I'm sitting in the kitchen of our office in San Juan La Laguna in the still morning dark, roosters crowing. It is cool after a hard rain last evening, unusual in these mountains so late in the year. Today we will travel to Pasajquim to check out the readiness of two house sites we expect to be building on this month. Pasajquim is a remote aldea of the municipality of San Juan....it is removed by over an hour drive, but has the same mayor as the more developed San Juan. Because it has no tourist infrastructure....not a single place to buy a cup of coffee...it's poverty is more extreme. Many of the families are large and live in homes of tablas...boards. This might be a good arrangement if the boards were solid, but because of deforestation the only boards now available at an affordable price are low quality and become pithy. I could sink my fist through many. These two homes will be our first foray into building in Pasajquim. The community welcomes us and their list of needs is great.
