Start of a new year.... old friends and new projects...

With working in the bar i didnt get a chance to call up to see Dona Eulalia and the kids during christmas but myself and Diego went up in early January for a couple of days. Gavins chickens are coming on well, getting big. Two died but that would be normal enough out of 20 chickens. They made some improvements to the chicken house as can be seen below. Putting blankets on the walls to keep out the cold and a new water holder. We had slight concerns at first about buying the chickens in case Done Eulalia didnt see the long term benefit of keeping them for a long period to get eggs to sell, and getting a system together where there was an income coming in from the eggs along with a turn over of new chickens. But i am delighted to say, all credit to Dona Eulalia, she now even has 9 new chicks from her one original chicken so the mini enterprise seems to be flying by all accounts...

Feeding time at the zoo.............

We brought a few presents with us for the family it being christmas and all that... bike for the kids. Inititially i wanted to buy it for luis because i dropped him to soccer one day on the motor bike and it took me ten minutes. Then i seen him later on that day walking beside a friend who had a bike. luis in particular, but really all the kids worked really hard every day they weren't in school while building the house. I know it was there house anyway but still nice to give them some kind of pay for their hardwork. Dona Eulalia was telling me that the 3 youngest all go to school on the bike every morning now : ) She also told me she has poor oul Luis wore out with jobs to do on the bike, like going to the shop etc... kimberly has also just learned how to ride a bike for the first time...

We also got dona eulalia a blender. She was forever getting a lend of the next door neighbours for jobs while we were there so i thought it was a practical present. Only cost 20 euro and the bike was only 50 so compared to the kind of money I would have spent at home it really is pittens but I think it meant a good bit to them....

In december I paid for Sylvia to do computer and english classes during the holidays. This was her first trip to the internet cafe. She is flying now on FB and everything. (If you want her details let me know and i will put you in contact with her as long as I know you and you have contributed something towards the family.) As much as the house and evertyhing helps the family the only real way to stop the cycle of poverty is education. Sylvia is a smart girl and she is taking the opportunity by the scruff of the neck so this is the best way I can see the future of the family changing forever......




This week the dream team of myself Diego and Gavin were back in action. A friend here in Guatemala. Amy Holly asked us to help out with a building project near antigua. http://www.eftc.org.uk/ Amy is the director of Education for the Children Foundation here in Guatemala. The project, as the name suggests is mainly concerned with education. They have a school in jocotenagno which takes the poorest children from the surrounding areas and provides education as well as providing a range of other services complimentary to this goal. One part of this is from time to time providing repairs or actual houses for families. On Tuesday and Wednesday we had two different projects to do. The money for the projects was raised by a number of people involved with the charity in the states.

This first project was the structural repair and re roofing of an existing house. We basically took the existing building apart, rebuilt the damaged timber frame with new timbers, re used the best of the galvinised sheeting from the roof on the walls and put new galvinised sheeting on the roof.

The bottle lights were made possible from a donation from my cousin Verity in England. Verity has started a hypnotherapy business recently and kindly offered to charge her first clients on a donation basis. Older donations went towards the construction of Dona Eulalaias house in Chiantla.

I had the 40 euro donation since before christmas but didnt really know how to spend it well. The money paid for the tools required to make the bottle lights such as silicone gun, a hammer and a snips (large siccors) to cut the lamina along with the glue and silcone to make the actual lights.

Above and below you can see the finished house. It isnt pretty by all accounts but the roof will not leak anymore, there is some light during the day inside the building and where there was once plastic on the walls there is now glavinised sheeting. The total cost of the project was in the region of 500 euros.

On tuesday myslef Gavin, Mellisa and Nathan had a similar but smaller project to undertake.

The leaky roof was repaired with new sheets and the good sheets from the roof were used to repair the walls along with a kitchen area adjacent to the actual house.

To paraphrase Christy Moore..... I wasnt gonna say it but im gonna say it... We had a bit of drama in the morning working on this house. The woman of the house had a bit of a melt down when we told her we planned on using the old laminas on the adjacent kitchen. She said that the kitchen was her brothers and that as she only rents the property and one of her walls now is a boundary wall belonging to another property she needed all the laminas she could get because if she ever had to move she would be a wall short. Now there are two sides to this, on the one hand she was getting 14 new sheets for her roof so it would have been nice for her to show some charity to her family in turn, and give the sheets for a kitchen she used daily. On the other the galvinised sheets probably are the extent of her worldly possessions and if she had to move she wouldn't be able to afford the price of the new sheets missing so would be a wall short of a house.  In the end we were able to double the sheets on the back wall and repair the kitchen so the drama was resolved. For me this kind of thing is never easy, there is no right or wrong and I try to stick to what I know about which is doing the actual building work and leave the social side of it to the experts : )

Snagging and Finishing Touches

This week we didn't have a lot of work to do but it was more a bit of tidying up loose ends. Below you can see things like the shelves and clock hanging on the wall....

 There was a little bit of wood left over so we hung a few shelves in the bedrooms of the kids, one for each of the girls and two for luis in his room.......

Dona Eulalias bedroom no longer a prayer room. Bed in........

