María Esperanza is a single mother of two adorable boys, 5-year-old Paulo and 3-year-old Diego. She owns a shop in Panajachel and before she built her home in San Lucas, she rented a home for her family. When she found affordable land in the San Lucas area, she knew it was a good opportunity to stop renting and build a house, allowing her to save financially and invest in the future of her family.

María explains how owning her own home has improved her life: «Having my home is so different! When I rented a house, we only had two rooms. Now we have more space, I can do what I want with my home, and I don’t have to worry about my boys breaking something in a house that isn’t mine!»

María wants to send a message to the two groups who volunteered to help build her new home: «It was a big help to have the volunteers! I want to say thank you to both groups for their time. It helped speed up the building process so that we could move into the house sooner.»

Ana María and her family live in El Chipotón, a community in the department of Chimaltenango. She and her husband, Moises, have four children. Before financing a new, smokeless stove with Habitat for Humanity Guatemala, Ana María used an old stove that filled her kitchen with smoke and used double the amount of wood. In this area, people do not have access to land where they can gather their own wood, so they have to buy wood for cooking and warmth in the markets. Deforestation is an issue in Guatemala and this affects families like Ana María’s. For this reason, having a stove that uses wood efficiently has made a positive impact in Ana María’s life.

She explains how her new stove has changed the amount of wood she must buy to take care of her family: «We use much less wood now. The same amount of wood that used to last for one month now lasts for two months.» Ana María also shares that her old stove was very small, which made it challenging to cook food for her entire family. «I can cook more food now!», she shares. «And my tortillas turn out really well.»