GUATEMALA

 GUATEMALA

Comalapa and Jocotenango

by Brittany Whitaker

  

After my time in Panama, I went to Guatemala to volunteer with other non-profit organizations called Los Patojos and Long Way Home. Los Patojos is an after school program for underprivileged youth in Jocotenango, Guatemala. This organization is interested in incorporating sustainability into its practices and lesson plans and my job was to point them in the right direction. I took the volunteer coordinator and a few volunteers to visit an organization that is actively practicing sustainability on many levels. 

 

Long Way Home is currently constructing a primary and vocational school in Comalapa, Guatemala using Earthship building techniques. These building techniques fill old tires and bottles with rammed earth to create the actual structure of the building.

  

During our stay with LWH, we helped build in many unique ways. On our last day, two different university volunteer groups were also there to help. We began by making sifts to remove any stones from the dirt. With so many people there to help, we quickly formed an assembly line.

We then mixed the sifted dirt with water and straw grown near by. The straw helps give the mixture form and creates a nice clay-like consistency. This mud mixture is then applied to wet tire walls. The structure is covered with this mixture and eventually white stucco acts as the finish material.

We  also worked on the retaining walls and foundations. Sledgehammering earth into a tire, is no easy task - it takes one seasoned worker one hour to fill just one tire!)

We also picked and dug our own dirt from the edge of the site.

 

 The roof construction is also an interesting part of the structures. They are domed to collect water on the edges of the roof. The fin shape not only keeps the water from running off the roof, it directs it to the storage tank.

 

 This type of alternative construction pushes you to think outside of traditional design- instead of brick dimensions, you think in tire widths. Although the construction is simple, it is incredibly innovative and intriguing. I think that Long Way Home also shows us that designers should look at sustainability through a much broader lens. By actually using these building techniques I realized how easy they actually are, and how beneficial they are/would be to impoverished, developing areas.

  

(Above, Long Way Home co-founder Mateo Paneitz talks about Comalapa)

Due to the lack of waste management in Comalapa, these building techniques not only provide cheap construction materials, it addresses the need for waste management. The project has also been phased into four years to provide income for the local residents. Long Way Home’s ability to address sustainability on many levels makes them a model for other organizations or construction. This alone is why I chose to bring Los Patojos to Comalapa to meet Long Way Home and see their work first hand. I was hoping that Los Patojos would be able to learn from and be inspired by the level of sustainability that Long Way Home is accomplishing. Since our visit to Comalapa, Los Patojos (and their partner organization Rising Minds) has decided to work with Long Way Home in the future.

  During my time in Jocotenango, I also had the opportunity to experience the area. The Spanish influence is easily noted in Antigua, Guatemala with it's many colonial and baroque architecture. Antigua is also nestled between three volcanoes, Agua, Feugo, and Acatenango.

 

  

I found this trip to be etremely inspiring on both a personal and professional level. Long Way Home gave name to the type of sustainability I have been looking for. As with all traveling, emerging into another culture reveals a lot about yourself, but also opens you up to new things. 

I hope that enough students will be interested in both my Guatemala & Panama trips enough to want to plan one through Bridges. I think that our unique education would lend a different and beneficial perspective to all organizations involved. 

Please let us know if you are interested in working with any of them!