Initial Guatemala Thoughts by Al Anderson
Despite the general poverty, I find Guatemala to be, in many ways, a beautiful place. Of course, if you are not especially fond of the sound of dogs barking and roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night it might not be your idea of paradise on earth, but sometimes these sounds are drowned out by the more inspiring sounds of birds, and everything is lush and green. On our way around the Village of Hope I’ve seen many houses that are “cute” and “charming” and that many Americans would be pleased to live in. In fact, one would think this a very pleasant place to be except that all the nice houses are surrounded by block walls ten-feet high topped by razor wire, which does cause one to hesitate a little. Barred windows look normal in the flats of Oakland, but seem incongruous out in the countryside amidst lush greenery.
One might think of Guatemala as being somewhat primitive, but it is modern and sophisticated
in many ways—it has Walmarts, and Shell Stations, and McDonald’s, and all the twenty-somethings stare at their cell phones just like at home. Gordon said that the local hardware store was incredibly well stocked with everything he needed, including the power saw he wanted to get. The only distinction between it and an American hardware store were the two armed guards, who had enough extra ammo wrapped around them to fend off a small army. One hopes this is simply a deterrent and not a necessity.
The Village of Hope is at an elevation of greater that 6,000 feet, so even though we are in the tropics the temperature is pleasant. The humidity is fairly high, but the temperature is the low to mid 70’s, so it feels no hotter than 80 or so at the hottest point of the day—it’s probably as pleasant as being in Hawaii, at least now during the dry season. When the sun goes down it cools off into the 60’s, but you can still walk around in a T-shirt. At sunrise it is cold enough that you want to wear a sweatshirt or a jacket, but it only takes a couple of hours to warm up again.
The kids at Village Hope have come from difficult backgrounds, but when they’re out doing games they are exactly like kids everywhere else, and do a lot of laughing and have a lot of fun. We organized a water balloon toss today, followed by a full-on water balloon war. One teenage girl was kind enough to slam a particularly large water balloon right into my back when I wasn’t looking, and I’m still wet as I type this, but it did make me feel right at home. I also should give a shout-out to Kelsey and Thomas, who filled most of the water balloons while Mark and I ineptly attempted to keep up with them. Kelsey and Thomas appear to be naturally efficient and skilled engineers, while the Andersons appear to be…well, something else.
There are girls here of all ages, but the oldest boy is 9. They’re all very likable. One of the house fathers gets dressed up every Sunday to preach here at Village of Hope, and so, despite the fact that the kids generally wear T-shirts, one boy insists on wearing a button-down shirt to emulate his father. I thought that was nice.
You may wonder how we can put on games without being able to speak Spanish (in my case), but they have great translators here. One of the translators, Miguel, only here a week, but I’ve already made him suffer through explaining a few fairly complicated games, but he has been a very good sport.
There will be no games tomorrow as the children are making a 3-hour trek to the beach (a first for many of the kids), and so even I will have to focus entirely on work tomorrow, sad though that may be. I can’t even get out of work by pretending to “supervise,” because every other adult male here is the “supervisor” type. Oh, well.
That’s all for now. Pray that we all stay in good health, and perhaps I will be inspired (or, like tonight, ordered by Christine) to provide a further update later in the week. - Al
A Trip to the Store
The first order of the day before starting on the construction of the solar panel mounts was a parts run to the local hardware store to pick up material and tools. While a run to the hardware store was a normal evolution for any home improvement project back in the states, I did not know what to expect in this land.
A driver had been assigned to get me to the store so that I could make sure to get the correct tools since you never know what will get lost in translation. As we left the compound, we embarked on a short trip which was littered with strange contrasts. Just outside of the gates, we started on what some might term as a road but was really just rock pressed down into the mud which was now dry and bumpy with ruts. After a quarter of mile, the road transitioned to a paved road bordered by an almost perfect curb that was recently painted yellow and would follow us all the way into town. The curb separated a well groomed road, interrupted periodically by speed bumps, from a wide array of borders to homes that lie behind. Some are concrete walls, some corrugated metal and some are just a group of trees planted in a row and joined wire to make a fence. There was a stairway of three steps that disappeared into the dirt from an access long since abandoned.
