Machistas and Mosquitoes

This past weekend we traveled to the community of Rio Grande outside of Alta Mira for a world weekend. (Alta Mira is close to the North Coast, if you want to get everything in the right place on your mental map). We spent the weekend in the campo building latrines for the families of the community that couldn't afford to do it themselves.

The campo is an interesting place. There's a huge chauvinistic (I'm not exactly sure if this is the right word or not...the Spanish word is machista so I think machismo would be better) attitude in the community. Women generally spend all day in the kitchen and it's rare for a woman to leave her house, unless she's going to the store or church.

So when six girls showed up declaring they were going to build latrines, things got a little out of hand. I can't count the number of times someone took a saw, hammer, or shovel out of my hands. I was extremely frustrated--I (unlike some of the other girls) know how to use a saw, I can hammer a nail, and I'm pretty sure I can dig a hole. My Daddy taught me well. (And I used to think that I could grow up to be Amy Wynn Pastor, the carpenter from TLC's Trading Spaces. Don't judge.)

However, I was never taught how to do this:

(That's a machete. And he's using it to cut wood. Impressive.)

Building the latrines was hard work and um, they don't have powertools.

I sawed:

I supervised:

I hammered:

(Please note my tongue sticking out. I am my father's daughter.)

I sulked when my hammer was taken from me:

I helped build the base for the latrine:

And voila! The finished product:

After all day working, we were extremely tired and incredibly hot and sweaty. We walked to the river that's near the town (it is called Rio Grande [Big River] after all):

(This is my um, guys, it's really really cold face):

We spent the weekend with families from the communities. Each house had two students and it was really fun getting to know the other teenagers in the community and to see the dynamic between our different cultures.

When we got to Rio Grande on the first day, the people in the community told us to beware of the flesh eating bugs. I thought they were kidding at first. They called them Mayan bugs (but to me they looked like mosquitoes). Maybe Mayans liked to drink people's blood? I have no idea. Anyway, when these bugs bit me, I would get what looked like a mosquito bite, but with a bruise around it.

I hesitate to say this on the internet for the whole world to hear (but I mean, I did share the same pair of jeans for 14 days straight thing), but I came home with 152 mayan/mosquito bites. (Yeah, we counted).

The hospitality and the happiness of the people in the community made every single bug bite worth it, though. It amazed me how they reached out to us while we were reaching out for them. They literally opened their homes and their lives to us and it was extremely rewarding.