Americans are to Yankees as Guatemalans are to __________.

Chapins. The world chapin (pronounced chah-peen) is a term that has evolved affectionately over the years among Guatemalans to refer to the idiosyncrasies that make them uniquely Guatemalan. Hour late for a meeting? So chapin. Love eating tortillas and black beans? What a chapin. Put chile on all your food? Yep, pretty chapin. But careful, just like yankee can have charged connotations, referring to someone as a chapin can be offensive if said by the wrong person in the wrong context.

While the word chapin refers to people, chapinear (the verb) refers to the act of being a chapin and the inherent improvisation that goes with it. Over the course of the last six weeks of construction on the bottle school, I have been impressed time and time again by the ability of my co-workers to solve unexpected challenges in incredibly creative ways. I have been impressed by their ability to chapinear. Instances where I was ready to throw-up my hands and call it quits because we hadn't planned for a certain problem didn't so much as phase our lead mason. One such example was when we started placing the chicken wire in the walls to which the plastic bottles would be fastened. We needed certain pins in the cross-beams so we could run chicken wire the length of the wall and clamp it down with the pins. A miscommunication between the masons, a friend from our sponsor NGO, and me led to the complete omitting of pins on the top part of the crossbeams. Oops.

The sinking feeling I had, mainly derived from the thought of having to chip away at all the crossbeams to insert more pins, lasted only a few moments. The lead mason shrugged-off our predicament, saying we could weave reinforced wire through the chicken wire, tie it to the crossbeam, and crank-it down to tighten it. Problem solved.

Examples like this have been common over the last few weeks. Challenges arise, as they always do with logistically-intensive projects like the bottle school, I scratch my head and summon my liberal arts college education to find few - if no answers, then turn to my Guatemalan counterpart who barely finished fifth grade to come up with the solution. And he always delivers.

Whereas in the States we rely on power tools, technology, and abundant resources to build things, Guatemalans rely on their wit, creativity, and tough as nails work ethic (no power tools here) to build their future. I've worked side-by-side with them for a number of weeks now, and have only had access to saws, hammers, and other rudimentary tools that require good ol' fashion elbow grease to get the job done. Efficient? Not really. Admirable? Definitely.

__________________

The tools: hammer, nails, machete, measuring tape, and pliers

"World Class Cheerleading": Ever wonder where your used t-shirts end up?

Don Beto putting bottles in a wall

Hello Ismael

Paco working on the roof

The school with about 1,000 bottles in place

Hi all,

Here's a quick photo update on the bottle school. We've been building for about three weeks and have about four weeks until we start placing bottles in the walls. As of today, we have 5,500 plastic bottles collected and we expect another 1,000 from neighboring communities later this week. For more info on the project, check out previous post "Building Classrooms with Plastic Bottles".

Day 1. Community members and "Don Jaime" ready to break ground at 6:30am

Day 1. The old classroom

Day 1. Breaking-down the old classroom

Day 5. Starting to build the foundation

Day 14. Pouring cement into the support columns

Day 22 (today). Columns and half of the cross-bars built

Rocky, my host brother, pays his Q5 (about $0.60) and asks for three more cards. He gets them, grimaces, and then leans back in his chair, disengaging from the game as the other three players at the table take turns discarding unwanted cards in hopes of receiving better ones. The rain outside rattles the corrugated tin roof. My other host siblings, Clayton, Hiroshima, and Donaldo, continue playing and bet-up the pot to about $1.50 before laying their cards on the table to see who has the strongest hand. Hiroshima smiles as she extends her arms to rake-in the small pile of bills that look like money taken from a game of Monopoly. They have been playing 5-card draw for almost an hour and I have been observing for about as long. Unlike Texas Hold'em, arguably the most popular card game in the U.S.A., 5-card draw requires little skill and a lot of luck. You pay to get your cards, you pay to play, exchange weak cards in search of stronger ones, and then have a round of anemic betting followed by the revealing of cards; no tells, no strategy, no gamesmanship. It's just you against the cards that happen to fall.

The next day, I stroll-down to the soccer field for my ten o'clock game. The usual suspects sit perched on the hill overlooking the field, ready to bet on the day's games. They all throw Q25 ($3) into the pot and bet on the numbers of combined goals that the two teams will score in the game. If one team scores two goals and the other team does not score, he who bet on two goals wins the pot, pretty straightforward. But instead of making calculated guesses on how many goals each team will score based on weather, team and player ability, and any other factors that speak to the gambler's skill at predicting the game, they throw five numbers into a hat (0-4) and blindly select numbers. If it's pouring rain and the teams have strong defenses but no offense, he who selects 4 goals has a slim chance of winning based on the probability given the conditions.

