vacation continued IIIV...Yalu

After a quick hiatus we're back to finish up the vacation posts...only two left I promise! While the fam was here we of course had to show them the place where it all started and where we will be working for the next 7 months - YALU! Just down the road from the feeding center there is a farm that is working hard to become a tourist attraction. It is a beautiful place that used to be a monestary. Today they have milk cows, moras (blackberries), fish ponds, and lots and lots of coffee. We decided to take the coffee tour which explained the process of coffee from seed to cup...

Old Monestary church

Muy hermosa

Moras

Young cows

Coffee seeds are planted in the little black bags and
 allowed to grow for a few weeks before they are transplanted

Coffee

Delicious!

Picking the fruit

After touring the farm we headed to Nim Jay, the feeding center that Gregg and I are working at.

Dad helping out!

It was very fun to have my family come and see exactly what we are doing down here. Yalu is so much different even from the rest of Guatemala. The absolute poverty of the villagers was very hard for me to see the first time I was here and I know it impacted my family as well. 

Since my parents left Gregg and I have been going out to Yalu 3 days/wk and starting to figure out what God has us here for. Gregg has been very busy working on the budget which is a slow but necessary part. I am starting to identify community health issues that are lacking in the existing program. One project I am really getting excited about is infant health and nutrition from 6 months to 3 years. Pretty much everyone is Yalu is a champion breastfeeder but once the babies turn 6 months there is very little feeding of solid foods, and if there is its usually only tortillas. Babies are also carried on the moms backs, completely covered up and not able to have any visual or physical stimuli. I am hoping to start an infant group where we discuss a nutrition or development topic, get the babies out of the carriers to allow them to experience the world a little, and just have fellowship together. As they say down here, "Vamos a ver!" We'll see what happens :)