Day 2

It’s my second day of my first trip and I still can’t believe the things that i’m doing. Yesterday, I painted a church and it was the most beautiful day. It was great to be around the people of Guatemala and too see what they were like. Before that I had only seen the city at night, but it was a whole different world in the morning. Today, I was on cement. The people we met today were so happy and eager to help with our job. I saw how little they had and I still saw their faces light up about every little thing. It was a new experience laying cement, but all of the people on my team made me feel very comfortable doing all the work. I loved helping the family because they were so grateful and it really put into perspective how much I take for granted. The funniest thing of the day was when the kids asked my name and I told them it was Alta. They would repeat the question over and over again because my name means tall in Spanish and they just thought I was saying I was tall. I am eager to do wheelchair distribution even though we have to wake up super early in the morning. 

Alta Jordan

I woke up to a pleasant surprise this morning - I got bumped to cement! We divide into teams, but since we are dividing into two teams some days and three teams other days,  there was not a spot for me to do cement. While some people may consider this a blessing, I was quite disappointed. Our host, Chris, informed me as I headed down to help with breakfast, that they only needed four people on the house build and the rest were to go to cement. Problem solved! 

The foundation we laid was for a single mother with three children, Her oldest, Allan, worked along side us all day. Her young daughters, along with a couple neighbor boys, enjoyed conversing with us. We met Keyla (9), Carlos (10), Louis (10), and Leslie (4). They were quite chatty, and after exchanging names, Kayla went in and got out a tablet and proceeded to write all of our names down. They learned how to ask our names in English, and were quite excited to ask over and over. It was a fun start to the day. 

The pace picked up as rain threatened, but with a large team, we were able to trade in and out of jobs without over doing.

It was amusing to realize as the day progressed that my daughter Emily (22 years old) was now the team mother and I was the team grandmother, as she told everyone - including me - to repeatedly put on sunscreen and drink water. We trained her well!!

Marcy