3 - Habitat for Humanity Guatemala - June 2009 - Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Boy Scout Troop 845
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 03:22PM Sorry - couldn´t resist the double ententre title. At the end of week one, no one was completely safe from the wrath of Montezuma, although he exacted his revenge on some with much more severity than others. Some it seems must have punched Montezuma´s mom in the face as they sometimes didn´t make it in their mad dash to the nearest pit. Others seem like they only mildly displeased him and left him slightly annoyed. Either way, everyone has now adjusted and dinner conversations have shifted to topics more pleasant and appetites are fully restored to their expected voracious levels.
At the end of one week of contruction, our two teams are well into the construction of two houses here. We have the walls up to 10 blocks high out of the needed 11. Afterwards we´ll begin to construct the roof slope and then put on a tin roof. Our week of work has been hard although we´re getting used to it, and not callapsing on our bed as soon as we return to our rooms. During a typical day we arrive at the worksite at 8am, and the sun is already rising high and the temperature is climbing just as fast. One team sifts sand out of gravel while another team uses impossibly short shovels (everyone here is a foot shorter than us) to mix mortar by hand. The mortar mixing is a rather tough job as it takes about 20 minutes of mixing by turning over chunks of mix and water that gets ever heavier as the batch progesses. At other times we moved 400 cement blocks up a muddy hill and restack them into the rooms of the house and later use hachets and machetes to shape them into the size block that we need. I dare say standard US scout skills do not cover how to properly and safely shape cement blocks with machetes.
After we´ve done our prep work in the morning we begin laying rows of blocks, where each team consisting of four local masons and seven gringos is getting quiet proficient. we then follow behind the block layers to fill in the gaps with mortar, smooth out the cracks and repeat until the standard afternoon thunderstorm forces us to the shelter of a tin roof shed. During our two breaks during the day we stroll down to the local ´convenience store´ where a guy behind bars hawks a couple drinks and chips, and we buy a nice cold local soda and some strange versions of fritos for 25 US cents. After lunch we all are careful to reapply another round of sunscreen to help keep off the relentless central american sun although some people have fallen victim to a bit of neck char. Robbie Duvall, although diligent with the sunscreen, has gotten the worst of it and looks as though Montezuma has had some revenge on his neck as well. T he group is sure to mock him thoroughly because of it.
We´ve also learned a good deal about working wages out here while we build side by side with the local masons. Each mason works 6 days per week and makes about 40Q per day, which converts to about 5US dollars. When we look at how much goods cost here, a lunch at McDonalds cost us about 50Q, a six pack of beer is 55Q, and a ride to the capital of Guatemala city is so expensive that mason´s have never ventured that far south. This means that each day of work here will barely buy food for the family for the day where in the US a day´s work at an average job can buy food for a family for a week. This makes it very difficult to get ahead and commodities such as education and health care are unaffordable luxuries.
We are off for the weekend and heading out into the mountains to see some of what the back country of Guatemala has to offer. We´re stopping into the caves this afternoon to tour around and will later head to to the small village of Lanquin. From there, we´re heading to Semuc Champey, which is a series of emerald lagoons and limestone basins located in the dense Guate jungle. We´ll spend the day swimming and soothing our work weary bodies before returning to Coban.
We´re back on the worksite next week where our masons will joke about the return of Equipo Gringo (team whitey) and Giovani will stand over us on the walls of the house and lightly mock us to work faster (trabajas mas rapido) as we break up trashed concrete blocks with small hammers to be used in the house floor.
by: Brian Burnham - ASM Troop 845, Guide
Reader Comments (2)
building materials are the same as everywhere?
Sorry - couldn´t resist the double ententre title. -latest Lanvin Shoes