Just like 5-card draw, the soccer betting had little (if nothing) to do with skill, consideration, or ownership by the individual. They prefer to leave their fate to chance instead of taking ownership of it, or what anthropologists refer to as an external locus of control, the idea that one's fate is in the hands of some higher power. This is common with Guatemalans and relates to their relationship with God as well and the active role he/she plays in their lives. A common response one hears when asking about future plans or projects is that it depends on whether or not God will allow it.

Contrast this with the American internal locus of control: the belief that we control our fate. If we work hard enough, we will achieve what we set-out to achieve. Is that not the foundation of our country and the American dream? Returning back to the gambling analogy, why is Texas Hold'em so popular in the U.S.A.? Because it eliminates the aspect of luck to the greatest extent of any card game and success depends more on the gamesmanship and skill of the player. The same is true with sports betting. Americans would rather get smaller returns to predict the future in order feel like they have as much control over their fate as possible.

In the card playing instance, I offered to teach the table how to play Texas Hold'em. They said they already knew how to play, but preferred 5-card draw. They said Texas Hold'em is slow and boring. I tried to explain the contrasting elements of luck and skill between the two games, but they kept returning to the idea of getting lucky, which made 5-card draw much more exciting for them. In the soccer game instance, I asked the guys if they ever considered letting each person choose the number of goals he thinks will be scored and then splitting the winnings with any other person that chose the same. The answer was the same; it was not as fun because it reduced the element of luck.

These distinctive degrees of ownership are a subtle, yet profound, cultural difference made salient by the way Guatemalans gamble. Peace Corps taught us in training about external vs. internal locus of control, but with more emphasis on lives and careers. I do not think you can look at the different life outlook as better or worse, it is what makes a culture. Even the richest of Guatemalans attribute their fortune to God's willing their success. The claim that only the poor do not take accountability for their misfortune is false. The main difference might be that in a society where economic success does not come easily to the majority of the population, the majority has to believe that something has affected their luck so as not to feel like failures. Those who do "make it" are constantly surrounded by poverty and harsh living conditions, so they have to believe that some higher power willed them to be winners.

I apologize to my six faithful readers who have been clicking "Refresh" on my blog for the last three months in hopes that a new post would appear, only to read - for the seventh time - how to make a classroom out of plastic bottles. With quetzal season in fifth gear and my bottle school project starting to take shape (looking to start construction in late July/ early August) I have not been as consistent about writing about the latest and greatest from Guatemala as I would have liked.

Speaking of which, I'd like to share a little bit about the resplendent quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala and the head honcho of El Refugio del Quetzal. As May comes to an end, so to does the quetzal nesting season, which is the best time of year to see these otherwise elusive birds. Quetzals nest from January to May in sub-tropical rainforests at an altitude of around 1,700 meters (in America, that's about 5,500 feet). Unlike the non-industrious jays or sparrows, quetzals laboriously dig away at dead tree trunks to form their nests inside the trunk of the tree. Why dead trees you ask? Great question. The wood of dead trees is softer and easier for the quetzals to pick-at with their beaks. However, one of the reasons quetzal numbers are down worldwide, apart from human-induced deforestation and habitat destruction, is that the dead trees they need to be able to nest have very weak root strength, causing them to fall easily during rainy season when as much as seven meters of rain can fall in six months. When completed, the nest has a circular opening with a diameter of about four inches and a depth of about one foot. Here's a photo from our park of a male quetzal digging his digs.

The female quetzal lays two baby blue eggs, which the male and female take turns incubating for eighteen days (it's a very progressive bird). This is the best time to view quetzals because you can go to where you know the quetzals are nesting and wait for them to switch turns incubating, providing great chances to see them fly in and out of the nest.

After the incubation period, the male and female take turns searching for food to feed their young (again, progressive). Worms and small lizards are the food of choice for baby quetzals who demand a higher protein content in their diet. When they don't want to put in the effort of going out and preparing food for their kids, like most parents the quetzals resort to giving their children microwavable dinners or macaroni-and-cheese. Here is a photo of a baby quetzal from our park that I took last Monday.

From this point, the quetzals leave the nest with their two (usually) chicks and head-up to higher altitudes where they remain until the following nesting season. It's tough to see quetzals outside of nesting season because they don't have a good defense mechanism (no big talons, no big/strong beak, not particularly agile, etc.), so they keep quiet in the canopies of trees and only leave in search for food to avoid attracting the attention of potential predators (hawks). When something does shake-down between a quetzal and a predator, quetzals use strength in numbers to swarm the predator to fend it off. My counterpart says he has seen this before in our park, but I have yet to witness a swarm of green quetzals beating-up on a hawk.

