Guacamole!

On Feb. 23 my rascally brother El and I went on a trip to Guacamole. When people ask how it was down there, I usually say, "It was a blast!" or "It was epic" or "It was really neat. We did so much." But that doesn't suffice. I have to go on. So here's my going on experience:

Here's a dumb map, but it sorta tells you where we were.

(You can skip this part if you want.)

This is a cool map. It shows our travels. Our plane landed in Guatemala City, and we drove all the way to Canilla (pronounced Caun-e-yah). You have to pass through Chichi to get to Canilla. This is the place that our friends called their second home, they had been there a lot and it was a really neat place. Kid's would come over to play every day. After about 5 days we went to Chichi, to do our main work, and then after 5 days we went back to Canilla. After about 5 more days in Canilla we left for Guatemala City to come back to the states.

Me and Joe put new boards on this merry-go-round at the place we were staying in Canilla. It used to be a orphanage. Some kid had had his foot go through the old rotten boards, apparently he wasn't too cool with that.

It was really fun how the little boys and girls all tried to help us put bolts on sort hardware and be with us. Really fun.

Hey, here's Joe again! We were playing soccer. As you prob know, they're big into soccer there.
Here's when we had the boards off the merry-go-round. Cerhio, the little boy pushing was my buddy, he was always asking to be jumped.
It was a lot of fun playing with the kids, but the language barrier made it frustrating some times. On the other hand, it was fun having them push you out onto the baseball field when it was your turn and motion what to do.
Me, Martin, Seth, and Joe waiting. I don't remember why we were waiting. That motorcycle right there had a big graphic of spiderman on the seat. Cartoons, Disney, and spiderman are childish up here, but down there: wicked awesome!
Esther, Joe, Deborah, Seth, Erik, and Marty. To the right of this picture were some women doing the laundry in the river.
Some friends.
You can look a couple pictures down to see the house we built, but this is aftewards. Bill the guy who sorta supervised the work in Chichi used the chain saw, pieces of wood, nails, and bottle caps to make little trucks and cell phones for the kids. They really like it!!!
Everything was done with the chain saw: plaining the boards, cutting the angles, even hammering. Just kidding about hammering.

We split our team of twelve into two groups and each built a house for a widow. We had a couple natives and Bill to help also. The house took about a half day to build since the concrete floor and the main posts had already been done. We built the house for the lady in pink and her four children (the shy little girl ran away).

That was a really cool experience. You walk into the little clan of four or so houses, just adobe mud shacks basically. Trash around, clothes hanging in the trees, sheep caged in little bamboo huts. We greet the widow, she has a little girl in her arms, the girl is a little dirty be she's playing with a cell phone. Poverty and technology, what a mix.
Market day is pretty amazing, people come from all over and transform the streets into a colorful maze of vendors.
In Canilla we were nearly the only whites and since their soooo short, I had to constantly duck under their tarps.
You could pay this guy one Quetzal (13 cents) to weigh yourself.
Market in Chichi, much more tourist minded.

Right here is a cool colorful picture of market that I accidently deleted.

Here's a repeat picture. See if you can remember the names and where the laundry women are.
Here's the buses we rode on when we weren't cramped in the little tiny 12 passenger "van" we rented.
They were really exciting buses. They drove really fast.
This is in Canilla in the kitchen playing a game.
That older guy there cut us a stick of sugar cane and sliced it into sticks for us. I really liked it.

I'm realizing that this is a pretty bad summary of the trip. I was just sorta going with the pictures. Here's some other highlights:

• Sunday school. The sisters and brother that live and take care of the place were staying in Canilla have Sunday school for the children. About 70 kids come from the mountains and nearby villages. We sang fun songs, did skits, played games, read from the Bible, and the first Sunday all the kids got in a circle and each of us got to go around and pray for each of them. It was amazingly beautiful. I loved being able to go around and personally pray for each of the little kids.
• Painting. We did a lot of that. I never really got any pictures because were painting. In Canilla we painted some rooms for the people there. Over in Chichi we painted a lot in a large house they were building for abused girls.
• Car rides. It was always exciting. Whether in a our little Mitsubishi van where we occasionally had to get out an push it a ways up the mountain or clinging to the bed of a pickup sitting on the sides as we zoomed around hair-pin turns with huge drop-offs in the mountains. That was a long sentence.
• Candy. Everybody loved it down there. You'd see old men and grandmas sucking on suckers. A whole lot of people ran little stores out of their houses where they'd sell candy and little bags of chips. On the ride back to the airport (it was about six hours or so), I found I could throw people candy into their window while were moving. It was epic. I'd throw it in bus windows, to people on the sidewalk, to a guy in a pickup bed, to some guys in the back of a cube truck. Woohoo!
• Church. I can't forget church. Imagine a fairly large brightly painted building with a few rows of lawn chairs. On either side of the stage are two huge stacks of speakers turned on full volume. The lead singer has is eyes closed as is singing away. There's an middle aged guy playing the bass and sing in a microphone also. Another boy has a electric guitar and sorta hides behind the long-curly haired drummer. Two guys on the piano take about 5 to 10 minutes finding their place in the song because the speakers (which are REALLY LOUD) are out in front of them and they probably can't hear what they're playing. Oh, and did I tell you? The drummer took us possum hunting the other night.

There's so much more. If someone comments, I could write some more and maybe snag some picture from other people in the group.