waist high. The poverty is pretty sad, and the child mortality rate is appalling, somewhere around 40 %. We see long lines of indiginous women every morning waiting to get $36 from the government. they get that each month for taking their children to the doctor and sending them to school. It seems to me that most women have a baby tied to their back, and I think that family planning is unheard of, or at least the Catholic church doesn´t want people to hear about it. The Internet is easily available, and the connection is very fast. Everyone in our group is working unbelievably hard, with the greatest good humor. There is no complaining. Tomorrow morning, we are doing a carnival for the neighborhood children, and we will be wearing clown costumes. I am giving a face painting workshop in my room tonight after dinner....I hope it wont take longer than 30 minutes, because I will need to take Advil and go to bed!!
Love,

Two day of hard labor and we´re a tired group

We have now been on the job two days and judging by the moans and groans it is getting to us. Despite the hard work the experience has been really wonderful. Getting t0 know the two families whose homes we are helping build has been fun and gratifying. After we arrived we broke into two teams, team Juan and team Jose. I am a member of team Juan and we are building a home for Onofre, his wife Martia, and their two children Henry (8) and Juanita (4). Onofre is also the job site foreman and is a mason. The home site is on the edge of town, away from the hustle and bustle of El Centro Uspantan. Today we carried concrete blocks, shoveled broken up clay bricks from what appears to be an old house tear down, helped the other team form a chain to move 150 or so concrete blocks down a narrow path to mention just a few tasks.

Upon our return from the job site we found we had no hot water in the rooms, let alone cold water so now I´m biding my time at a local internet cafe. Dinner will be in a local families home as usual where interacting with the family is both difficult due to the language barrier and vastly interesting as we learn about the local Mayan experience.

Enough for now,

Mel

I have several piles of stuff in the bedroom so I guess I am beginning to pack

Uspantan here we come! Click on the image to enlarge

We've finally been notified of our build location. Uspantan, Department of Quiche, Guatemala. Uspantan is in the central highlands, approximately 6000' elevation so nights will be chilly and days will be warm.

This is the closest weather report site I've found, Coban, about 30 miles away and 1000' or so lower.

View an interactive map here.

See another travel guide here.

We will arrive in Guatemala City on Saturday the 20th. On the morning of the 21st we will travel to Uspantan via Chichicastenango where we will have a short time to experience the market. As far as I can tell the mini-bus trip should take us 6-8 hours. Once in Uspantan we look forward to meeting the family whose home we will help build and the Guatemala Habitat staff we will be working with. Monday morning the work begins!

The plan for some of us is to travel to Lanquin to see the caves and Semuc Champey on our first free weekend for some R&R. I'm sure we'll be ready for some fun after laboring in the trenches. Who knows, maybe we'll even take in a river raft trip on the Cahabon.

First of hopefully hundreds of posts

OK folks, Raquel is not helping out here. She just sits and eats her Dulce De Leche frozen yogurt and expects me to say something intelligent!

We've been working hard over here in Kirkland, raising funds for the trip and thanks to the generosity of our friends and family we're making great progress.

Now join in the conversation folks and post away!