Stories of the People

Sorry to not have posted the last few days, we just have been really short on free time where we have access to internet.

Yesterday we started our first day of work. After hearing Mr. Courtney describe it as hot unbearable work, none of us were really looking forward to doing it. At the beginning of the day we had to carry rocks up a hill which would later be used for the women's shelter they built. I don't know what Mr. Courtney was talking about, but no one seemed to have a hard time with it. After that we had to dig holes, break rocks, carry rocks, and then fill the holes up with dirt. The rocks were used for the women's shelter and the filled holes were going to be used for a pathway between the temporary housing which is for the Hurricane Agatha victims.

After work, we went back too the Parish. A war victim named Chona came to tell us about her life story. The types of things she went through would've made her a hero in the Unites States. The amazing thing is, her story is common for the families here in Guatemala. After listening to Chona, we were invited to a man named Andreas's house. He witnessed the entire Civil War and gave us his opinions of why some things happened and others did not. He believes people should come to Guatemala more often. He says after seeing how amazing the Guatemalans are, they will understand the people deserve so much more then they have

We worked again today, but this time both in the morning and in the afternoon. We did some weeding at the farm which was very easy. It gave us time to socialize with the workers there. We had to leave early because of our appointment with Father Richard. He is a man that lives in the United States but comes to Guatemala regularly to preach Catholic Social Teaching. In our meeting, he told us some very important information and statistics of Guatemala and how much, if anything, has improved after the war.