Dia Uno

Praise God we made it, and without event.

The Momentum team arrived in Guatemala City at 12 PM, 1 PM Chicago time.  It just so happened that the 24/7 youth team was leaving from their week at HRI on the same plane we arrived on.  We were able to get a glimpse of them when we deplaned, but from a distance because we couldn't get to their gate. There was a lot of screaming and waving, and also pounding on glass The Graduate style.

When we emerged from the airport, we were greeted by some of the young ladies who work for HRI-Lauren, Monica, and Ellie. Ellie is our main guide for the week and has been super informative so far.  We came back to the HRI house to drop off our stuff, then immediately hopped back into our awesome van to head for the Oakland Mall for lunch.  With Quiznos, Pizza Hut, and McDonald's among our dining options, it was a pretty smooth cultural transition.

After lunch, we headed back into the van for our tour of the city thanks to Ellie and William--our driver.  The main stopping point was the city dump--a huge ravine piled hundreds of feet high with millions of pounds of trash. It is where many of the poor both live and work and risk their lives in the face of frequent landslides.  On the edge of the dump, there is the city cemetery where families must pay rent to keep their loved one's burial space.  If the families fall behind on their rent, the bodies are removed and tossed into a section of the dump.

The story of Guatemala City is the major divide between the very, very poor and the very, very rich-the only two socioeconomic classes that exist. Little regard is given for the very poor by the people of Guatemala, so missions groups are quite common in an attempt to rectify the situation (if the 3 other missions teams we flew down with are any indication).  Unfortunately, most groupss just sweep through, give, and take off. The impoverished  learn  nothing about being self-sufficient, and they become dependent on handouts.  That's where HRI comes in to put the power in the hands of the people in the form of education and employment opportunities.  We can't wait to be apart of the process this week.

We have had plenty of rest tonight at the house. We say down to a wonderful home cooked meal by Leidy, one of the housekeepers. 

Tomorrow we spend the day doing construction in La Limonada--central America's biggest ghetto. 

¡Buenos noches!

The dump