Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Our Second Day of Work in Joyas de las Flores



Yessenia helps to dig the foundation for the pavilion.


By Yessenia Argudo
Today was our second day of work at Joyas de las Flores.  We are trying to make a pavilion aka “galera” for the school.  The children of the school will then be able to have assemblies without having to stand in the scorching sun. 

Yesterday when we arrived, hundreds of children had to stand in the heat while the ceremony to greet was taking place.  With the gallera created, the kids of las Joyas de las Flores will soon be able to enjoy greeting Quinnipiac students even more than before.

A view of the pavilion.

We worked all day today from 8am to 5pm.  Even though we made lots of progress, I was able to appreciate how much easier construction projects are in America.  The digging took us many hours and it was a combination of 2 days of work.  If we were in America, it would take us probably 2 hours because we would have power tools to help.  However, here in Guatemala, it takes them more time to enjoy the benefits of their work.  As crazy as this sounds though, I think they will appreciate it more because it is a collective effort from their community.

Finally, I had lots of fun with the family from this home stay.  We spent all night singing to each other.  They would sing in Spanish for us and we would sing in English for them.  It didn’t matter what language we spoke, music was a universal language for us.

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