City tour and meeting our Host families

For our first day as a team, our group was toured around the city by our Global Village leader, Ben. Ben is American from some where in America :) sorry I can’t remember which state, there are too many! We saw some new territory, and revisited a couple of sites we had seen before. The Jade museum was even better the second time around! And this time I had a camera for San Francisco Museo.

Our Group

Home made Harp in the Mercado

Someone's favorite Guatemalan Bagel shop :)

Antigua is famous for weddings, we came across a lovely couple

Street food is not allowed! My bad 

The one place we did not stop last week was the Chocolate museum, it seemed a little cheesy when we were walking past last time, as they had a class/demonstration going on but this time, we really enjoyed the chocolate and Adrian really liked the sample of the Cacao husk tea and bought a small bag of loose tea for home.

After lunch we had the ceremony to meet the host families. Our group will be split into 2 teams working on 2 builds. One build is 25 minutes out of town towards Jocotenango. The second build is right in Antigua, south of the Church San Francisco! Adrian and I will be working at the second build! 

Our families are chosen by HFH Global Village based on need, ability to repay the HFH loan and they must own the land. Carolina is the Mom on our site. She has 3 children, Alejandro, Michelle and Paola. I hope to learn more about the family over the next few days. The Mason, or Maestro as it is said here in Guatemala is Jose. Jose and his apprentice are cousins of Carolina, and it is his first HFH build.

Carolina (mom), Alejandro, Paola & Michelle

Jose our Mason is holding Paola

After our meet and greet, we were fortunate to see the Sunday Lent procession, it came by our building! This procession done every Sunday during Lent comes from outside of Antigua, then traverses the city over a 12 hour span and then heads back to the town it came from. This was unbelievably spectacular. I’m not sure I can bring it to you in pictures.

Carpet for the procession to walk on, the base is pine needles

Flowers, seeds and corn stuff for decorations

This Carpet is made of different coloured lettuces

This carpet is being sprayed to keep it all in place

Mayan women with their children in traditional clothing

Lettuce carpet being finished  

The start of the procession

There are thousands of people in and around the procession, many dressed in purple robes which cost $300Q or so, about a third of a months salary!

Each person carrying the Jesus float pay for the honor. they are registered and must pay 10Q each. The procession is 12 hours long and they switch off every so often. We were told that there are 80 men at a time carrying the float and that they each carry about 80 pounds each.

The women have a smaller flag with the Virgin Mary on it and it is said they carry about 50 pounds each, also spelling off every so often. It is a very moving sight, I can't tell you why, but they are so intent and putting in so much effort.

I didn't get many pictures of the procession as I took movies of it. you will have to come over and visit to see it :) or someone has to show me how to put it on U-tube (Eric) and link it.

The men up front guide the procession. The float sways side to side as it moves