Tomorrow the HFH fun begins

Well we’re finally beginning the HFH build phase in so much as we’ve not got all of our volunteers here, had our orientation with our leaders and our Guatemalan HFH coordinators. This included the history of HFH Guatemala including the nature of their build process, how many homes they’ve built and the numerous areas they are working in. Items of note that came from this is HFH Guatemala is:

• The first HFH Int’l affiliate
• Hosted 98 Teams  for Global Village builds in 2009.
• Has built over 30,000 homes at a current average of  3,000 per year. 
• The average cost of a home is $4,800 USD.
• In Guatemala, unlike Canada, Most people applying to get a house have to already own the land that the house is going to be built on.

As a team of 17 we’ll be traveling, eating and basically living together as a group for the next two weeks.. One big happy family! So far it seems we’re forming up as a group that gets along well.

This morning we, along with our HFH Guatemalan coordinator and translators (both volunteers working here and from the USA), headed out in a bus for the City of Guastatoya in the El Progreso Department (a province). This is a small City, really a town with a population of under 14,000 including the surrounding area. It’s the capitol of El Progreso Region and located approx. 2 hours east of Guatemala City. The highway getting there was good, climbing up into the mountains and back down into Guastatoya. The area is very arid… almost desert like and arriving in Guastatoya it became clear that it’s going to be hotter then it was in Guatemala City.

Our Group and Families at HFH El Progreso

After a quick lunch we all headed over to the HFH El Progreso affiliate where we, had a welcome ceremony which included introducing ourselves to both the local HFH staff as well as getting to meet and hear about the 2 families we’ll be building for. That’s right not just one family but 2. It was a pretty emotional charged ceremony; meeting the families and listening to them explain how much our coming to help meant to them.  The history of   and were explained the history of the local affiliate as the families we’ll be building for.  The team will be split in 2 and simultaneously build at both locations. The families we are building for are:


A 40 year old mother of 4 children who has little income except the money one of her older sons has remitted back from the USA where he works. She has two daughters and her mother, who has Alzheimer’s, living with her. (note: apparently the number 2 source of income for Guatemalans is remittances from outside the country’ primarily North America)

A couple with 3 young girls, he works in the agriculture industry and she cooks for people needing food provided for events. They’ve worked very hard to save money to buy the land so they can get a HFH house built on it. They appear to be wonderful and needy families and worthy of getting these houses built for them.

Tonight we relax cause tomorrow the hard work, in what is promised to be very hot weather, starts.