Overall, we had a successful nesting season this year in my park. Our artificial nests attracted two pairs of quetzals and we estimated having about seven or eight pairs over the course of four months, which - for a park our size - are very good numbers. We invited biologists from Germany to view and research the quetzal's "display flight" (the male's way of attracting the female), we inventoried all of the birds in our park (around 110 different species), and we finished the basic infrastructure after a year of work.

Background

As recently as thirty years ago, plastic products were few and far between in Guatemala. Sodas came in glass bottles that were reused over and over. Tamales, cheese, tacos, and assorted snacks came wrapped in the leaves of local plants instead of plastic bags. And as a matter of habit, Guatemalans threw the leftover garbage on the ground without thinking twice because leaves biodegrade and disappear within weeks. Today, the same habits exist; people eat their snack, then chuck the garbage on the ground when they finish-up. But now that everything comes in plastic containers (chips, sodas, water, tacos, smoothies...even plastic bags come in plastic bags), this cultural habit has left Guatemala with a serious waste management crisis.

The great thing about plastic is that it's an incredibly strong material; it's light and extremely durable. However, the terrible thing about plastic is that it's too good of a product: it's cheap and doesn't breakdown. In fact, the average plastic bottle takes roughly 500 years to biodegrade. To put that in perspective, 500 years ago Columbus had just recently discovered the Americas. In the States we've been able to create sufficient infrastructure to breakdown plastic and resell it as a commodity, helping us to avoid the ubiquity of plastic that you find in Guatemala (and most of the Third World, I imagine). Here, in contrast, the common solution for disposing of plastic is to burn it, which creates a deadly toxin called dioxin. It's not uncommon to pass by makeshift landfills with plumes of smoke billowing from the embers of burning plastic below.

Given the lack of probability of investment in waste management, one must devise creative solutions to confront this issue. One such solution is using these plastic bottles to create bottle schools.

What is a bottle school?

The basic idea of a bottle school is that instead of building a classroom using cement blocks, you fill plastic bottles with plastic waste to the point where they're so dense you can use them as your building blocks. Given the fact that plastic takes about 500 years to breakdown, they're actually stronger (in some senses) than cement blocks. Also, these classrooms are safer in the event of an earthquake because they're more flexible and can move with the tremors. In the event that they do fall, plastic weighs much less than cement and would not crush someone like cement blocks would.

I met with a local school yesterday in a neighborhood called Mariscal to start the process of building a bottle school. They teachers couldn't be more excited and we're off to a great start. The project works on many levels. First of all, we're going to build a school for kids who are in dire need of more classroom space. Right now, in the school I visited, about 80 kids have class outside in a makeshift classroom made out of wood and a tin roof that feels like a sauna after about 9am when the Central American sun really starts to beat down. Second, after a project like this where we need to collect thousands of plastic bottles, the streets of San Rafael will be never have been so clean as they will be when we reach our goal of collecting 6,000 bottles and 420,000 plastic bags (about 70 plastic bags fit in each bottle). Third, the project involves the community because not only do the students have to collect five bottles a week for homework, but community members can drop off their stuffed bottles at a collection center in the central park on Sundays. To compliment the waste management lesson of the project itself, I'm also going to give environmental education classes throughout the weeks of bottle collecting. Fourth, and final point, these classrooms are extremely economic to make. Cutting out the cost of the cement blocks cuts the entire cost of building the classroom by about 40%, if not more.

To build the classroom you have to have the foundation: a cement floor, steal columns, and a corrugated tin roof. From there, you put sheets of chicken wire extending from one column to the next, on the inside and outside of the structure, creating a space in between (the width of the columns) where you put the bottles. After putting row after row of bottles between the chicken wire, the wall slowly takes shape. In the spaces that remain between the bottles, you put more plastic bags to fill any empty gaps. Then you apply the first layer of drywall (a cement mixture), then the second layer, and then you have your wall that looks like any other wall; it doesn't look makeshift. After a layer of paint, the bottle classroom is complete and classes can begin.

Here are a few photos from yesterday when I taught the students how to stuff their bottles. I'll also include some pics from a bottle school that another PCV built to show the process of building a bottle school.

This is one of the classrooms we want to replace with the bottle classroom

Please fill-in your own caption in the "Comments" section

Teaching the kids how to stuff their bottles with trash

(The following photos are from PCV Laura Kutner's site in Granados, Baja Verapaz.

