Habitat and more..

Hey everyone,

The last couple of days have been really exciting; we began our Habitat build yesterday and will continue it for the next two weeks. On Sunday we had a ceremony where we met all the families who we are building houses for- it was very powerful to see who we are going to be helping rather than just building without a face. My team is building for a family that has a 16 year old daughter, Grecia, who I got a chance to hang out with and attempt to converse with at the worksite yesterday which was awesome. She was laughing at me and said that `talking to me is like talking to a baby´ because I don´t understand anything and can barely speak! She was joking though...I hope...but it´s definitely a work in progress!

The Habitat project itself is awesome. We are building a four-room house, spent most of yesterday mixing/pouring concrete into the foundation which was definitely a new experience for me! Unfortunately I have been pretty sick so I ended up falling asleep at the worksite between a pile of rocks and sand used for the concrete mix...pretty funny. I stayed home today to recover and then it´s back to the grind tomorrow! It´s really interesting to see an entire house being built without a single machine. Our team has seven people including one prof...five girls and two guys. We have three Guatemalans working on the site as well, the head mason (Jorge) and two apprentices who are really funny guys, and thankfully know what they are doing (although it´s definitely a challenge for them to give us instructions in Spanish...). The Habitat site has a beautiful view of most of Xela as we are a little bit outside of the city on the side of a mountain, and there are a few other Habitat homes in the area. One of the Habitat residents in the area came over to talk to us for a while yesterday and brought her 3 year old twins, Gabriel and Gabriela (SOOO CUTE).

Today I had my first Guatemalan fast-food experience...we went to Pollo Campero which is the Guat. equivalent of KFC. It is hilarious...they actually bring you a menu and take your order at the table...I had a `hamburguesa de pollo´which was very tasty...and greasy...nomnomnom. Tomorrow, back to beans and tortillas! The hostel has been cooking breakfast for us every morning so we have gotten to try some cool Guatemalan stuff- yesterday morning was`mosh´, which is a porridge type creation with oats and milk and cinnamon...realllly good, along with tortillas and beans, ha ha. The amount and variety of street food here is awesome...tooo tempting to grab a cheesy tortilla with corn and veggies on the side of the road...but the prospect of bonding with the toilet for the next few days has held me back. No stomach problems so far though, thank you Dukoral!

The rest of this week holds Habitat, Habitat and more Habitat, and then as a little reward for ourselves we are planning to hit the hot springs on Saturday which sounds fantastic. Hope all is well in North America!

Will update soon!

xo Caroline