Grace and grit in Guatemala

The pinnacle of my south-of-the-border trip came while I was crowded inside a 12-by 16-foot house.That's not a typical winter vacation highlight for this sun-starved Minnesotan, but then the circumstances weren't so usual either.

Nine fellow travelers and I -- mostly construction novices -- had assembled the house. Built of particleboard siding, cement tile flooring and a steel roof, this was no fancy domicile, but it was a welcome one. Now we were sharing a closing ceremony with the nine-member Guatemalan family that would soon use it for sleep and rainy-season shelter.

As together we recited the Lord's Prayer in Spanish and English, I struggled to keep from tearing up. We had actually done so little -- taking just a couple of days out of our 10-day adventure vacation to build the house -- yet this family was deeply grateful for the work we had done.

Such short but meaningful service projects make up the heart of Play It Forward Adventures tours. The company is the brainchild of St. Paul video producer Jodi Nelson, who had long been frustrated by having to choose between her two loves: volunteer tourism and adventure travel. Three years ago she started the company to combine those interests, and the results, if my Guatemala trip was any reflection, are extraordinary.

Determined to make Play It Forward's service projects meaningful, Nelson partners with nonprofit organizations already well established in the countries that her tours visit.

In Guatemala, tour members build stoves and houses under the direction of workers from Common Hope, a St. Paul-based charity that promotes development abroad by supporting education, health care and housing efforts.

This fall, PIF tour members in Nepal will put together a sewing room in the Peace Rehabilitation Center for women rescued from the sex trade. In every country that PIF visits -- during the days devoted to that tour's service project -- staffers from its nonprofit partner brief tour members about the political, social and economic issues facing the nation's people.

It was the dry season, so the surrounding hillsides and occasionally erupting volcanoes were brown, but the land was far from colorless. Lavender jacaranda trees and flaming pink bougainvillea were everywhere. And then there were the endlessly vivid hues of the Guatemalan people's clothing -- hand-woven textiles of brightest purples, reds, blues, yellows and greens -- that dot the landscape like so many moving paint swatches.

A stop for fresh mangos

Although Play It Forward emphasizes the active nature of its trips (hence the bicycle outing), ours was no Latin American Iron Man competition. The cycling journey was 20 miles, with an optional van ride to avoid the return trip's killer hill. And if we saw a church, a child or a particularly compelling arrangement of produce we wanted to photograph, the group would happily stop to do so.

Everything came to a halt, for example, in one village, when a member of our group spotted a woman selling fresh mangos on a stick -- beautifully pumpkin-colored, nicely peeled, and easy to negotiate even while holding onto a bicycle.

Our next stop was Valhalla Macadamia Nut Farm, run by a graying ex-pat named Lawrence, who was hawking various nut products, including a skin oil he swore would take years off our faces. Naturally we bought several bottles after experiencing the free mini-facial and being regaled with tales of Lancôme and Nivea executives who had supposedly come to call.

Lake Atitlan was our destination the following day, a famously blue lake ringed by volcanoes. We stayed at Casa del Mundo, a hotel composed of a collection of small stone buildings that climb a hillside along the lakeshore. For two days we kayaked, did lakeside yoga, swam, star-gazed and hiked.

As for that hiking, a disclosure is in order here: I knew I was in trouble the first day of the tour when my fellow sojourners began comparing notes on their triathlon training schedules. Although I'd had good intentions, a couple of illnesses together with my abiding sedentary nature caused me to be ill-prepared for the trip's physical requirements.

Play It Forward's Guatemala trip is rated a level 3 for physical activity (see sidebar), and I am realistically a level 2 at best. Luckily, on this particular trip I could opt out of certain hikes or modify them to fit my needs.

Hikes to nearby villages are among the delights of the area, though for safety reasons they are best taken with a group or a local guide. For $14 I hired a guide to lead me to the village of Santa Cruz, where after an hour's hike we found a playground full of kids playing soccer with a visitor from Buenos Aires. Along the way, I was embarrassed to be passed by many Guatemalan people decades my senior, most of them carrying huge loads of firewood on their backs.

A backpack for Anabella

Still picking eggshell out of my hair, I attended Ash Wednesday mass in Antigua's cathedral the following evening. It was standing-room-only in the golden cathedral that night, with four stations working double time to distribute communion and the traditional forehead cross of ashes.

Morning brought me another treat: a Common Hope-arranged visit with Anabella -- the 5-year-old girl I sponsor through that organization -- who lives in the Mayan village of San Rafael el Arado. (PIF tour members were encouraged to sponsor a child through Common Hope; three members of our group did.) An agricultural village whose name reflects the work of its residents (el Arado translates as "the one who plows"), San Rafael has 1,556 residents, all of whom speak Kaqchikel, one of more than 20 Mayan languages in Guatemala.

I met Anabella in the village's grade school, where two-thirds of the children are sponsored through Common Hope donors. The organization annually gives a backpack full of school supplies to each child in the San Rafael school. Each schoolchild also receives a daily hot lunch, a godsend in an area where malnutrition is a constant problem.

Frightened to walk home with only me and an interpreter, Anabella finally agreed to come along once her mother and baby brother arrived to accompany us. I'm not sure what she thought of the big white woman from the Midwest, but I do know she adored the bright pink backpack I brought for her, stuffed with felt pens, stickers and barrettes.

Traveling to a beautiful but impoverished country often means a week laced with guilt. Although trips like PIFs that mix outdoor adventure with volunteer service are no panacea for the world's ills, they do bring a little help to places sorely in need of it. And that's not a bad legacy for a winter vacation.