We're using this project as a model for the school in San Rafael)

Placing the stuffed bottles in rows between the chicken wire

One of the walls with the first layer of dry wall

Exposed section of wall and completed section of wall

Final product

Hi everyone. We recently put the signs in the park. Yes, the same signs that we started working on back in October (see: "Sign-making" entry). It took a while to get the paint, but they're finally done and in the park. Here are a couple photos:

"Welcome to the Quetzal's Refuge"

"Don't throw garbage"

"Viewpoint"

"Silence"

My first year in Guatemala was a challenge, a reward, a life lesson, a personal lesson, a dream, at times a nightmare. It was an arrival to a new world, a jump into the unknown, a farewell to friends and family, a farewell to my comfort zone. It was a trembling at the door of my new host family, a new-found feeling like a brother to my new Guatemalan sister. It was a barking dog at 3:00am, a cawing rooster at 3:01am. It was a grit, a stench, a rawness. It was an occasional emaciated street dog on the occasional corner, a shining red and yellow chicken bus. It was a sense of belonging here, a sense of longing for home. It was an early Monday morning ride to Peace Corps headquarters, a smile from Brittany, a smile from Molly, a smile from Maria, a deep-seeded common bond with fellow PCVs. It was a volcano spewing smoke into the air half a mile away, a pizza and a beer in Antigua, a tortilla and beans (never apart) in San Antonio. It was a spider on my wall, a mouse in the corner, a flea on a dog, an amoeba in my stomach. It was a tumultuous Thursday morning when I found out my site location, a seven hour chicken bus trip to San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta for the first time, a bright green quetzal feeding its young, a first cup of sugary coffee with the mayor in his office. It was a achingly arduous adjustment, a laggingly long loneliness, three months of doubt, three months of questioning. It was a rediscovery of self, a rediscovery of purpose, a rediscovery of contentment. It was a bead of sweat in the Coban half marathon, a drop of crystal clear water at the pools of Semuc Champey, a candle-lit tour of jungle-covered caves. It was a new house in town, a new rhythm in our work at the park, a new-found excitement to be a Peace Corps volunteer in San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta. It was a Sunday soccer game in the shadows of the tallest volcano in Central America, a "G-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-L", a sense of community in an uncommon place, a sunset that washed San Rafael with a burnt orange. It was a daily greeting in the streets of town, an "Hola!", an "Adios!", a street corner to sit on, a patient watching of the world-go-by, a conversation with a Guatemalan friend, a breaking down of preconceived misconceptions, a realization of similarity between two dissimilar people. It was a smile, a wave, a nod, a handshake. It was seemingly small, but undoubtedly profound.

My first year in Guatemala has been a lot of things. I look forward to learning what the second year will be.

(Structural inspiration from John Steinbeck's opening sentence from "Cannery Row")

Last Tuesday, around 2pm, I was working in my office when a muni-worker entered to tell me two guys were looking for me downstairs. "I'll be right down", I told him, and got up to start making my way down the two flights of stairs.

As I approached the two men, they both looked like they meant business. One wore a blazer with a name tag, the other a Polo shirt with dark glasses. Blazer boy turned to me and asked (in perfect English), "Are you James Staples?"

"Yes I am", I replied.

"And you work for USAID....wait...no, Peace Corps?"

"That's right." We then established that I spoke Spanish and so the conversation continued in Spanish.

"And what's your work here?" he continued.

"I work in the municipal park up the hill to conserve the forest and protect the quetzals."

"Well, James, that's why we came today."

He then went on to tell me that he came from Guatemalan immigrations and was going to have to arrest and deport me for stealing and selling the quetzals from the park I work in. "We've received various complaints from various sources, James," he told me. He then asked me to come with him to the police station because I was under arrest and faced felony charges. A police truck was parked near the park, where all of this was taking place, awaiting its new gringo passenger.

"Whoa whoa whoa," I said. "This is totally ridiculous. Who told you this? That's completely unfounded." More than anything I was confused and totally flabbergasted at these appalling accusations.

After about five minutes of back-and-forth, me confused and getting angry, and them trying to put handcuffs on me, they then accused me of making ceviches out of the quetzal eggs! At this point I started to wonder who these guys were and what their credentials were. I had a feeling something was going on, but couldn't figure it out. The exchanges continued, "Totally ridiculous!" I exclaimed. "Come with us," they replied.

After another five minutes of the same exchanges, the man in the sunglasses came up with a proposal, "Give us $200 and we'll forget all about this". I told him no way and that now he'd established that he's corrupt. "Fine, $100". I told him hell no and that we'd figure this out in the police station.

We started to walk to the police truck when the man in the blazer turned to me and said (in English), "Smile! You're on candid camera!"

I laughed and was a good sport, but after I got to thinking; they threatened me with jail time, fines, and deportation. They offered to let me bribe them and have it all go away, having already established that I worked for the government of the United States of America. Really?! It all seemed a little tasteless or at least a little too bold of a joke to play on someone who didn't know they were being taped. But as far as I'm concerned, no harm, no foul.

The episode will air this Sunday at 7pm on Canal 7, which is a huge national TV station. It should air in the U.S. on DirecTV too. Channel 400 and something.

