Cornstalk Houses

A few of the homes in the village are still made of cornstalks. Oscar grew up in one of these. He would get up at 4am, when it gets light down here, and walk an hour with his father to work in the field. It wasn't until he was 8 that his mother convinced his father to let Oscar start school. School is a waste of time if your family is perpetually hungry and your career path is assumed to be the field. So he would rise at 4am, work with his father till the last minute, then run to school. What a beginning for a guy who would become a Fullbright scholar and do research for Harvard University in Guatemala.

One of the needs here, besides stoves and latrines, is concrete flooring and beds. 60% of the houses have dirt floors. Most sleep on the dirt or concrete. At night in winter here it gets down to freezing.