Why so much work?

You might be wondering  why we do so much carrying of buckets up and down the hill. It probably seems a little ridiculous, and you might wonder, "Why not just drive a truck up the hill?" or "Why did they drop the sand and gravel at the bottom?" 

A few bits of information might help. First, the road on the hill is extremely deteriorated. It has huge potholes, and is very washed out. No trucks, four-wheel drive or otherwise, are able to drive up this steep, dangerous hill. Second, the construction project goal that we were working on was to make a new concrete floor for the Chavez family's new home. But, mixing concrete in Guatemala is very different. In the United States, it's easy to hire a concrete truck or mixer, but in Guatemala, due to cost and getting the concrete into a hard to reach place like the top of a hill, the concrete must all be mixed by hand. Joseph (the Miller's son) does a good job explaining the process in the video below. 

So, the basic idea is that to mix this cement floor, we have to haul every bit of sand, gravel, concrete and water, into the Chavez' house, mix it on site, and then smooth it out into the floor. Below is a before and after picture of the floor.