The living conditions for the Guatemala living among the rural poor or in the urban slums are too difficult for most people to imagine. In the countryside, their one-room shacks are usually made from cane or corn stalks, set vertically and lashed together. Others are made of non-reinforced hard-packed mud or adobe. The floors are hard-packed dirt and the roofs may be covered with palm branches, grasses, pieces of tin or scrap wood.
Most rural people get water for cooking and washing in a local well or a nearby stream. However, these sources are seldom pure and are more often than not contaminated with sewage and other waste from villages and towns further upstream.
The Overseas Development Council, which measures the quality of life in a countries on a scale of 1 to 100, lists the physical quality of life in Guatemala at 53 (the United States is rated at 96). Once again, though, remember that this is the national rating; the actual rating from the region where your child comes from would be much lower.