About one week ago, while starting their coverage of the Copenhagen climate talks, nytimes.com published a front page slideshow of seven photos showing the real effects of climate change (photo below). Among them were picture of some islands in the South Pacific threatened by rising sea levels, cracked soil in Africa, and - to my surprise - a picture of a failed corn harvest in Baja Verapaz, Guatemala (about three hours away from San Marcos as the crow flies, eleven hours away as the camioneta drives). I have always been cognizant of the potential problems posed by a warmer planet, but never saw the real-life consequences: less food, less water, and more irreparable infrastructure damage due to more intense weather patterns.

What I'm about to say works on many levels while comparing Guatemalan society to American society; life here runs much closer to the edge. People don't have health insurance, car insurance, property insurance, or any real savings to speak of. If you get injured, you go to the doctor and pay to get fixed. If you can't pay, you don't get fixed. If you crash your car, you pay to repair it or junk it. For these same reasons, the effects of climate change are much more salient here because there's less of a cushion separating the people from the consequences. When less rain falls, less crops grow, farmer's can't sell as many crops, and those with limited resources (= great majority) get hungrier and more desperate.

Guatemala saw one of the more severe droughts in recent history, hence the smaller crop yields and nytimes.com front page photo. So what does this mean at a real, tangible level? The production of staple foods in the Guatemalan diet, principally black beans and maize, has reduced by 50% this year due to the prolonged drought. This caused an increased in price due to diminishing supply. Higher prices on basic foods mean the poorest of society can't afford even the cheapest of foods. Alvaro Colom, President of Guatemala, declared a "state of calamity" in Guatemala due to the dire food supply situation. Enter more begging, more desperation, increased movement into industries with more profitability and an inelastic demand (read: drug trade), and more gang participation. It's no coincidence that as poverty has increased over the past ten years, gang-related violence has risen drastically and narco-trafficking has gone viral in Guatemala.

Another tangible consequence: less water. Even in the harshest of droughts in the USA, it's a rare occurrence when we turn the faucet at our sinks and nothing comes out. Here, now, it's not that uncommon. It has happened to me a few times and I'll say, it's pretty haunting when you turn the faucet and....nothing. You wait, wait, don't shower, sleep, wait, buy water jugs, wait, and hope that it will come on soon. Without enough resources to build huge reservoirs or other forms of storage, when water runs out, water runs out.

As far as more intense weather patterns, Guatemala has experienced two crippling storms in the last decade: Hurricane Stan and Tropical Storm Mitch. Stan, the stronger of the two, took out the two main water treatment facilities on Lake Atitlan, and the government couldn't pay (or didn't want to pay) to replace them. Now, as a result, a new strand of cyanobacteria has flowered and taken over the lake, marking one of the biggest ecological disasters ever in the country. The lake usually generates about $200 million of tourism a year, but with its new brown tint and unswimmable waters, that number is expected to fall drastically this year. Less income, more desperation, etc. etc. etc.

Where once found around 3,000 feet above sea level, Dengue has moved to about 4,000 feet in Central America. San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta is around 3,600 feet above sea level.

The sum total of this strand of panic-stricken free association is that it is VERY true, third world countries will feel climate change much more than first world countries because they can't afford the insurance against it that we can. I feel much more anxious about climate change than I did before I came down here because I'm starting to see its early results, and it's bad. To the two or three people who actually read this, I'm imploring you to really look at your habits and figure out what you can do to minimize your impact because climate change is real and its impacts are very tangible. Its no longer a theory among scholars, its fewer crop yields, less water, and ecologic disasters.

Field of corn in Baja Verapaz stands ruined after prolonged drought

On November 21st, a couple Peace Corps buddies and I climbed the highest volcano in Central America. Called Tajamulco, which translates to "the big pimple" (not true, I completely made that up), this tallest point in Central America measures almost 14,000 feet. Probably the most impressive part of the landscape is the fact that the volcano hovers right over the coastal region of San Marcos (where I live). Looking at it from the side, the skyline rips from the coast straight up 14,000 feet to the volcano.

We started our hike around 1pm on Saturday with a group called Corazon Verde ("Green Heart") that organized a garbage clean-up on the volcano. Before the hike, a group of locals, led by the mayor, held a ceremony to bless the occasion and to talk about the importance of keeping their sacred volcano clean. After the 25 minutes of speeches and prayers, we all started up. The local Guatemalans charged up the volcano with their burlap sacks, which would return full of garbage. We took a more leisurely pace, mainly because we couldn't take three steps without getting winded due to the lack of oxygen, but also because we planned to camp that night just below the summit.

