It’s all coming together

Our group with all the kids at the Cambiando Vidas school

By Sam Bondurant ’11 and Joe Powers ’11

We started off the morning with a visit to Cambiando Vidas, the school built in conjunction with From Houses to Homes. The kids were all happy to see us. We rejoined with our class helped them find certain syllable sounds in words. Their goal was to find 10 of the three letter combinations written on the board as fast as they could. Upon completing their goal, the kids received a small sticker that was their favorite color. While this may seem like an insignificant reward to us, that little sticker took on more meaning than any letter grade.

It was refreshing to see kids taking pleasure in the little things, rather than worrying about what’s next on the schedule.

Bloggers and Buddies, Joe and Sam.

Returning to the worksite, we had a short, but intense day, followed by some equally intense, but far more competitive soccer with the workers. All was pretty much as expected, Andrew had a few long shots over the fence, Bill continued to be as competitive as usual, but we also discovered a goalie hidden deep inside the confines of our very own Sam Bondurant, my co-writer on this blog. Until his ego got the best of him, accidentally causing a goal for the opposing team, Sam was a beast. Some of the most surprising things we’ve found on this trip have been in each other, not our environment.

Visiting the school this morning involved much more personal interaction between Guat members and school kids than yesterday. Today, some of the group was paired with a kid and assisted them in writing and subsequently solving mathematical word problems.

Danielle entertaining the students at Cambiando Vidas

Watching the kids transition from complete focus on their work to playful cheerfulness was really, as Joe says, refreshing. They don’t seem to worry a bit about the next word problem, or whether they got the last one exactly right. They can shift gears, mentally change from calculations to friendliness in an instant.

One especially vivid image I have is of Taylor showing the kids her Silly Bands (bracelets that look circular on one’s arm but become shapes when taken off). The look on the boy’s face when shown the evolution of the bracelet into a turtle really epitomized our goal in this trip: to bring light to people’s world, through construction, or teaching, or simply making friends.

Westminster and Cambiando Vidas students with the Soloman Shelf bible stories

Today’s construction was especially hard because the volume of concrete that needed to be poured was approximately triple of that poured on a normal day. However, everyone managed to stay cheerful, whether the method was listening to Jose’s playlist of English and Spanish songs, playing with the kids, or simply watching Bill be himself.

Today we completed the floor and decorated the "front porch" with Julia Myricks leaf patters

Futbol with the workers was really an awesome experience for me because everyone was involved, and everybody got really into the game. Whether it was Carter’s rocket shots towards the goal or Henio’s (one of the Group 1 workers) bicycle kick, the game was representative of how our group has come together internally and also with the Guatemalan workers.

All for One! Bill jumps on the Guatemalan pile-up at the daily lunch wrestling match

While it’s tempting to sit back and look at the houses and feel extremely self-satisfied, our work is really desperately needed here. As Billy, the Spanish teacher at Academia Sevilla told us -all in Spanish, mind you- “This work that your organization does is really helpful, but for all the hundreds of people that it helps, there are always more who need it.” He told us a story about how a woman he knows has 3 kids but only one of them is a candidate for “long-distance adoption” as he described it. So one girl is gifted with more resources, more blessings, and more opportunities than her siblings. That inequality indicates to me the real need in this country. That’s why I feel really motivated to continue to help once we get back to the U.S. and, hopefully, come back to do more one day.

Sarah G. and Daniel learning to make tortillas with Olinda

Relaxing in the 'barrow: Harrison, Henio and Chuchi with Volcan Agua in the background

House 3 carefully selecting the photos to include in the family album

Boys will be Boys

Lauren about to receive the "BUCKET!" from inside the house as we put down cement for the floor

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