Help School fight Climate Change w/ Green Building

From the ground up.....The day before we departed from Comalapa we went to visit and walk the land. In order to get to the land we took a 15 minute walk through corn field paths outside the city of Comalapa. We met a farmer driving his set of cows home. We saw the sun's rays protruding from behind some clouds far to the west towards volcan Aqua which is near to Antigua. We also noticed that the land is rich and healthy and has a steep incline. This is good for our building purposes because as we level the land we will use what we excavate to pack the tires. The careage has five mature avocado trees on it and they were full of fruit. We took this as a fruitful sign because we love guacamole! here are some pictures toi give you a fair view of the land that awaits the vocational school.

On Wednesday, the Parque Chimya staff and volunteers, consisting of intern Kari Ramsey from Oregon State University, volunteer Cali Olds from Wisconsin, Adam Howland, Matt Paneitz, Cat Brandon and myself, worked straight through on the documentation for the upcoming North American tour that Matt will be taking in November. Pictures were uploaded, excel files managed, PowerPoints were created and summaries constructed. This is an exciting time for LWH as we take the show on the road! Our objective for the tour is to visit four US cities in 30 days speaking at churches, synagogues, radio shows and in college student unions. We hope to garner interest and support for our school which we will begin to build in January. The neat thing about our school, that I keep repeating, is that it is being built economically in an ecologically conscientious fashion because it will use recycled materials like tires and trash-filled bottles. We want others to know that even though a country is poor it can still be innovative and it can still raise itself up from its trash!! I also visited a recycling center in Comalapa. Started by a Norwegian volunteer from Comalapa's sister city in Norway, it is the only recycling plant of its size in all of the Department of Chimaltenango. Residents can bring their trash, including common materials such as old boots and old buckets, and receive cash. A beautiful idea. Check out the pictures in this update to see what I am talking about. Thank you for all your contributions. We will work to continue to earn the respect that your donations have given us.