Coming to you from the village of El Tabacal, Guatemala. We are only about an hours drive from Antigua, and most of the drive is over volcanic rock and bumpy terrain. We had to ford 4 small rivers to get here. We walked the last part of the mountain as our van couldn´t make it. Carlos, our contact and his son Charlie brought us here. We are the first team to ever stay overnight in this village for ministry. Our host family is Martin and Juana and their 4 daughters, aged 12, 8, 7 and 6. The mother is only 27 years old. We have been helping them finish the roof to their new house that a church team couldn´t quite finish when they were here last week. We´ve been sanding rust off the metal, and painting. Sometimes we can´t work on the roof, for example, one day we ran out of paint and had to wait until we could get some from town. Another day, Martin had to go get corn for the family and was gone the whole day (it´s a long process here). And another day, he had to fix the leaking water pipes in the road. Things just take a lot longer here and you really appreciate the things you normally take for granted in everyday life.
A couple days ago, we asked Juana if we could help her. She said we could help her pick beans a short walk away. Her girls then told us to bring water because it was an hour´s walk away. Just a short jaunt.
It was an uphill walk and felt like we were in the jungle in the middle of nowhere. After we tripped and slipped our way along, we came out at a corn field on a steep hill. The beans all grow around the corn stalks, I guess you use less land that way, and it´s easier to keep track of them. We crawled around on the steep hill picking the purple beans. We gathered a few sacks full & Juana took some corn for dinner & we hiked back. We ate lunch and then went back to shuck the beans for almost 3 hours (that was with 6 adults & 4 children working)! In the end, the family got 2 big baskets of beans which should last them awhile.
I learned what it was like to live a day in a Guatemalan mama´s shoes (or bare feet), except I´m sure it takes her longer by herself. She is a legend!
