One Final Delivery - Something a Little More Concrete

Truck delivering our blocks

This week (7th December) marked one month on from when it all happened. On Tuesday the 4^th we reached the £1500 JustGiving online target and as of today (the 8th) our estimated total altogether is £1796 (give or take, with Gift Aid still yet to be finalised) - as always thanks so much to everyone who has helped us to keep going for so long, your support has been amazing! This will be my last entry so thanks as well for sticking with me, I hope it has been an interesting read so far!

Since the deliveries last week it has mainly been a waiting game. Donations have still been slowly coming in, which is more than ever expected, but we needed to wait until we had enough before making our final donation run. As teaming up with the organisation ‘Mujeres Trabajan Unidas’ last time was such a success and they are such an organised friendly bunch, we decided to continue joining forces and using their local knowledge to reach more families off the beaten track.

With a month now behind us we decided that we wanted to look in providing longer term relief. This is still only possible on a small scale, but with people’s priorities shifting to re-building and repairing, the provision of fairly expensive building materials allows families to continue using their incomes as they normally would. In this way we are only able to reach a small number of families, but the impact to their lives is greater than a bag of food which would only last a week or two. As has been so often repeated over the last few weeks all you can do is take things ‘poco a poco’ little by little and whether it is a bag of food or a pile of blocks it is still a start.

The Guatemalan government have also now started prioritising the rebuild effort. They have maximised the demolition process and are now providing low interest loans to rebuild homes. This is very welcome to many, however as we heard from one of the families we visited yesterday, the problem is that there is criteria as to how damaged your house is, which you have to meet before the government will provide help. In addition to this the replacement houses built by the government are of a standard size and therefore you may end up with a much smaller home.

MTU’s programme’s are entirely funded by the American Organisation of the same name – ‘Women Work Together’(WWT), although they are still separate charities. When we arrived at the office on Thursday morning Judith (the founder and co-ordinator of MTU) surprised us with the news that the US organisation had provided a sizeable amount to put towards the effort.

Sylvia is the administrator and liaison between the two organisations and she came along to oversee the spending of WWT’s money and help with the buying of goods. With both of our amounts combined we were able to divide the pot between 19 families in total. Our Q10,000 or £830 that we had available would be able to provide building materials for 11 of the families.

At the construction centre buying Corrugated Steel

As they already had a list of affected families that they work with in the department of San Pedro, the ladies rang round each of the families in turn and asked what would be most useful to them. This was important as there would be little point in turning up with materials that the families can’t make use of. Five families preferred to have corrugated steel sheets, which are widely used across Guatemala and extremely versatile. Six families decided concrete blocks would be of more use. So off we went to go shopping!

Q10,000 bought us 1500 concrete building blocks and 55 steel sheets in total. This was divided up as 250 blocks per family or 11 sheets, Q1000 or approximately £79 spent per family. Again, not a huge amount, but enough to make a start with and enough to lift people’s spirits.

Here are a few of the places we visited, pictures are always more informative...

This is the home of Osveli Estanislao Gonzalez Bautista, an 86 year old gentleman who has lived in the same house all his life. He told us he did not want to demolish his entire home as only parts were damaged and these could be repaired, for this there is no government help. From the outside it looks like it escaped the worst...

Inside the walls were rendered unsafe and had to be removed. This is their kitchen, already in the process of being rebuilt using our blocks! Evidence of us actually making a difference -moments like this make it all worthwhile! Here 15 or so blocks have already been used, shows that 250 blocks can go a long way to making somewhere safe again.

And more blocks!

At Osveli's House. From left: Sylvia, Gem, Veronica, Krystal, Osveli, Me, Blocks

This is the home of Minsi Lili Garcia Fuentes (in the red jumper). In the background is a giant rock which came loose in the earthquake and fell down the mountain, smashing into their home. They told us the noise of the crash was terrifying and are still scared of further rockfalls. 

We returned the following day whilst they were in the process of blowing up the giant rock to be able to shift it and start work on the house...this is a video of the explosion.

This is it post-explosion. 

The rock itself left a trail of devastation in its path. Here is a house we visited further up the moutain, the home of Lucero Augustina Garcia Morales. This had previously been a living room. No one was injured in either of the families, luckily everyone was outside at the time.

Judith from MTU (left) with Lucero, one of the girls they work with and her mum

Deep in conversation with Judith about the future of Mujeres Trabajan Unidas over a glass of juice. After the funding runs out this year they may not be able to continue their projects with the young women of San Pedro. Time to get on the grant research....

Yes...more blocks - they never get old. 

This is one of the homes that requested the corrugated steel, as there is little hope of rebuilding this entire house in the near future, the steel is more useful as temporary walls or roofing. This space has already been made use of...

Another home marked for government demolition. This whole building is unstable and with each aftershock the family becomes more worried. We gave blocks to this family and although they won't make a dent in this rebuild and will probably be sat around for a good while, it is still 250 less blocks that the family have to buy when the time comes. 

Doña Gilda who lives in the house above

So it has come to the end. With all the money you gave we were able to reach 96 families in total, giving:

32 Blankets

500 Nappies

44 Gallons of Water

4 Water Filters

15 Giant Bags of Food

90 Half-sized Bags of Food

55 Corrugated Steel Sheet

1500 Concrete Building Blocks

Compared to what is needed here, this in reality does not go far, but to bring a bit of relief to even a few I believe is worth it. In truth what I have got out of this experience is ten times more than we put in. I have visited places that otherwise I would never had been and experienced the real Guatemala, been welcomed into peoples homes and felt real generosity. 

For one more time I thank all my family, friends, colleagues, friends of friends and complete strangers that have had faith in what we have been doing! It means so much! I leave you with a picture of the beautiful Guatemalan Highlands that I have come to love so much! 

Over and Out!