Friday marked the end of our Habitat build in Xela. The build was definitely an enlightening experience for a number of reasons; dealing with the challenges of building a house with very limited resources and tools, seeing different areas of Xela (the wealthy and the not-so-fortunate), meeting and developing a relationship with a local family and our masons, and also developing relationships within our own team. We were lucky within our group to have our family present every single day on our build site- Don Tomas, the father of the family who is getting the house, was there every single day putting in a huge effort to get the house up (despite having back problems as a result of the 1976 earthquake, he fell off a two-story building in Honduras...yikes). Grecia (their 16 year old daughter) was there for as much as she could be as well and we ended up becoming good friends (at least I'm pretty sure, my spanish is still crude...haha). To end off the Habitat program, we had a goodbye ceremony on Friday with all of the masons, Habitat staff and the families. Grecia had gone out and gotten each of our seven team members bracelets with our 'spanish' names woven into them (i am Carol, Ian was 'Joan', Leah was 'Lia')...it was unbelievably sweet of her and we were all definitely a little teary-eyed during the ceremony- it was a really nice way to end off the project, and Don Tomas has invited us back to the house in a few week's time when they are all moved in! Exciting stuff.
Highlights of the week: my first Guatemalan motorcycle ride, a litter of PUPPIES!, birthday party Friday night with our Guatemalan buddies at their bar, finishing the build. Class starts Monday...hard to believe!
Later gators,
Caroline
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