Day 8: What Hard Work Looks Like

Olivia: Today, our team had the opportunity to help lay down a concrete floor for Doña Edelina's home. You may remember her from previous posts. She is a single mother of two children, one with special needs. Thankfully, we had a professional there to help us spread the concrete and add the finishing layers, but we were involved in the mixing of the cement and hauling the cement from our mixing location into Doña Edelina's kitchen. With some great teamwork and even bigger muscles, we were able to lay the concrete floor before lunch time. I can't wait to see what the finished product looks like! I was feeling pretty impressed with the work our team put into this floor - and it was good, hard work - that is until I met Don Alberto.

Don Alberto is a 70+ year old man that lives with his wife, whom we believe may be experiencing the early stages of dementia or Alzheimers, in a tidy home without running water or electricity. Thanks to your donations, we will be providing Don Alberto and his wife with a water connection, a concrete floor, and a new stove. Not only is Don Alberto 70+ years old, but he also suffers from a severe hernia that makes work painful. Despite this, when we arrived at his home we saw him coming in from a distance with a massive load of plants that he forages for his and his wife's food tied to his back. The word "incredible" really doesn't do Don Alberto justice.  How he manages to carry so much with a hernia - and make it look easy - is beyond me. I learned that Don Alberto wants so badly to work, but that the pain from his medical conditions makes it difficult to do so. Although I'm glad that I was able to haul a few buckets of concrete today, I realized that serious hard work looks like Don Alberto - a 70+ year old man caring for his aging wife and working to survive despite serious obstacles. Much respect Don Alberto. Much respect.

Franco: Our team has been in Guatemala for a little longer than one week and I am impressed by their commitment and dedication to the hard work being done here. For Project HELLO volunteers hard work isn't always physical in nature. Sometimes it comes in different shapes and sizes. For example, walking into Don Alberto's home this evening and finding his wife cooking leaves foraged from the fields as her eyes water from the smoke filling up her small kitchen can be emotionally challenging.

Thanks to your donation Don Alberto and his wife will not only have a new stove tomorrow, they will also have a concrete floor and running water. For many years, Don Alberto and his wife have walked long distances to fill up their buckets with unclean water. Tomorrow, thanks to your donations, that will change. Project HELLO and Generacion Magnifiact advocated for Don Alberto and his wife to have the right to running water in their home. We called a town meeting last Thursday and spoke on behalf of Don Alberto to the community leaders petitioning his right to an essential human need. Today the request was granted and the town auxiliary mayors went to his home to approve our request to install a water system. In the pictures below you will see pictures of Project HELLO advocating for Don Alberto during the town meeting, Don Alberto's current kitchen, materials purchased with your donations to build a stove and concrete floor, and the auxiliary mayors measuring how many water pipes will be used to reach Don Alberto's home.