Guatemala 2015: Playing with the kids

So many great pictures - so little space on this blog...

Today was our first day with the kids at Xepec and Xecotoj and it was a longer work day.  We left for the work sites right after breakfast and jumped right in with the hard work.  Except for our lunch break (yum), we worked straight through until it was time for the kids to come back and play with us.  Then, after playing with the kids, it was back to work.

At Xepec, we continued laying block for the walls of the new kitchen expansion.  This included learning about all the extra measures that are necessary to make the building earthquake resistant.  We also had fun unloading a dump truck and using the masonry saw to prepare the existing building for attaching the new space.

With the kids, we sang songs and presented a skit where the kids got to be the animals being loaded onto Noah's ark. We also made butterfly crafts, complete with googly eyes.  At one point a soccer game broke out between the Ann Arbor kids and the Guatemalan workers.  A good time was had by all.

At Xecotoj, we continued making concrete and pouring it into the trenches to make the footings for the new classrooms. It turns out that the easiest way to move the concrete to some of the locations was with a bucket brigade - buckets of concrete passed from hand to hand across the space between the wheelbarrow and the footer we were pouring.

By the end of the day, we had placed and leveled all of the pillars that were already made.  This means that we're now learning how to make new pillars by using bits of wire to tie re-bar together.

The kids at Xecotoj also loved the butterfly craft and took pride in their work.  At one point, a local dog was decorated with a googly eye in the middle of his forehead.  Very cute. On the lower level, the kids listened to stories and played games involving relay races and balloons.  They went home smiling and shortly thereafter, our team was chased back to the River House by the daily downpour.

Tomorrow, we will have an opportunity to do some shopping, followed by dinner at a restaurant in Panajechel.