Day 4 will be cemented in my mind forever!

Today we went back to Lo de Carranza to work on the foundation of the new church. We started by shoveling sand into wheelbarrows. We then dumped it out, added cement to it and then mixed it together. Steven was the translator and helped us figure out we had to do next which included shoveling rocks into the cement/sand mixture. We then poured water into the mixture and shovelled the crap out of that mixture. It was a super awesome mixture. So by doing that we found out that mixing the mixing pile would mix it a whole lot more to make one big mix. Afterwords groups of people shoveled the cement into pails and wheelbarrows and we dumped it into the trenches around the church. We did that about four times. Our legs and backs hurt a ton right now.

Beauty tip: If you ever want to dry out your skin so you get no acne, rub cement powder on it and let it dry. You girls will love it.

We did all this work before lunch. At lunch we enjoyed some unique Guatemalan food included beans and hot peppers. Luke decided to shove the biggest pepper into his mouth all at once. Bad idea. He is now a soprano. It was hot enough to make him cry, though I doubt he wants us to tell you that.

After lunch we carried cement blocks from point A to point B. Lots of the girls have big muscles in our group and Carlos and Heven let them know that. We worked really hard to get the job done. So did Louis.

After we finished working, Meme and Adriana took us to a couple other houses and we learned more about the Guatemalan culture in a much more real way. Also included were free range roosters and sugarcane for the win baby.

We also realized how much we have including water. There was a fire today out behind the church and they didn't even have the water to go fight it. We all felt really helpless and mentioned how at home that would never happen. The kids were also really sad that we had to go and we really didn't want to let them go either. They were adorable. One girl kept tickling Taylor and he felt like the pillsbury doughboy, but he enjoyed it. One little boy wouldn't let go of Erik all day, a few girls loved Katie and Sam, and one little boy remembered Coby and Matt from last year and gave us toys to give to them. Our hearts once again melted to sugar.

We are now heading off to the country and won't have computer access for some time. We want you to know that we will be perfectly safe and will be having a super great time!

Adios!

Danika, Heather and Roy Taylor