Hi,
I know my trip was a while back, but I want to tell you about it. Me and my family went there because my parents have friends that actually live there on a base, and a base it is!
It is a collection of houses that a bunch of people who are working for an organization called Fe Viva. They help out around the area and the community. The houses are surrounded by a huge concrete wall with barbed wire and broken glass on top.

In the base there is also an orphanage and a playground for those kids. Except, when I was there with my family, the kids weren’t there because the government took them all out and put them in different foster homes before we got there.

Anyways, when we got there we stayed in a nice house, but it was still hot wherever you went.

A range during the day from 26° – 35°C.
On the first day we built 3 picnic tables out of wood, so we could deliver them to poor families later on in the week. When we did deliver the first one the next day, we first drove way out of the city where the base was into the country.

Timelapse of the drive out to the homes.

Here, the people were really poor. If they were lucky their houses were concrete boxes with holes for windows and doors. Others had sheet metal, wood and tarp houses but almost all the houses had dirt floors.

Imagine that, living in filth your whole life, everyday. We are so lucky. We picked up a Guatemalan family that my parents friends knew because they would take us to the families that needed the tables. The first family we went to was a single mother with two kids, a boy and a girl both around the age 5-7. The boy was deaf in one ear. The mother had kept her yard very clean, and bursting with beautiful flowers and colours. It was inspiring to see that even in the dirtiest and poorest areas, there was still beauty and care. The joy and thankfulness on the family’s faces was worth all the effort when they received the picnic table. And although they spoke Spanish we could still communicate a little, even without the translation going through my parents friends, (they could speak Spanish almost fluently). We went to the next house, and still, poorest of the poor, but still were happy and kind.
Later on in the week we set out pieces of an awesome obstacle course that was already built, and to be used by kids from a church in the community. They came and we all had a run at the obstacle course in the base. It was very cool to see the other kids participating in athletic activities. Most of the boys ran it in their socks, just because they didn’t want to get their only pair of shoes: dress shoes, dirty.

We also went on an awesome auto safari, where we got to drive by all kinds of animals you would never see in Vancouver, or Canada, for that matter.

We ended up also doing a kids program in a mountain village nearby. We went their and played soccer with the boys, and made friendship bracelets with the girls. All the kids were from ages 4-9 and they were very good at soccer. It was a lot of fun, we also did some skits and at the end, fireworks. In Guatemala you can launch fireworks whenever you want, but there were a lot of people firing them because it was New Years. The kids ran right up to the fireworks and started kicking them when they were still live!! They were not scared.

After a week of staying in the base, me and my family drove an hour to a more touristy city called Antigua. It’s amazing there. All the streets are cobblestone and there is an awesome market there where Guatemalans set up their small stores and sell anything from blankets to brass knuckles. It was very interesting to see what the people do for money compared to us. Most of the products they sell are hand made by them, like that paintings and blankets.

We also went ziplining once, which was amazing, but sadly I couldn’t bring my GoPro with me, even though it would have been amazing. We went over a huge canyon but we were in a superman position, where our legs and chest were held up so all we had to do was enjoy the ride. It was awesome.

Overall the whole trip was incredible, and I’m going to remember it for a very long time and I would love to go again.