Tuesday, November 3, 2009

November 3, 2009 Coatepeque or bust....

We arrived yesterday at noon after leaving Toronto at 6:00 AM.
Although the rainy season is "over" it clearly had a mind of its own. The city was in the middle of a torrential downpour and we were told it would go on all week. After picking up the rental car and leaving the city at 2:00 we drove northwest toward Coatepeque which is normally a three hour drive.
Michael sat up front and gave me steady encouragement as we drove through washed out roads and kept an eye out for landslides.
My daughter Sally slept like a kitten on the back seat of our massive diesel slurping Nissan Patrol.
We arrived at 8:00 PM and were warmly greeted by the staff at the Hotel Virginia who served up their famous chicken burgers and cold Gallo Beer (not Sally).

Today we hit the ground running and Michael Popa-Ola, friend, co-worker and soccer star extraordinaire did soccer clinics with the boys at the school. School is out for the summer break in La Union as it is with the whole country.
The girls were encouraged to join in but politely declined in favour of ping-pong. We were happy to bring ping pong paraphernalia with us as well as new soccer balls.

The construction is moving at a clip. We now have a total of three finished classrooms and one more on the way! I was amazed at how quickly things move in La Union.

We are on track for the opening of the middle school as well as the high school for next year!

Meanwhile, I have received an email from Professor John Cherry - an engineer and water expert who is at the University of Toronto. He wants to solve the water problem in La Union and has volunteered to take this on. He has also found other people in Guatemala who are working on similar problems! Way to go John!

Sally is doing four hours of high school work a day while on this trip and she is doing a stellar job of combining adventure with work!

1 comment: