Guatemala Bread Ovens
work begins
Block walls
Dump annex
Watching dump burn
Following behind bulldozer
Vultures look on
Vultures in flight
Bleak landscape
Surviving
Dump picker
The neighborhood
Dog
March of the chickens
Recycling
Breadhunter takes break
Erika surveys wall
Joe works on hearth
Chris takes break
Lauren holds form
Guatemalan kids help out
Pat begins brick dome
Full crew (note hot tube behind Erika)
Pat builds arch
Almost done
Joe and Marty place last brick
Santos in oven
Erika takes a turn
Hanley Denning (founder of Safe Passage)
Joe makes a friend
Future bread bakers
ONE YEAR LATER
Pat builds a fire
Ready to bake
Can’t stop now
Joe and Jesus have lunch
Tourist attraction
Security at Safe Passage
Done for the day
Always the kids
In January of 2006, Pat Manley (master mason and founder of Masons On A Mission) and I (bread baker, artist, sand screener, mortar mixer, brick hauler) traveled to Guatemala City to build two wood-fired bread ovens for an organization called Safe Passage. Marty Pearson (mason) met up with us at the Guatemala City airport, and Joe Godfrey (contractor), Erica Kibbe, Chris and Lauren joined us a few days later. With a grant, Safe Passage is creating a culinary training center (one of their many activities) for the kids who live in an unspeakable slum next to the sprawling, hideous Guatemala City garbage dump. Safe Passage’s mission is to provide education and hope for the neighborhood kids who otherwise, might become gang members and succumb to a life of crime and glue sniffing. Organizations like Safe Passage and Masons On A Mission are always looking for volunteers, and if you’re interested in working with people who are trying to make a real difference, then please get in touch with them.
Included in the photos are Pat Manley, Joe Godfrey, Marty Pearson, Erica Kibbe, Chris, Lauren and the Guatemalan kids whose names, with the exception of Santos, I do not know.
