Tabacal June food

We took another load of food to Tabacal. This time we only had one pickup truck and I was unsure about the road after the rains that we have been having. I had planned on going the previous day but early in the morning Micah (EMI intern) who is trucksitting for some people called me and let me know that the truck would not start so instead of going to Tabacal we diagnosed a bad solenoid in the starter, took it to a starter shop and after it was repaired, we reinstalled it leaving no more time for Tabacal which would now have to wait until the next day. Heather has been in the states and the person who was going to watch my kids was sick so I would need to bring the kids with me to Tabacal.

Early the next day I had called Pastor Merari for the check for money for the food, unfortunately they were out of checks. This normally would not be a problem except here in Guatemala you can only take $270 out of the ATM per day and the store only takes cash and the food would cost more than $270 even though we were only taking one truckload. My game plan changed again and Carl (EMI intern) and I took the full size Chevy truck that gets about 10 mpg, filled it up and began the trek to Pricemart which is a little more expensive but takes credit cards. I had to split my purchase into $270 at the wholesale store that only takes cash and the rest at Pricemart. This day I only bought corn flour because of our limited money situation and the fact that I buy 1650 lbs of it. The day was in a crunch because it was now almost 11am and we were just leaving for Tabacal and Heather’s flight would land at 3pm.

I thought a good plan to keep the kiddos occupied would be our portable DVD but the cigarette lighter plug decided to no longer work right but instead shut the player off about every 5 min. The trip takes about 1 ½ hours and only about 10 minutes in Eli asked me if we were almost there! The kids did good although they were aching to get out every moment. The dirt road had definitely received punishment from the heavy rains of the past couple days. The soil had washed deeply away in spots leaving merely a path of bowling ball rocks. We and the food jostled our way down the rough parts. I winced at every bump but the kids loved it. They purposefully would bump their heads against the back window and giggle. Seeing the condition of the road I feared the 4 streams I must cross to get to Tabacal but to my surprise they were only at regular levels.

Once we arrived, or should I say almost arrived, at Tabacal the steep dirt road into the village is made of clay and it was still mucky from the previous evening rains. The truck would not even make the initial turn onto the steep road so I put it in 4 wheel drive. About 20 yards up there is a sharp turn and the road becomes steep. The truck lurched up about 10 feet before slipping to a stop and sliding back down to the turn. I wasn’t going to fool around so I put it in 4 low! After about 5 more attempts with our best advance being a whopping 20ft surge before sliding back down to the turn, we decided to park it there and carry the bags of corn flour up to the village. The children of Tabacal had their fun watching us slip and slide to no avail but when they saw us park it they were the first in line to carry the 50lb bags. Some of these boys couldn’t have weighed much more then the bag they were carrying. Nonetheless they sped up the hill with their bags on their backs and returned with reinforcements. I believe we only took about 1 or 2 trips there were so many people. Everyone slipping a little as they carried the bags across the now quite slimy clay road. Carl was loading the men up with bags some even took two. Manuel insisted on taking 3 so to trump his display I had to take 4. He had a nice chuckle after he had delivered his load and watched me finish the hill. I was quite the sight huffing and puffing and the 4th bag on top had now slid down off the pile on my shoulder and was now resting on my head and the side of my face UGH!

The people walked us up to the church site and showed us their new construction. They had made a roof covering with lamina provided by our church here and lumber from trees on their property. They had been having trouble meeting because there was no covered community space and now that it is the rainy season they can continue to meet as a church.

Unfortunately I have no pictures of this trip. Heather had my camera. Hopefully I will take some pictures on my next visit.