Day 3 and 4 in Jobompiche, Guatemala

Wednesday and Thursday were more of the same. Hundreds of kids in the morning and painting in the afternoon.

Making balloon balls.

Some eager participants.

Showing off his work.

A work in progress. I need to look for some pictures of the finished product.

Check out the scaffolding at the school expansion next door.

The lakefront at the school.

A bird.

Lunch on Wednesday.

Dining room for our meal. It was pretty hot outside on the porch.

The shower is in the back. The pila is in the middle. The pila has one deep basin for fresh water with 2 side sinks for washing. It is used for dishes, clothes, bathing, etc.

This is the main street in Jobompiche. The home in the center is home to some of the kids in the program. Pretty flowers in the trees. I think that is a poinsettia on the right.

This little girl kept us entertained at lunch.

Kids lined up on Thursday. Notice the steps and elevation change. No handrails. Rocky ground. No fence at the lake. Somehow the kids survive. I think we go a little too far with the life-safety stuff in the US.

Lunch on Thursday. This is the most substantial home we visited during the week. Victor works at Tikal and is a working hard to provide for his family.

The home is a work in progress. They are saving up for windows.

Here the ladies do dishes in the pila after lunch. The pila drain pipe is about 12 inches long in this case. It drains down the hillside. Generally, the homes have running water pumped from the lake to a tank above town. Outhouses seem to be the norm in Jobompiche. The school may have a septic tank - although I'm not sure how effective the leach field could be in the rocky soil. The lake is very clear so it is able to absorb whatever pollution it receives.

Here the older students are giving presentations. It looks like the subject is autoestima or self-respect. It must tie-in with a lesson we observed later. The subject was sex education. Probably appropriate for the end of the year and in a society were some girls get married at 14 to 16 years old.

We finished around 3 o'clock and were invited by Moya to come to her hotel for lemonade and cake. Very nice. That is a howler monkey. She is a British expat that has opened a hotel even further out than Jobompiche. She helped with the crafts earlier in the day.
Moya's Website

Construction standards are a little hit or miss in Guatemala. They had a little trouble with the sewer in one room. The result is known as the throne room.

That evening our hotel owner was showing off an elephant beatle someone had found down the road.

Here is a close-up.










Here are a couple of shots of the finished murals.

Day 2 in Jobompiche, Guatemala

Tuesday was the first day for the craft projects. Over 200 kids K-6 showed up and had a great time.










Craig and Peggy had recruited some of the mothers to help with the projects. They were shown the projects the day before and were a big help in explaining the instructions in Spanish. Otherwise, there was a lot of pointing and pantomime.

Meanwhile the painting continued.













The diagrams are starting to take shape.

The plan called for a couple of murals or faux painting inside the kitchen building. Here Sue gets started.

Did I mention that horses, pigs, chickens and turkeys routinely wandered through the school yard?

Here we are at lunch time. Notice the chickens walking through the front room.

Notice how the flash lit up the inside of the oven. This illustrates that some things are the same around the world - no difference between Indiana and Guatemala. Anything goes when you need to straighten up before company comes over.

This day we had tamales for lunch. Here they are cooking in the big pot. They were wrapped in banana leaves for cooking.

After lunch we played with the family parrot.

Did I mention that horses were wandering around the school yard? This is the playground, soccer field, basketball court, and assembly/ stage area. Nothing gets in the way of a soccer game. Nothing gets cleaned up, either.

Here is a shot at the end of the day of the building we painted. The benches are used for outdoor classes. The older grades were finishing up their school year the week we were there. Later in the week they were holding class outside. Looked pretty nice. Directly behind the photographer is the lake. A very nice setting.






I mentioned that these carriers were used for carrying firewood. These young boys would take their machetes and home-made carts into the woods and bring back a load at the end of the day.












Here is the hotel in the evening sunset.

Sunset across the lake taken from the hotel restaurant.

Monday is Painting Day - Jobompiche, Guatemala

The first day was devoted to painting. Our objective was to paint a kitchen building that had been built a few years earlier at the local school. We were also painting some abstract designs in the computer lab building. Yes, they have a computer lab. A dozen or so old IBM desktop computers. Not sure what software they had or how they are used.

Here Diane is presenting a gift the school principal.













Here we are painting the primer on the building. We are painting inside and out. The block was very porous and we ran short on the primer. We reverted to the local primer of water, lime and salt.

It was hot and sunny. Here we are getting some help from a student to redistribute the equipment.

Dehydration was a constant concern. Did I mention it was hot and sunny?

















Lots of discussion about laying out the design on the wall of the computer room.

This is a view of the upper grade building. The school is built on a sloping, rocky site next to the lake. Very basic buildings. No air conditioning, open windows with screens, new restroom building with nominally flush toilets, if they are working. Otherwise you bucket water into them to flush.

Here some of us are headed to lunch. It took a couple of trips each day to get us there and back.

I'm not sure who is entertaining who here. This wheel barrow type device is used to carry firewood normally.

A gift for the hostess today.

These turkeys wandered through the yard as we were eating lunch.
















These girls were next door. I'm sure they were wondering what the gringos were doing next door.

Getting started on the painting in the computer room.















Fred is almost finished with the whitewash primer.

I didn't see what happened next but I'm pretty sure Larry didn't paint Cheryl's butt. We were able to get started on the final coat on Monday afternoon.