Friday, January 18, 2013

Starting the Next Chapter

The past two days have been exciting! Yesterday our group left the familiar San Jose Petacalapa and traveled to a small Aldea in San Miguel to get a closer look at one of the projects our chapter is considering for the upcoming years. We were able to meet a couple of the community members and see the site that we would be working at if we chose this water project. Unfortunately for us, this community is located high in the mountainous regions of Guatemala, which are much colder than the hot temperatures we have become used to.

After having lunch in town and learning a little more about the project, the team headed back down the mountain to San Marcos, where we've been ever since. It's a little warmer here since we've dropped in elevation, but still pretty chilly. Since there wasn't a strict agenda we got to sleep in a little before meeting with the catholic diocese to see if they had any more information on the San Miguel project and whether they would be interested in lending support if the club did select that project for the future.

We spent the rest of our free time shopping at the market in San Pedro and walking around San Marcos. It's amazing how much damage was done by the earthquake. Parts of the town are completely destroyed and many roads are out of use. Gina, a friend of. Dr. Veness, told us that her school started later than many of the other ones because their building is no longer usable. Later when we drove past it looked like only a couple classrooms were still in tact. After walking around the town and exploring and getting a nice cup of coffee we headed back to the hotel for an early night in preparation for our hike tomorrow. We will be climbing up one of the biggest volcanoes in Guatemala tomorrow, so hopefully I can keep up.

Wish me luck,

Chelsea

1 comment:

  1. Great job!!! It's exciting to read your posts and know how successful the bridge project has been, how many friends we have made. Good luck scouting out a new challenge!
    Dr. Steve
    And what was so surprising about learning that the bridge was "still there" ?

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