Day 3…work day 1

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Monday 1-6-13

Today marks day three in Guatemala but it was actually only our first day at the work site. We had an early start and were split into groups to go to two different locations. Both worksites were brand new so we had to start working from the ground up, literally. Both teams worked at digging the foundation and cutting and tying together rebar for support for the homes. At the worksites we are generally working alone with the mason, who is in charge of the entire home building process. It really helped to have a Spanish speaking Habitat volunteer present to help translate and break down the language barriers between the mason and ourselves so that we were able to work together more efficiently. After only one day of work we are already seeing progress and are looking forward to seeing how much we can accomplish in our short time here!

Written by Megan

Day 2…traveled to Tecpán

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January 5, 2014

Guatemala Day 2

Today we traveled from Antigua to Tecpán. Tecpán is in the mountains at a much higher elevation that Antigua; the trip took us about 2 hours via bus. The scenery here in Guatemala is breathtaking and it makes a long bus ride bearable. We arrived at our hotel and soon after had lunch from a Guatemalan food chain–Pollo Compero. Their main dish is fried chicken which was thoroughly enjoyed by the group. This afternoon we met the families that we will be building for. They are very kind and continuously thanked us for our help. I think that meeting and interacting with these people made us all want to work that much harder and do the best job possible. Before dinner we had a short orientation from the Habitat leaders. We are all anxiously awaiting our first day of work!!!!!

Written by Jade

Day 1…we made it safe and sound!

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We started out the day by arriving at the airport in St. Louis bright and early for our 6am flight. Both of our flights were on time (thank goodness) so we made it to Guatemala City around 12:30 in the afternoon. We then traveled to our hotel in Antigua (about 45 min away) and dropped off our luggage before spending the afternoon exploring the city and shops. We finished off the day by having dinner as a group at a little restaurant called Saberico. We were also joined by our Habitat leaders and the leaders they had last time. After dinner we were so tired from the day full of traveling that we just showered and hit the hay. Today we will travel to the hotel we will be spending the next 10 nights at in Tecpan and have our orientation.

P.S. The weather here is amazing. Sunny and 75. Hope everyone in St. Louis is staying safe and warm!

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Basic Schedule for the Trip

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Attached you will find the basic calendar of events for our trip.  We will be flying out of St. Louis at 6:00 am on Saturday January 4th.  I would recommend getting to the airport a few hours early to check your bags and make sure everything is set to go.  If all goes as planned (fingers crossed) we will land in Atlanta around 8:30 am.  Our next flight departs from Atlanta at 9:45 am and we should arrive in Guatemala City around 12:23 pm.

Guatemala is in the same time zone as us, so we will lose an hour when we fly to Atlanta, but gain it back when we fly to Guatemala.

We will be returning to the US on January 16th.

Guatemala Final Itinerary

What should you pack?

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It’s important to look over the attached list very carefully.  Dr. Schafermeyer is very experienced in traveling internationally and has complied a list of important this you’ll want to bring along.  I would recommend bringing clothes you don’t really care about and old tennis shoes or work boots to wear at the work site.  I usually leave most of my clothes and old shoes there so I have more room to bring back gifts in my suitcase.  If you have any questions at all about the packing list please let me or Dr. Schafermeyer know!!

PACKING LIST FOR GUATEMALA