Guatemala Part 1

Hi from Guatemala! Things are going good, although we endured a couple of 5.6 earthquakes on Tuesday!
For those who don't know what I am doing, go to www.cmt-oregon.org. and poke around. FAQ is a good place to start. (See if you can pick me out on the team picture!) I am doing the ONIL stove installations in the field. I get to go out into the rural communities and help build the stoves, install water filters and other home improvements. The best part of the job is interacting with the families... the are so gracious and friendly. A couple of stories so far:

I went to a home and was trying to talk to a grandma about her grand kids and mine. I finally managed to communicate to her that I had two new twins in the family, so I showed her a photograph of them that I had. She really got excited when she found out that one the names was Lucy, since her name was Lucia. She showed the photograph to her family and when I went to take it back, she wouldn't give it to me! We asked if she wanted to keep it and she did, so now a picture of my twin grand-babies is stuck on a nail somewhere in a mud brick home in the middle of Guatemala!

The second story also has to do with a grandma, this one was 83. She was showing off her grand kids, all 7 of them. I was asking each they're name and how old they were. When we got done with that, I hi-fived them all. When I got to the end, the grandma (all 3´11" of her) put her hand up and hi-fived me too! It was pretty funny.

One of the problems here is that the indigenous population doesn't speak Spanish as their native language, so when we need to ask them a question or explain something, we have to tell it to our English to Spanish translator, who tells it to our Spanish to Keechea translator, who tells it to the home-owner. Then the process is reversed to get a response. Surprisingly, we manage to communicate.

What's so fun is to see that kids are the same all over. The girls are shy... they giggle and whisper to each other and giggle some more. The boys are bouncing around, jumping into the pictures, making faces, throwing things and generally being boys.

I'll return 3/4 with more stories and pictures. See you all at the next Power League, March 6th, Salem Hoop.

Go Webfoot!