PC, The Traveler: GUATEMALA

A warm day, but the clinic people and the VBS people found great success. Follow some of the video and some of the posts. I'll try to fill in what's in the middle.

Last night some of the team noticed that little gnats were biting us and they seem to affect us Anglos adversely. Well, we're fighting back: longer pants, long sleeves, and bug spray. We hope that it will work out better for us.

WATCH TORTILLAS BEING MADE

Fernanda brought one of her baby chicks. Obviously, it had been handled a lot so it was tame.

The team has lunch in the church proper. The caterer comes out from Zacapa to deliver our lunch. Left to right: Scott Reetz (pharmacist), Todd Rave (doctor), Tabitha Reetz.

Neko is a master cement man. While all the other workers carried the cement in from the outside, Neko smoothed the cement, and then later added a slick coat to make it really smooth.

WATCH CEMENT MADE THE OLD FASHIONED WAY

The first layer of cement is poured and troweled (3-4 inches thick) and when that is fairly dry, a top coat of cement slurry is added to make the whole floor smooth "as a baby's bottom."

The team provided the funds for this new altar for the San Pablo church. It will be varnished and completed by tomorrow afternoon and then taken to the church. The carpenter had been an elementary teacher for 40 years and now in retirement does wood projects and operates a mini corn grinder that prepares the white corn for making tortillas. Of note is that there are three other churches in San Pablo, Roman Catholic, non-demonational, and Methodist. I asked today and discovered that there were 1,800 people in San Pablo.

Our cook shares leftovers with some of the children who are playing outside of the chapel.

This machine accepts the soft white corn in the hopper, grinds it and then drops it as a moist flour in the orange basket below. The owner of the food collects it with her hands and places it in her bowl.

For all of you architects and construction personnel, this is the manner in which the beams to this 100 year old house are held up. The walls were made out of mud and straw.

Dino is one of the workers at the house. He carried lots of cement today and tonight will be the watchman at the clinic (all of the drugs are kept there).