04-25-06 Tectitan

This week I traveled to Tectitan in rural northwest Guatemala (see map). I traveled there with the three interns from tho office to construct two more homes for people who had lost their home to Hurricane Stan. We started out early monday morning and would return on the following Saturday. The 10 hour drive got VERY interesting as the roads are not for cars but only trucks. We blazed a trail all the way up over the pass at 12,000 feet and back down to Tectitan and realized we were the only car in town and probably the only one in miles. As we neared to Tectitan we began seeing drastic images of the damage. Homes lost off cliffs, roads washed out.
The town of Tectian is small and along a ridge of mountains. The town actually sits at the top of a small ridge that comes out from the mountains almost like a horn off a rhinosaurus. In town we settled in to our hotel room and the next day we set out for our jobsites. Micah and Andy stayed at the lower site while Carl and I went further across the canyon to a homesite on the top of a ridge. many times during the week we needed to get some supplies but because there is no cell coverage there we needed to hike down this practically vertical cliff to Roberto's house at the base where all the supplies for future homes is being stored.
We built a home for Rosa whose adobe home was damaged by the hurricane. Her husband had left her years ago to raise her children alone. She was very kind to feed us for each meal. Each day there were setbacks and actually we only got to work about 1/2 day each day as we would be without access to certain building materials or we would run out of battery for our one drill. One time the generator just stopped producing electricity. by the end of the day Carl was so frustrated with the generator because nothing appeared to be wrong so he just smacked it a couple times with a hammer and it started working again!
We did enjoy our time there constructing with the local men from church like Alberto who carried supplies up and down the cliff. He even carried the generator down the cliff on his head!

When we finished the houses and decided to leave we had a flat tireand the battery was dead but luckily I had just purchased a battery powered emergency starter for the car which also has an air pump. We were on our way back, ehausted but having done a great task for two families.
So far 5 homes have been built in Tectitan and there are plans to build 3 more. Unfortunately this hardly puts a dent in the more than 60 homes destroyed by Stan in town.