Traveling down the road, you pass a variety of signs advertising various businesses inviting you to stop: a steak house, tortillas, TV repair, none of which look to be ongoing concerns but there are enough people congregating around them to confirm that they are still in business. Businesses appear to crop up where ever people can find room, not necessarily in any particular business district, totally unfamiliar coming from the States. People walk along the road and share equal access with the cramped two lanes of cars and since there are no sidewalks, cars just swerve around people walking on their side and where enough people and cars come together, creates a single lane bridge scenario which seems to be the norm for all the local drivers.
As you close in on the village, you are struck by the number of people who are sweeping. Sweeping paved roads, store fronts and even dirt roads, it is almost a national past time. Are they all employed, are they just keeping busy, it is hard to tell? The road changes from the two lane rural road bound by curbs to a congested, thinning, byway that seems to be equal parts roadway and walkway with increasing competition between its occupants. The businesses change from freestanding chance buildings to rows of connected building with shops operating out of rollup door store fronts. The is no real signage, just what is exposed as the doors are opened. Forget seeing any store brands that you are familiar with, no chains to be found here. The contents of the stores seem amazingly similar from what you can see driving by. Candy and quick grab food seems to be everywhere, an occasional one will be cooking fresh tamales or tortillas out front and then you will see the odd one with shovels or pet food bins. There is not real theme to the collection, you must know where the store is you want as there is not one area where it would most likely be.
Finally, we arrive at the hardware store which is past the connected building market that we just went through. This one is larger and unlike most everything we passed, has room to drive your car in to pick up your materials. You are greeted by a parking attendant who is trying to manage the limited space for the shoppers arriving. He is different than what you might expect, wearing military boots with tucked pants, a tactical vest and toting a 12-gauge shotgun with a full ammo belt, a strange picture for directing cars where to park. The store was surprisingly well-stocked with many items that we would find in the state. DeWalt, Black and Decker, many familiar brands of tools are readily available. The counter person is dressed in company uniform and looks up your hardware requests on a computer and immediately tells you how many they have. Once the order was complete, you move to the window to pay before being handed off to the next window which has a dispersing clerk to collect you wares from the back room. All said, the store had all seven items that we went there for and we were on our way back home in less than 45 minutes, something I thought might be record time in Guatemala.
The trip home was the same path as the one getting there, the one other thing that jumped out at me was the number of animals, particularly dogs, that seem to share the road with the cars and people. It is pretty obvious that many of the dogs are not as well cared for as the dogs at Village of Hope. There is probably a waiting list for dogs to get into VOH and I think the dogs inside know it. - Gordon
“So, some days you spend the morning in your bed, staring at the wall, waiting for illness to pass. In that, God used me to pray for kids instead of paint bedrooms. For those who might worry (other than my husband and parents), Gatorade and saltines have restored me to a quiet tummy and complete dinner. Feeling well enough to check on those who were working hard, I found great progress in the wood shop, welding area, and house painting. We also had a great time playing with the kids and water balloons-- some things need NO translation!” - Suzanne
new green paint
before
bathroom one after
bathroom two after
“A group of us were tasked with painting one of the Casa 1 kids’ rooms. It was challenging mostly due to the tight quarters — painting around 3 bunkbeds requires some body contortion — and trying to only get paint on the walls. Two coats of green later we succeeded. Mostly. Some of the paint ended up on the usual places (hair, clothes) and some ended up on the bottom of someone’s feet — decided to go barefoot while climbing on the top bunks, and a good bit of paint ended up on the tarp dropcloth. Oh well. Went through lots of “wipe” (pronounced “why-pay”) shredded "rags" to clean up drops. It was a good day’s work and it is certainly satisfying to see the completed project.” —Neil