Gavins chicken house..... Finally finished. Some size of a yoke but well thought out, or ended up well one or the other. The right side where everybody is looking into is for the younger chickens. There is a branch climbing into the larger area. The thought being that when they are big enough to walk along the branch they are big enough to go into the larger area. The long door on the left can be lifted up to take out the eggs when they eventually start laying in about 6 months or so. Gav bought 20 chickens. This is a great way for the family to make an extra few pounds. 20 eggs means 20 Q which is a decent bit. There is plenty of space to rare more chickens too. If they wanted they could put 40 chickens there easily. At the minute the water supply is tapped off the neighbours water supply. There wasnt enough money to pay for the water connection but it is something that the family need to save for and pay for themselves in the future. The chickens make this easier, but will also give them a bit of a sense of paying towards the house which is important. The reason that we went for the local water supply and not rain water harvesting is simple that the local water supply is drinkable.

 There was right excitement when the chickens finally came as you can imagine..........

Last week I also took a return trip to Guatemala to pick up the solar panel. Its facing due south and at an angle of 15 degrees which is the optimal for Guatemala.  We went for solar panels because for one its more eco friendly but besides that and more importantly Dona Eulalia works cleaning clothes and peoples houses, it is not permanent and she never knows when she will or wont have money,. this means that if we connected her to the mains elec there is a very big chance that she wouldnt be able to pay a bill at some stage, her elec would be cut off. The solar panel gives her a certain amount of elec every day for free, after the initial purchase of course.

There are six lights one in every room. They are low voltager LED lights which will not drain the battery too quickly when used correctly.

Above can be seen the invertor with the battery inside it. Pride of place goes to the radio given to Dona Eualia for her birthday by the spanish volunteers of course....

I would like to now thank everybody for there help with this project. I cant name everybody for fear of leaving somebody out for a start. I would just like to say how sorry I am that they can not all see in person what this home means to the family, how it has changed their lives and how greatful they are..... muchas gracias a todos.....

In case you are wondering about what my plans are for the future I will tell you. For now I will be moving to Antigua to live. Reason for this is that im broke simple enough. Going to work in Reillys Irish bar and possibly look for a more permanent job with a charity. I will be going back to visit Dona Eualalia and family regularly. Not least to see how Sylvias computer classes are coming on. When she is ready she will be writing to all concerned parties on a monthly basis. I will have this sorted sooner rather than later. I would like to work with Semillas de Ayuda in the future if its possible and we have a few projects unfinished and ideas bantered around. The thoughts of never going back to Huehue is somehting I simply cant contemplate. While im living in Antigua I also have a few ideas to work with local charities and possibly even another house after xmas but I will let you know when I do. I am still planning on leaving for Canada to make a few pound around April next year I will be keeping the blog up dated when I have something worth talking about. For now thanks again to everybody and talk soon. Adios........ 

P.S.     any questions e mail me roryoconnor25@gmail.com

Video of finished house...........

http://youtu.be/AVFlVe3B8eU       http://youtu.be/AVFlVe3B8eU 

Week 12 - The finish line...

First thing Monday morning Gavin, Deane and myslef arrived in Huehue. Had a bite of breakafast and we headed off to get materials in the hardware shop. We picked up the tiles, gutters and a few other bits and pieces and got to work along with the kids............ 

Pedro was the tiler....... no shock there.......

toilet in progress.............

kitchen finished.......................

Pedro got a bit creative on the front porch, made a star at the door way. A lot more vivid in real life. Picture doesn't  do it justice im afraid......

Gavin noticed we had a back fall into the house. School boy error on my behalf have to admit. Side with the prevailing wind too. Gave us a good excuse to get creative with a drain all the same. Think it looks pretty cool to be fair.........

This is Deane starting the truth windows. Truth windows are basically shapes cut into the wall revealing what is below the plaster. In this case adobe or earth and chicken wire. Big thanks to Sylvana from fotosintesisarquitectos.blogspot.com for the great design and to Deane for not F***king it up and doing a great job  . Green paint was me and Mari.....

Above is the kitchen. Deane and Gavin built this on Tuesday. Very nicely done. Very country kitchen. I was thinking of, starting, completing and submitting a thesis proposal that day. Another story....

The lights in the wall are bottle lights. Had promised myself I wouldn't build any more of these as I spent about 3 months of the year looking at them. Obviously made an exception for this project. If anyone hasnt seen them before they are plastic bottles filled with water and bleach. The mixture has a chemical reaction with uv rays and acts like a light. Thes lights are fitted to catch the evening sun, therefore there is no need to either have the doors open in the evening or use the electricity from the solar panel (ordered and on its way).

Some pipes on ye..... Gutter pipe, flu pipes and drain pipes all completed. If you happen to be a former gutter snipe from ashford please dont zoom in on the guttering.......

The garden getting a bit of work..........  

Toilet and shower room. Thanks to Deane Kerlin Plastering services for the shower area....

Kithcen starting to look like a kitchen. Myself Gav and the kids started to move things in while Melisa and Dona Euallaia were at  the communion service.........

Group photo..... There has been many weeks that there has been a mountain of work with, would be a discredit to Diego or the Spanish Volunteers to say that this week was the most active but I can defintely day the deadline kept us going........