Do you believe this view????

So today is day one of building, what will be the 8th house our family has built in Guatemala. We are building in my favorite place in the entire world, Santa Maria de Jesus.  The location of this house has incredible views that people in the United States would pay mucho money to look out at these vistas.  We are on Volcano Agua and the top of the volcano is right above the land we are building on, we can also see Volcano Pacaya which is the one we climbed back a few years. It is a patchwork quilt of every shade of green, it may just give Ireland a run for their green money:)  The soil is so good that the fields around us are growing radishes, green beans, zuchinni, and avocados. This is what I identified today, however I am sure there is much, much more!

We are building with our friends the Viola Family who are seasoned builders with FHTH and we have a new volunteer this year, my good friend, Pam. Our Guatemalan foremen are with Juan Jose and Felix.   Juan Jose has been with the organization for many years and Felix is fairly new to FHTH. Juan Jose has always been a favorite of mine, he is a devoted family man with a lovely wife and 2 beautiful daughters. Felix, has an incredible joyful smile which he has most of the time. He is married nad has 2 children. It just happens that his son goes to Escuela Kemna'oj. I had seen this cute little boy at the school many times and he stood out because he also smiles all the time.  I am familiar with Felix's extended family and they are a very close and spiritual group.  Just a little side note about the kind of guy Felix is. He came to FHTH shortly before Joe left last year to return to the US to see what his health status was. All of our builders were saying good bye to Joe and then Felix came up and and gave Joe a big hug and said to him, "I am having a mass said for you."  Joe told me about that because he was so impressed that this man who he barely knew would do such a kind thing for him.

Our family is small, Juan Jose is the Padre, and the Madre is Elizabeth.  They have a brand new baby, 4 days old. There is no name for the baby as they do not name their baby's for 8 days. We are excited to be here to find out the name.  Apparently they have another child who we have not met yet. The culture states that the Mom and the new baby do not leave the home, which at this point is a corn stalk shack, for 8 days. They do not risk any health threats to the baby or the Mom in this first 8 days. We saw her sister coming and going tending to her today , but we did not meet her until.....the rains came and they invited us in to help us to stay dry which was sort of a joke...we were soaked.  So just imagine this; a bunch of giant gringoes enter your little cornstalk shack and here you sit in your bed with your new baby wrapped up in a blanket.  Remember the house is the size of a dime, it is a traditional corn stalk shack, very small.
 "HI, nice to meet you in your bed with your new baby hiding from us."                         "Oh, nice to meet you also giant gringos!"

The rains came and thank God we had completed most of what we had to do today. So we quickly finished and we were on the way back down the hill to the trucks that had come to pick us up. We will return home to our very comfortable home with hot showers, a hot meal already prepared for us, and all the comforts of home. Our family will stay behind in their cornstalk shack with out many of the comforts of home as we know it, however quite content in their home as they know it, and never a complaint to be voiced.