Habitat for Humanity

Last Saturday, I went with a group of high school students to do Habitat for Humanity. It is a wonderful organization that goes around and helps those in need, mostly by helping them to build a house. There were about 20 high school kids, one father, and five teachers that went. It was a really cool day. We did a lot of work (not too hard of work!!) but it was great for the students to get out and see what others live like in their own country. Our high school students, I learned, are required to do 30 hours of community service during each of their 9th, 10th, and 11th grade years. They do a lot of work in orphanages, Habitat for Humanity, and I learned that some of them even give up time in the summers and go out and do translations for doctors and they are right in the middle of the OR and stuff. Pretty intense. This was a great day. We went out to a town called Chimaltenango, about an hour or so outside of the capital. We were just working on this little street, mixing and laying concrete for the floor and taking some wire and wrapping it around these other metal poles or something that I'm not sure what it was for. ha ha. It was fun though.

Stephanie and Rachel were two other teachers that went. This is when we were cutting the wire to wrap around these poles and attach these other metal things. So technical, I know!

I'm not sure if this is the boy whose house we were building or not, but he wanted to hang around by us for a little bit. We asked to take his picture and he did. But then he was totally done with the camera! ha ha.

I did sneak one more picture in of him! :)

You see different types of things outside the city than in the capital. Here is this horse carrying wood. We saw this scene several times. This was the best picture I got.

The boys had to fill the buckets with the concrete mix and carry it up his ladder. I was scared to walk up it without a bucket of concrete!!!

Mixing concrete in the middle of the street!

Taking a little rest!

This is when we were attaching the little metal things to the poles with the thin wire.

Then we had to chisel out a hole in this cement block. I was scared to do it, as some people were breaking bricks!!!! This girl was so sweet and did a fantastic job!

Carrying a sack of flour home!

I was Stephanie's "encourager" as she chiseled away!

I went over to help mix concrete, but this guy kept taking my shovel. He was a lot better than I was anyway!!!!

But, yes, I did do some work!!!! :)

For our group picture, the guy told Rachel and I to lay in the wheelbarrows!!!!

Our work group for the day!!!