After about 3 hours of hiking, we arrived at base camp. I was shocked when we arrived because the hike itself wasn't that tough and I thought it would take much longer than it did. But it was nice to get to our camp with plenty of daylight because it gave us time to get ready for the freezing cold that would come with the sunset. After collecting some firewood, a group of us summited the peak to catch the sunset over the Pacific. Even though it was cloudy, the view was incredible (photos below). We stayed there for about an hour, but like clock-work, once the sun went down, the temperature dropped to nearly freezing. We rushed down to our tents to get a fire going and eat some supper. After a hearty dinner of beans, bread, and - of course - campfire-roasted schmores, we all went to bed to try to rest before our early wake-up to catch the summit sunrise. I slept fine, but one of our buddies had a serious case of altitude sickness and was moaning and groaning all night with splitting headaches.

At 3:45am my alarm sounded...time to summit. Still freezing, we crawled out of our tents and started hiking again, but this time it felt much tougher due the to the cold and soar muscles. It was well worth it though because right around 6ish, the sun came out and we could make out the chain of volcanoes stretching from Antigua to Mexico (about 8 volcanoes in all). Definitely one of the highlights of Guatemala so far.

With Tajamulco down, I've now summited the highest volcano in Guatemala (Tajamulco), the third highest (Acatenango), and the fourth highest (Agua). Now I have the second highest in my sites, called Tacana (photo below), for January. #1, #3, and #4 highest down. Next up, #2.

Chris taking a photo with Summit in the distance

Base camp

Summit sunset. Volcano in the background is called Tacana; second tallest in Central America

Chris on the summit at sunset

6:03am. Summit sunrise over the entire chain of volcanoes in Guatemala.

I think you can make out about 8 different volcanoes.

The quote above, by Teddy Roosevelt, should really be the Peace Corps motto. It also relates perfectly to the work we've done in the park over the last month.

Since I last posted, we finished construction of a bridge that crosses a small river at the entrance of our park that swells during the rainy season. Below are some "before and after" photos. We re-used wood from an old indoor soccer field that was torn down in July. The wood from the rafters served as the base of the bridge, and 3-foot slabs from the building's facade were laid across the walkway of the bridge. Our finishing touch was to fill in the sides of the bridge with bamboo donated by a nearby coffee farm.

Shortly after we finished the bridge, I invited two bird experts from a town called Coban to come for a second visit to our park to do a bird inventory. Knut Eisermann and Claudia Avedano, from Cayaya Birding (http://www.cayaya-birding.com), know Guatemala's birds possibly better than anyone else in Central America. Just standing at our look-out, they identified about twenty different species of birds through their calls/songs. Having visited our park four months ago, this visit was focused on the migratory population of birds that cross through Guatemala on their way to the States. I never would have thought in a million years they would have found a Baltimore Oriole in San Marcos, Guatemala. Crazy! Our list of birds now includes 55 different species of birds in an area that's about 250 acres.

Continuing the bird theme, we are about two months away from quetzal nesting season (February - May). One of the main reasons the quetzal is a threatened species is because of its fickle nesting habits. It only nests in dry dead trees, which, last time I checked, have a tendency to fall over in wind and heavy rain. Did I mention we get 4 meters of rain every year? In our park, we have tons of beautiful live trees, but these are way to dense/hard for the quetzal to burrow into. So we hung artificial nests last week; essentially dry trunks hung on live trees. Last year a pair of quetzals took to one of the nest we hung, and we're hoping they do again.

So there's the recap of the last month of work. Check out the pics below and check back soon to hear about the half marathon in Xela and my trip to the tallest volcano in Central America.

Bridge Before

Bridge After

Birdwatching with Knut, Claudia, and Marcelino

Hanging an artificial nest

Artificial nest (it's the trunk on the ride side of the living tree).

If I were a bird I'd definitely want to nest there.

Two days ago I ran in the annual San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta "Race of Friendship". The 11km race started in a town called Rodeo and finished in San Rafael. As I was warming up for the race, a very nondescript fellow runner came up to me and asked if I was a Peace Corps volunteer. Shocked, I asked him how he knew. "Well," he started, "Out here, we don't get too many gringos. So I figured you were either Mormon, but you don't have a backpack and name tag. Or you were with the C.I.A., but you're too young. So that left me with one option...you must be a Peace Corps volunteer." I laughed and introduced myself, stunned at both the fact that he was worldly and at his deductive reasoning abilities; both a rarity in rural Guatemala.

The race itself was grueling and awesome. Grueling in the truest sense: the 11km (6.87 miles) were all straight uphill, literally. My body yelled at me to stop, but I knew I couldn't and wouldn't, especially because this was my race in my town; I couldn't be seen walking at any point because people in town would start talking about how the gringo couldn't handle the San Rafael race and I would lose all street credibility as an athlete. Awesome in the truest sense because the entire race climbed up the bocacosta (refers to altitude range in between the coast and highlands) to San Rafael, which provided for incredible views of the two largest volcanoes in Central America: Tajamulco and Tacana.

