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.

Our Second Host Family Stay Begins Near San Juan Sacatepéquez...

The children welcome the QU Guatemala delegation to Joyas de las Flores

By Lindsey Mazzone

After our adventure-filled weekend of a boat ride across “El Lago Atitlán” and sight-seeing in Antigua, we headed to our second set of host families near San Juan Sacatepéquez.  We all got a great night’s sleep, so we were all extremely ready and excited to go, although we were sad to leave the “Hobbit Hotel” (Albergues Tecpan), as it was where we spent our first night in Guatemala.

A two-hour bus ride later, and we were in the village of Joyas de las Flores being greeted by what seemed to be a thousand children.  They cheered for us all individually while making funny faces and saluting us at the welcoming ceremony.  We were then split up to meet our host families.

Lunch at Ana's House

Mariana, Sarah, Dana and I were very happy to find out we were all living together… along with the 12 children in our family.  After 8 hours of being with the family, we still weren’t sure which children live with us because there were always so many in the house.  We all had lunch together, prepared by Ana, one of the mothers.  We tried to fuel up as much as possible to prepare for our work-filled afternoon.  

David Ives with Ana, one of our host mothers in Joya de las Flores

Our project for our time in the village of Joyas de las Flores is to build retaining walls for the community’s meeting pavilion.   In order to do this, we dug the foundation during our first day of work.  What would have taken one hour in the United States with the equipment we have there, took 2.5 hours to dig 30 cm on one side of the pavilion.   We used shovels and pic-axes and a lot of muscle.  The soil was very rocky and full of tree roots, which made the work extremely difficult.  A ton of children gathered around us, offering to help and asking how to say certain words in English.  We worked very hard and then went home for dinner.

Lindsey gives Mike a shoulder rub after shoveling the foundation for the project.

At home, the children were poking their heads through the curtains and door, watching us like we were animals at the zoo, so we performed the “Gringo Show.”  This consisted of us posing for ten seconds like mannequins, and then changing poses.  They might have thought we were crazy, but we definitely gave them something to stare at.

Everyone reconvened for a huge basketball game after dinner.  It was a great way to spend our first night!  We all headed in early to get some rest for our second day of work.