Members of the community of Comalapa have been actively involved with the vocational school project from the beginning, and Long Way Home has been sure to maintain constant communication throughout the process of planning and building the school.

A retaining wall is the first order of business to support the foundations of the future buildings. The walls provide valuable training for the crew and volunteers learning this new type of construction.

Witness the progress of the vocational school from its humble beginnings to its current status. Here, the workers make the neccessary measurements after a large group of workers and volunteers dug out and leveled the land on the site of the future school.

The community brings bottles filled with litter collected from the streets to be used in the construction of non-supporting walls. The use of these materials cleans the environment, builds something useful and also changes the consciousness of the community.

Using a concrete block, sheets of metal, bamboo poles, and numerous plastic bottles filled with trash, the local workers, LWH staff and volunteers construct this latrine next to the future school.

A team of volunteers and LWH crew worked to first dig out the foundation and then fill it in with gravel and gravel-filled tires.

The school is taking shape.

Long Way Home is training a new generation of green builders through the school construction project. The project means jobs for 8 indigenous community members now working with LWH.

In October 2009 the first of the roofs is added. The custom wooden doors and windows are in place. The earth-rammed tires are 13 courses high. Each tire becomes a thermal mass and weighs between 250 and 300 pounds. They will aid in the climate control of the school.

Photo from Progress Report 'Visiting Long Way Home in the field'

Photo from Progress Report 'Visiting Long Way Home in the field'