A Day in the Clouds – Thursday, June 1, 2017



Acatenango is a town about an hour away from where we are staying as well as the volcano on which the town sits. Although Acatenango is dormant it is a rare site because it is one of the few volcanoes to have a double cone. Our task while in the town was to finish the stoves we had started the day before. While in the house where the stove was being built you could see no more than a few hundred feet away, if that. At first it seemed as if there might be a fire nearby but come to find out the vapor was actually a cloud. The entire day we were so high up on the volcano that we were actually trapped in the clouds hugging its side. At times, while working the wind would pick up and small wisps of the cloud would gently tornado into the window making it hard to focus on the task at hand. To finish the stove off we had to make mortar to paste the bricks together. When I say we I mostly mean the young fifteen-year-old boy who seemed to be one of the oldest children of the family. Dirt was stirred together with a slight bit of cement mix and just a splash of a molasses boil we had made the previous day. The molasses when heated expands and makes the mortar stronger than steal. Mixing all of these things together made the stirring process next to impossible but the young boy did it with ease. We then proceeded to take the paste and smoosh it between the bricks with a trowel and our fingers. It was difficult to get the thick mixture packed into the slits of the bricks because it seemed to want to stick to anything but them. It is crazy that everything we were using to make this fuel-efficient stove was from the ground upon which we were standing. Things as simple as dirt and molasses could collaborate to make a mortar stronger than steel.

-Megan Lee

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Land of Trees - May 29, 2017

After our travel day, we arose in our splendid hotel to greet the morning sunshine and with joy and anticipation. After a lovely (3 course!) breakfast, we met the technicos in the parking lot of the hotel. It was at this point that Dr. Hallum brought to our attention that some of us would have to ride in the truck beds as there were not enough seats for all of us. Well, still bright eyed, we had trouble fitting all of the people who wanted to ride in the truck beds. And let me tell you, you have not “done” Guatemala until you have ridden in a truck bed up and down the side of a mountain. It was so overwhelming I had to take a nap on the way there.             Our first stop was the AIR office where we got a tour and got to meet the staff. Dr. Hallum, who is our guide and has mentored many students over the years is the founder of AIR, but the real head honcho is the director, Ceci. She coordinates sites for the technicos from the office as well as keeps an eye on all of the various
Read more

Fruit – Wednesday, May 31, 2017

“Por sus fruitos los conoceréis”- Mateo 7:20 This is what the back of the AIR (Alliance for International Reforestation) t-shirt says. “By your fruits you will be known.” And it’s true. People will know that we are Christians by our love, by our actions, by our service.   People will know who and what AIR is by its fruits – both the literal fruit from the trees they plant as well as the lives and communities that are affected by the work that AIR does in reforestation and agroforestry. By your fruits you will be known. And without knowing that this scripture was central to the work of AIR, our focus this week, as we are going through our daily devotions, has been on fruit – the fruits of the spirit. “God’s Spirit makes us loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways. God’s Spirit has given us life, and so we should follow the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23, 25).” Today we fo
Read more