I woke up feeling pretty tired today, but I was quickly cheered up because my host mom Angela had made pancakes and they were really tasty. She's a great cook!
We headed up to school on another route today, the little pueblo is so charming. There were many women washing clothes in something that looked like a big rectangular concrete tub and I so wanted to take my camera out and shoot! We headed down the narrow stone streets that we shared with horses and donkeys to our site, and on the way we even saw a small market that was full of people. I was having serious image lust in that moment, but we obeyed orders to keep our cameras packed away (kind of, I found out Mike did get a stealth shot of the ladies washing).
If I had any doubt about who was really running the show, it's clearly the mason. When I arrived at project I saw he'd practically finished the stove! The chimney pipe was already in place, and the structure was finished. I thought it was so interesting to see the nice new pipe juxtaposed against the wall blackened from smoke. I'm happy to see that won't be much of a problem anymore.
We just needed to finish the outside of the stove and place the burners onto it. I worked with Paola when she got home from school, our job was to spackle cement onto the concrete bricks. The job seemed easy enough, but this turned out to be a tough task as we needed to put cement on the sides of the stove and the cement kept falling off. I felt ridiculous, but of course Paola thought my incompetence was funny. 
Just another example that things that look easy often aren't. This is definitely specialized work. While we worked, I taught Paola some English expressions.
We headed back down to the school and met up with Santiago, who had some lovely words to say to us about how much he and the community appreciated our work there. Below is a photo of the road to the school. The end of another job well done! Bye GVI Guatemala. 
We headed up to school on another route today, the little pueblo is so charming. There were many women washing clothes in something that looked like a big rectangular concrete tub and I so wanted to take my camera out and shoot! We headed down the narrow stone streets that we shared with horses and donkeys to our site, and on the way we even saw a small market that was full of people. I was having serious image lust in that moment, but we obeyed orders to keep our cameras packed away (kind of, I found out Mike did get a stealth shot of the ladies washing).
If I had any doubt about who was really running the show, it's clearly the mason. When I arrived at project I saw he'd practically finished the stove! The chimney pipe was already in place, and the structure was finished. I thought it was so interesting to see the nice new pipe juxtaposed against the wall blackened from smoke. I'm happy to see that won't be much of a problem anymore.
We just needed to finish the outside of the stove and place the burners onto it. I worked with Paola when she got home from school, our job was to spackle cement onto the concrete bricks. The job seemed easy enough, but this turned out to be a tough task as we needed to put cement on the sides of the stove and the cement kept falling off. I felt ridiculous, but of course Paola thought my incompetence was funny. 
Just another example that things that look easy often aren't. This is definitely specialized work. While we worked, I taught Paola some English expressions.I took a few more before and after photos, then Paola's Mom came in and gave me a hug and handed me a gift. How sweet is that!? Then again she's had a snack for me two days in a row, so I shouldn't have been surprised. I asked the family if it was ok to take a photo and they said yes, so we all took one together, and as is usual in Guatemala, the mom who had been smiling away earlier was suddenly REALLY serious in the picture.
So there's our stove, and I was even allowed to tag it!
We headed back down to the school and met up with Santiago, who had some lovely words to say to us about how much he and the community appreciated our work there. Below is a photo of the road to the school. The end of another job well done! Bye GVI Guatemala. 
I like that simply made chimney very cheap for sure chimney cleaners maintenance would be lighter too.
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