WorldScubaTrip: Rebuilding homes La Barona, tribe lab

So after spending the weekend with my amazing new couch surfing hosts in Lake Atitlán, they asked me if i wanted to come and help rebuild some homes on the Pacific Coast. A large wave had hit the coast around the time of the Nepalese earthquake in May. The wave destroyed many homes and polluted the water. The first line response from the military and charities like Unicef helped but they have no expertise in rebuilding homes. This is where TribeLab came in. It's run by a Polish girl called Sara who is an architect and who saw there weren't enough home building charities after disasters.

So anyway Jose, my amazing host in Atitlán is an architect on this project in La Barona. His idea is to rebuild the homes from locally found materials. So we came here to build a community bathroom. It was a long journey. A boat and a car drive from the lake to Guate. Stayed overnight in Guatemala city at José's parents house, left early in the morning to get 2 buses, a boat over the river (because the bridge fell away) and then a ride on the pick up truck of these hilarious locals who stopped off at every bar on the way and bought us a beer!

La Barona is a fishing town of about 125 families. It used to have some tourism, which you can see the remains of as there is a hotel with no customers. A night there costs 300quets! They're trying to make up for lost business! They are really cut off here. No one has a toilet or running water, and the drinking water can't be taken from wells anymore as it got polluted in the disaster. Unicef cane here right after the disaster to set up a water cleansing machine, to clean sea water into drinking water, it's all but run out of the chemicals it needs now. The river here, which is where they fish from, seems filthy. There are pigs and ducks drinking out of green stagnating water. I'm sure the river is heavily polluted with sewage too seeing as no one has a toilet. We had to dig a hole in the sand and then cover it when we needed to go, I'm sure this causes disease.

There's not much going on here apart from a church, and a restaurant, Rositas. She isn't used to having guests, but she is basically like our grandma who really looks after us because she knows we are here to build this bathroom so we have amazing breakfasts and lunches (shrimp, ceviche etc.) . I swear I'm getting a tortilla belly.

Rosita, it turns out, is also helping to bring up 4 little girls. Their mum was shot dead in the closest town to here over a phone when she was being mugged. It's terribly sad but when you look at these girls they don't really show it in their faces. The oldest girl, who can't be more than 12 seems to have taken responsibility for her youngest siblings. She helps the girls make food to sell. Like today they were making toffee apples. Then the girls go out and sell them to local people. In this world the kids have so much responsibility from such a young age, they have to mature fast. It's almost impossible for them to enjoy being children.

The first day was spent digging up and filling the foundations of the building. We then had to build a steel lattice with bars criss crossing each other tied together with metal ties. This was to give the concrete floor we were going to poor over it a solid base, and make it less likely to crack.

We also had to go to the opposite bank of the river through a mangrove forests in a small, leaking, slightly unstable fishing boat to collect river sand to make the concrete. This was my least favorite bit because the sand was very heavy. We were putting three huge bucket fulls in one sack and then having to carry it from the river to the building site. The local guys who helped out seemed to have some super human strength and could carry these 50kg bags without too much stress on their shoulders. They wanted me to try but i couldn't be bothered to get an injury. I'm not really cut out for construction work and not that bothered about impressing anyone or myself with any amazing show off strength, so i left it to the locals.

The next day we mixed the concrete. This is the second time i have had to mix concrete in my travels! It's no joke, bloody hard work! You get filthy and covered in concrete mixer dust because you have to mix the sand and the concrete maker into two mountains just shoveling from one pile to the next. Then you need to make a volcano. Then pour water in and mix until it's absorbed all the water!

We also had to cut 400 coconut sticks that day too with one person measuring and several people cutting. At this rate my tortilla belly will be gone in no time!

Thursday 16th July
Today we had a wood sawing competition to see who could saw the wood the fastest. We started off sawing the wood in like 4 minutes then we all got faster and faster. I managed to do it in 21 seconds somehow. Was fun. We didn't get so much done today though as we were waiting for the frames. Mainly we just sawed then ate Grandma Rosita's amazing fried prawn and rice and vegetables with tortillas of course!

After work we went to the beach. Was really beautiful at sunset. Just miles and miles of black deserted beach as far as the eye can see, with huge crashing waves constantly rolling in. I wish i could get out there into the Pacific to see what lies beneath.

Friday 17th July
Today the photographer and Ana-Carina left to return to the lake. I was quite sad to see them go as it had been a fun few days. The most fun thing was last night when we smoked a joint and went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean, or the sea. It's fun being in the Pacific because the waves are big and you can surf them. Also cause i was a little stoned we were laughing and being silly painting our faces with the black pacific sand and doing yoga poses in the crashing waves seeing if we can stand up. Was fun!

Jose and i went to the town early in the morning to get some supplies for building. Unfortunately in the time we were gone the builder decided he was going to build the bathroom in the way he wanted and not how José had designed in his drawings. This pissed José off so much that he decided to leave the the next day and let them finish it, so the rest of the day we spent drinking beer eating ceviche and chilling in the hammocks.

Saturday 18th July

We left La Barona early after a final coffee at Rosita's, to Guatemala city. We decided we would spend a night in Guate and have some fun before returning to the lake Atitlán. I spent most of the journey deciding what i was going to to do. Return to europe and study or work. Or fix my computer, go to the lake and do some programming, become a better dev work workon my Spanish. Defer my masters till next year, and reapply to many different institutions. Then sail around the carribean in Tomasz's (one of the volunteers on the building project) yacht from the end of October. I'm drawn between going back into my comfort zone of Amsterdam and Europe, seeing my friends and family or just continuing to enjoy life see the world. Some people tell me i should do this. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I kinda agree.

The river crossing to La Barona, the bridge fell down so access by boat is the only way

You have to take pick up truck lifts to get from the river to La Barona, local people take anyone on their truck for 5qs

La Barona was and still is a very poor place, with no clean water or sanitation

The hut we slept in. We would leave all out stuff in this hut, phones, laptops, cameras, passports and money and no one took anything. I slept in a Hammock outside every night because it was so hot. There was this strange baby doll head on the neighbours fence, perhaps to ward off foreigners!

The damage done by the big wave. It buried the houses in sand.

The beautiful pacific coast with its black sands

Job Done!

Tortillas, huevos, rice and beans, queso...as much as we could possibly eat!

So many sad stories, but these strong girls lost their mother who was shot in a mugging. They were looked after by a wonderful woman but seemed to spend all their day making food to sell just to survive. There was a strong community in La Barona, despite the poverty.