Day 15 – Guatemala

Today was our first full day in Guatemala and boy is this place different than Costa Rica! First off, Guatemala City (the capital) is huge (14 million people) and there is a lot more organized crime (kidnappings, cartels, etc) than Costa Rica. Fortunately, we’re about 10 miles outside of the city in a small town called Magdalena (population 5,500). The town is very “quaint” and rural. It’s seems that every family runs a small business out of the front of their house, but nothing extravagant… At best, they make enough money to put dinner on the table that evening. Which is a big reason why we are here: these folks have some pretty difficult living conditions and hopefully the teams we host can help them out.

Today, we took the cooks to the mercado (open air market) to pick up the groceries for the next team. Buying groceries for 20 people for a week is no joke!! After that, we got a chance to cruise around Antigua which is a cool art town a few miles from Magdalena.