Turning Around Americas
Beth and I spent ten days in the village of Vera Cruz in San Juan Bautista. Our goal was to teach members in the community how to use some Power tools they had recently inherited and to teach about using hand tools that we brought with us, donated from a few people in Boston.  A project was already underway by Mathew Creelman, a Bostonian who moved to Guatemala 30 years ago, and his daughter. Matt invited us to stay in the village, and looked after us during our trip. He is creating sustainable community projects without the help of major funding organizations, which he thinks corrupts the process of true village independence, so we were philosophically, a good fit. 

The only power we had for all electrical needs was a 6500-watt generator. Our goal was to teach as many people in the village as we could, about basic carpentry, safety and the use of hand tools. We hope they can use these skills to repair the house in preparation for it to become a bed and breakfast. The village then can rent, starting an income stream for the community.

We would love come back to Vera Cruz for a longer period of time to teach woodturning off the grid next year. Our job at that time will be to help the village develop a product or products in wood that can be marketed, and draw more interest to the bed and breakfast. This project is exactly what Beth and I envisioned when we discussed and created Turning Around America, the idea of empowering people by teaching basic hand skills.

Here are some images of our trip and I will be adding captions to explain what we are doing in the pictures. I am also creating some slideshows for the site. The wonderful people in these images fed us and cared for us very well during our ten-day stay. A special thanks to Pilar, Tyson, Matt, and Gladys, who made this possible.

We love you Guatemala and Vera Cruz!

Jennifer Moller
February 20, 2012

Images contriubted by:

Jennifer Moller

Beth Ireland

Tyson Cowles

Pilar Creelman