When I entered San Rafael for the final 300M stretch, the rafaelenses (as they're known) erupted and started hollering and cheering me on. It was great. Of course this got my adrenaline going, so I kicked it into third gear (having been in second for pretty much the whole race) and passed three people in the final stretch, which also caused more erupting and cheering. It was one of the most rewarding sports events of my life. It also showed me that the community had embraced me to a much larger extent than I had previously thought, another real spirit booster.

This whole week is our town fair. It started with the race and will finish on Saturday, October 24th: the day of the town's patron saint, San Rafael. So far we've had the election of the Reina de la Feria, which is more or less a beauty pageant to crown a local girl as the symbolic "queen" of the fair. These elections are a surprisingly big part of Guatemalan culture and for almost every major holiday (Holy Week, Christmas, Independence Day, etc) the town elects a queen.

Right now there is music thumping outside in the park in anticipation of our big parade. So far, it's running an hour and half behind schedule...

Last week I started making signs for the Refugio del Quetzal. As always, we have to be creative because our budget demands it. But it works out for the better because instead of being tempted to buy big colorful metal/plastic signs, we are making natural wooden signs from trees that had already fallen in the park. To do so, we use a machine called a 'router' to carve out the letters. After carving the letters, we'll finish the signs with a layer of varnish to weather-protect them. The final product will blend in better with the park and have a more subtle presence, as opposed to big intrusive metal/plastic signs. Plus, hand-made signs are just way cooler.

Here's a tutorial on how to make park signs a la Peace Corps.

Step 1: Draw outline of sign. Letters should be the height and width of a hand.

Step 2: Carve out letters. Remember the golden rule from kindergarten: stay inside the lines.

Step 3: Revise and add any finishing touches.

Step 4: Varnish and admire

One handicapped parking sign. You can click on the photo to make it bigger and get a better look at it.

Two weeks ago, a local coffee farm called Las Merceditas celebrated its annual party dedicated to their patron saint St Mercedes. I have formed a great relationship with the family who owns the farm, the DeLeons, and teach English to them and their kids about once a week. The party included marimbistas (above), a beef stew of sorts, a mass, a little dancing, and a lot of hanging out chatting about life in Guatemala and the latest jokes people had heard.

The marimba, shown above, is the national instrument of Guatemala and is included in just about every formal celebration. You'll notice in the video that one of the marimbistas (marimba player...if that wasn't obvious) holds two sticks in one hand to play various notes at once. That's very advanced level marimba. Enjoy!

About a month ago (see: "Casa de Grapas" post) I mentioned that I had entered the Presidential race for the Volunteer Advocacy Council. Well, I'm thrilled to announce that I won and swore-in last Friday to serve the volunteer community until September of 2010.

The Volunteer Advocacy Council, or 'VAC', represents the 180 Peace Corps Volunteers in Guatemala in new policy decisions at the country level and helps boost morale by organizing events like the annual 4th of July party and regional welcome parties for new volunteers. It consists of eight volunteers: one representative from each of the seven regions where volunteers serve in Guatemala, plus the president. In the 90s, VAC had a reputation of being just the party-throwing committee and didn't garner a lot of respect from the Peace Corps administration, but has really changed its image and function in the last ten years for the better. The Council is tapped every time volunteer input is needed at the administrative level and is the voice of the volunteer community for issues ranging from Living Allowances to relationships between volunteers and Project Directors. For example, the Asst Director of Peace Corps Guatemala will be making revisions to the Volunteer Handbook, (our manual on codes of conduct etc.) before the new year and has asked the VAC to be an instrumental part of the process in which the revisions that will be made. So it's a considerable responsibility as President to lead the VAC, but I'm really excited and it should be fun.

A couple of the things that we have discussed initially as a group are establishing a peer review board to hear cases that could result in the expulsion of a volunteer, improving volunteer/staff relations, making it better known which volunteers are where and what their strengths are, continuing the campaign to increase the volunteer living allowance, and keeping the tradition of throwing a rockin' 4th of July party.

Our first meeting is this Friday. We will establish our goals and objectives for the year as well as assign people to the various services that VAC provides (such as merchandise, cook book, survival guide, and calendar to name a few).

Remember how I mentioned a few posts back that I had planted corn by my house? Well here it is! About a month and a half old and 8 inches tall!

Apologies for the lack of posts, but September has been crazy busy.

In late August I went home for the first time in eight months for my brother’s wedding. I expected more of a culture shock when I arrived in San Francisco after being in rural Guatemala for the majority of the year. But to be honest, it was just like I left it. My friends were still there, the good places to eat hadn’t changed, and we wound up going out to the same bars that we had always gone to. The only thing that changed was that the Giants were winning. Maybe I should stay down here for a little longer…for the good of the franchise.

