Enough time has passed for me to be able to reflect publicly on the mission trip to Guatemala. It feels more appropriate to call it the "zealot trip". To start off, there were at least two to three 'devotional hours' per day. To make things worse, we were 12 strangers in a house of only one bathroom. I may be wearing the obvious helmet, but that spells D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R. Hmmm, what can I add to make this a worse situation? Here you go, Sal: a senior citizen with Crohn's disease.

I was uncomfortable.

Not to be overshadowed, the children-the reason for going-were wonderful. We worked five days building benches that converted into desks, and 3' stone walls for the new school of the squatter-ville Puente Blanco. The inhabitants of said town were mostly Hondurans who had flocked to Guatemala after being left homeless by Hurricane Mitch- ten years ago. The kids were so excited about the prospect of getting a new, sturdy school, and being surrounded by fun foreigners. To the detriment of their current education, they would skip school to help us shovel cement mix and grog into the mixer. They stole the hearts of everyone on the crew. Sunup to sundown, I was shadowed by Rudy, Sulma and 'Whopperhead'. These two brothers and sister were particularly commited to us, and we became very attatched to them.