Choof Choof! (We stink)

by Megan (and Jon&Joey)

Saturday morning we left at 7am to hike Volcano Pacaya. After several near death experiences by several of us (j/k), we managed to make it to our destination near the top; some of us had a little extra help getting there (see pictures).

Needles to say the easy life in CA has not done us well; don´t worry, we still managed to roast some marshmallows in the hot rocks. We got to experience an amazing view of the Guatemalan landscape before heading back down the volcano.

Grand Pumba style group photo.

Volcano Pacaya (don´t worry, we climbed the other side)

To help us feel a little bit at home, Mission Impact provided us with an awesome 4th of July BBQ. After the sun went down, we put on our own fireworks show from the roof of Proximos Pasos; there´s nothing like some good old´illegal (in America) fireworks to bring in the 4th.

Even God provided us with a show

On Sunday morning, we went to a bilingual church service in Antigua. It was a great experience worshiping in English and Spanish. After church, we all split into groups to eat lunch and do some tourist shopping in the market place. Everyone had fun bartering for the best possible prices on our souvenirs. On the way back to the bus, Jon was beat up (ok, just hit on the leg) by an 80 year old toothless Guatemalan woman. You´ll have to ask him for the details when we get home. Don´t worry, no one was injured! =)

Today we split up again; half of us going to work on the cistern and the other half staying at Proximos Pasos to continue the painting and put on a program for the girls in the school. We´ll give you an update on that in the next post. Those of us working on the cistern now have a huge respect for American technology after mixing (by hand) enough cement to form the bottom half of the walls. Wow, that was hard work! Tomorrow we plan to pour the cement for the top half of the walls. We´ll post some pictures later of the finished cistern.

That´s all for now... we are heading back home to shower.

Not gonna lie, we all smell pretty bad as we haven´t had showers in three days since the school´s cistern is empty.