Students from a village school in the mountains near Antigua.

These awesome kids and their teachers came to town from their village to perform for tourists in Antigua.

Mitch's pics from Antigua.

Click above to see Mitch's pics from our time in Antigua. Fun!!!

Likely my last post from C.A.

Chris again, probably for the final time -

I'm sitting in a beautiful, flower-encircled patio at our small Antigua hotel, preparing for our last day of strolling, shopping, eating and relaxing. Hopefully we'll catch some music, too.

Yesterday we spent the morning with Felix and his construction team at Common Hope. We did a small amount of work, helping them prepare some construction materials. How Common Hope helps affiliated families with housing is that it creates all the materials for prefabricated homes at its site, then takes those materials to the village and in a matter of a few days can erect the home for the families. We did a bit of the prep work for another group that is coming down next week. This group with then take the materials that we helped prepare, and construct the house out in a village.

We really just got a flavor for the work, as we only did it for about two hours. We were also joined by Laura, a volunteer from Chicago. After finishing some of the work, we took a 10:00 coffee break with Felix, who is also a member of a coffee cooperative in the area. He and several other families grow coffee then pool their resources to sell their coffee as an organization called "As Green As it Gets." Felix brewed some of his coffee (stong espresso!) for us and we enjoyed his company during the standard 10:00 break that all workers take at Common Hope.

The coffee experience didn't end there. Felix then took us in his truck to a couple of neighboring villages where not only did he show us various stages of Common Hope house construction, but he also showed us all the elements that go into taking a coffee bean from the tree to the bag.

There is much to it, and with Felix's cooperative, most of it is done in small batches, all by hand. Each family does various things to make the entire process happen.

With coffee being such a ordinary part of life in the U.S., it was really cool to see just how some of this Fair Trade coffee arrives in our kitchens and coffee houses. Upon our return to the Common Hope site, each of us bought a few bags of coffee from Felix to take home with us. He also gave us his business card and a way to get his coffee back home.

Around noon we ate lunch then said "goodbye" to Renato, Louise, Laura and others at Common Hope. They crammed a lot of experiences in for us in just a couple of days, and we were extremely grateful. It was a memorable stay.

The remainder of our day was spent roaming around Antigua, shopping and taking in the sites. We sat down for a tasty dinner in the early evening, then wandered and found some music in a cinema/lounge a few blocks from our hotel. Quite another great day.

And... a great, great trip to Central America!