Guatemala Team Reports

Greetings from Barillas!

It took us an extra long time this trip to get here. Our flight left just after midnight on Thursday, arriving three and a half hours later in Houston, where we grabbed breakfast during our three hour layover and determined that the money changers at the airport there want too big of a cut, and it wasn’t any better at the airport in Guatemala.

Marco Moldanodo, Hands for Peacemaking’s field director for Guatemala, and Dan with the staff  gave us his usual warm greeting at .the airport as did Diane, our member who flew down Tuesday. With the help of some local kids who work for tips and our driver, loaded our 500 pounds of supplies and personal luggage on top of the bus and the back of the Landcruiser and we were off about 1 p.m.

Marco guided us to a local mall for some lunch options – most of us chose the local (and very popular) Pollo Campero – Guatemala’s tasty version of KFC. Money changing was a bit of a challenge – we visited several banks before finding an exchange station that would do it for us. Anyway, it was past 3 by the time we were ready to go – just in time for the big Friday rush hour in Guatemala City. Our bus driver took a wrong turn and we separated from Marco, who was driving the other vehicle, then he lost his way in the traffic. Brian summoned the directions to Huehue (pronounced Way Way) on his phone and passed it to Dan and Odillia so they could translate the turn-by-turn English to our Spanish-speaking driver.  After a half hour of this we finally found our way out, but only to hit another wall of traffic which delayed our trip at least two more hours.

Marco, well ahead, realized we would never make our destination by dinner so urged those of us on the bus to grab filler junk food at a local gas mart. To our surprise we found a little outdoor restaurant at our stop and ordered a round of tacos to go. We really put the cooks to the test as business had been quiet and suddenly they were overloaded with a large order! Great food though.

After dinner we set out again, navigating the twisty two-lane highway in darkness, busting through heavy fog, climbing high passes and scurrying around potholes, giving as all great admiration and respect for our driver.

So after nearly 30 hours of straight travel since leaving home for some of us, we finally arrived at our hotel in Huehuetenango about 1 a.m., unloaded our gear and into bed, with sounds of car alarms and hotel staff moving heavy furniture lulling us to sleep.

Breakfast was at 7, a delicious repast in the dining room of the Hotel California, which we ate while the bus crew reloaded our luggage.

The drive to Barillas was long (about seven hours) but mostly routine. We climbed over an 11,000 foot pass in the Sierra Madras, stopped at a tienda (small store) for snacks.  Oh, and those in the bus stopped to offer their assistance to  a bunch of police officers whose vehicle overturned when its brakes failed while going down hill. Five officers who were riding in the bed of their pickup spilled out but thankfully all escaped serious injury.

We passed through several bustling cities in the mountains before pulling into Barillas around 3 p.m.  Mimi, Marco’s spouse, and the kitchen staff had a wonderful chicken dinner waiting for us with frozen treats for dessert.

We then had our stove training, where the staff carefully showed us how to assemble the stoves we will be installing in the villages starting first thing Monday. We then broke into two practice teams and assembled stoves of our own, followed by a tour of the nearby Aler Center where the amazing Hands for Peacemaking staff manufacturers the stoves.

Our team will install the last of the current breed. A new design engineered by Burn Design Lab on Vashon Island will go into production and be available for installation the next two teams, 190 in all.

Most of our team members took a mini walking tour of Barillas, where a fair is in town featuring a large Ferris wheel that has blown down three times in previous years. The walk was led by Wily, the always smiling/laughing deputy field director here who leads all of the advance work in the villages.

After a light dinner Loren led us in devotions, formally ending another long day for the team. Tomorrow morning we will attend the church Marco and Mimi attend, pack up again and head out another three hours over bumpy roads to the villages.

So far so good. We appreciate your prayers and good wishes as we begin the true “business” part of our mission – improving the lives of the villagers. For tbose of you not following us on Facebook, here are photos that Wily sent before we left of the villagers getting ready for us.