Update from Guatemala

Hello Rotarians,

Here are some photos of Rotarians at work at the pre-school in the small village of Tierra Linda. The project is to extend the existing roof overhang out to the wall at the edge of the existing patio area. The pre-school was built as a Rotary project. Extending the overhang will allow the patio area to be used during inclement weather or during the heat of the sun; it’s already quite hot here at mid-day at about 7,000 feet of elevation.

So far we have been cutting into the existing stone wall to make room for the columns that will support the new roof. In the photos you can see people cutting into the wall of very hard volcanic stone, and building the steel structures to be used to reinforce the columns. It is difficult to convey how difficult it has been to cut into the wall. Today we stopped at a hardware store and picked up new tools (at our expense) to make the work go faster.

Tuesday we were unable to get to the work site due to roads being blockaded during political protest. At the beginning of the week we had an opportunity to learn more about Mayan culture and the work that Natun has been doing. Three of us have had a chance to meet with students that we support. A number of years ago we were able to use a District Grant to support the creation of a tutoring program in which university students who have had their educations supported by Natun give back to their communities and serve as role models for younger students for whom Spanish is a second language since they’ve grown up in homes where one of the indigenous languages is spoken. One of those tutoring sessions was taking place in the pre-school today while we were working outside.