Trip Update

Map of Guatemala

Well as we move closer to leaving for Guatemala I thought it would be helpful to provide a sense of what our trip in going to entail. As previously mentioned our group is made up of people from across Canada as well as an American contingent. Team members range in age from high school to semi-retired, are from a diverse range of backgrounds and from different areas of Canada; 4 from British Columbia, 3 from Alberta, 2 from Manitoba, 5 from Ontario, 1 from the Maritimes and our 2 from California, making this different from most HFH Canada Global Village trips as they don’t normally include this mix of participants from more then one country... our benefit!

For Colin and myself the trip will start with a red-eye flight from Vancouver to Mexico City leaving March 25th. A short hop from Mexico City to Guatemala City will have us arriving by lunch time on the 26th....(hmmmmm. What to have for lunch that first day in Guatemala?) We’ll be there a day early as most of the team arrives on Saturday March 27th. Once we’ve all assembled there our HFH Guatemala affiliate will transport us to the El Pregreso Department (Region) which as you can see from the Map of Guatemala is North and East of Guatemala City. Although specifics have not yet been identified our build will likely be in and around this area. We’ll be arriving there and meeting the families we’re building houses for and on Monday March 29th the hard work begins. We’ll be working from Monday through Thursday on the build. Construction, due to earthquake issues (they happen a fair bit in this area), is concrete block and rebar construction.

Between Friday April 1st and Monday April 4th the worksite is shutting down for the Easter Weekend (Pretty important for Guatemala which is primarily a Catholic Country) With no work being allowed during this period our group is taking a side trip over to Antigua City where we’ll be able to observe some of the Eater festivities (Antigua is to the west and south of Guatemala City on the above map). Following this brief interlude it’s back to our build site for another 4 days of fun in the sun....We finish the build, and have a closing ceremony, on Thursday April 8th and then we’re apparently going to have 2 days R&R to the town of Panajachel, on Lake Atitlan an area surrounded by volcanos. This area has a large population of  Mayan people and should be interesting to visit.