Guatemala 2017 - Our first full day at the work site

Today we were able to go straight to work. The kids were very enthusiastic and the weather was perfect - sunny and warm to start, and it didn't rain until we were in the vans going back to the river house.

There are a lot of us and so we accomplished a lot of work. There were four basic crews: laying block on the walls, mixing concrete and mortar, moving dirt to fill in the spaces around the foundation, and making/removing forms for pouring the concrete into.

After lunch, about half of us broke away from the work and went to play with kids. There is a school just a short walk from the work site and Mission Guatemala has invited the local children to come play with us. They were impossibly cute and very eager. We sang songs, made "magic wands", played soccer, and played on the swings. We're looking forward to more fun tomorrow.

After dinner, we all piled into "tuk-tuk's" (small three wheeled taxicabs) and headed into Panajachel for ice cream and shopping. Riding in a tuk-tuk is quite an experience and everybody had a good time. The market is smaller than Chichicastenango, but it was much less crowded. Many of us came home with new handicrafts.