I did notice that everything was cleaner in the U.S. than in Guatemala: less trash strewn everywhere, less burning plastic, less gritty. Also, it felt nice to be surrounded by English speakers and people who didn’t make me feel like Andre the Giant.

I spent the following week on the Monterey Peninsula for my brother’s wedding. Will, my brother, did an amazing job planning and threw a great party. We sampled local wines one night, had a beachfront sunset cocktail party the next, and shared the wedding ceremony on the third day in the gardens of an old Monterey adobe that also serves as the Monterey Museum of Art. Truly an amazing week.

Coming back to Guatemala was not as tough as I though it would be. On the contrary actually, I looked forward to getting back. However, no sooner did I get to site did I get sick again. We think it’s some kind of virus (maybe related to mononucleosis) and really didn’t make it easier to settle back in for the next year and a half. Getting sick down here is probably the worst thing in the world because it totally blows up your perspective on everything and really gets you down. But oh well, I always know to expect it when I get sick, so now it’s just a matter of getting better, which I’ve already started to do.

Casa de Grapas. I planted some corn in my yard to the right of the house. It has already sprouted and this view should look a lot different in about one month when the stalks are higher.

Kitchen area

Four planks of wood: $8

Eight cinderblocks: $3

One piece of rope: $0.35

Homemade closet: Priceless

Bathroom, complete with hot-shower and pink shower curtain.

Yeah, that's right, pink shower curtain.

"Pila", or "sink that you use to wash everything that's too dirty to be washed inside".

Notice the compost container to the left; never thought worms could be so interesting.

Casa de Grapas (House of Staples) has debuted in San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta. This was a huge personal upgrade for yours truly and has completely changed my experience. I feel much more integrated into the community now that I have my own place. I have neighbors I greet every morning and afternoon as I go to and return from work, I grocery shop for myself, and - in general - I have a much larger ownership over my life. This is not to say that living with my host family wasn't enjoyable, they are really solid people, but I constantly had this nagging feeling that I was a visitor in the town.

I've started to cook for myself a bit. I make my breakfasts and dinners, and eat lunch (the biggest meal in Guatemala) with my old host family to keep that relationship going. The standard breakfast has been either cereal with banana or the occasional four-egg omelet packed with veggies. Thanks to Mac for bringing down my French coffee press because now I can start the day with a freshly brewed cup of coffee, instead of a mixture of watered-down Nescafe and three table spoons of water. Dinners usually consist of some kind of starch and some black beans. I'll mix it up every now-and-then with a pack of mac & cheese from the market in San Marcos, but that's a rarity.

Another development is that I submitted my application yesterday for the President position of the Volunteer Advocacy Committee. The VAC, as it is known, is the elected group of eight volunteers (of 178) that represents the greater group of volunteers in any administrative context and serves as a support structure for all volunteers. Election results should be released in a couple weeks.

That's the latest. I'm heading home a week from Friday for my brother's wedding. Can't wait! More than the wedding itself, I can't wait to see family and friends; especially my sister's children who - I'm sure - have grown a ton since I've been gone.

Oh, and we beat "The Machine" in last Sunday's soccer game. That puts us in third place out of twelve teams. Playoffs bound!

'Slow and steady' should be the mantra for August, which is fine with me.

The boys from the water projects had to return to their primary duties of meter reading and fixing the city's water tanks, which left Marcelino, Saul, and I to continue with the trails and fencing in the park. We lost a bit of momentum, but for our numbers we are advancing considerably. Marcelino and I worked out a system where he would go ahead of me, digging holes where our fence posts would go. I then follow, inserting the posts into the holes he dug and filling-in the space around them to secure the posts in their place. We're focusing on the posting first and are getting pretty efficient at it, having covered about 1km of our 1.5km trail.

The unexpected parts of working in the park have been both the most trying and entertaining. For example, we ran out of posting two weeks ago and had to bring in some more from a nearby coffee plantation. After the load was dropped off, we had to somehow get it from the entrance of the park to the point where we had left off with our work...about 1km away. With the very few resources that we have in the park, both economic and human, Marcelino and I had to haul 80lb loads of wood on our backs down into the park, using a what's called a 'nekapal' (pic below). The first three loads were fine, but after the 4th and 5th, supporting that kind of weight with essentially just neck and upper back muscles started to take its toll. But this is Peace Corps right? This should be expected, and it was actually pretty fun.

Another highlight of August (so far) has been the start of a new soccer league (pic of field below). I pried and searched all over to get myself on a team, and found myself one in '12:30'. 12:30, the team's name, is a San Rafael team made up of a bunch of young guys who I had met in town. Yours truly debuted at goalie, but after realizing how boring that position actually is I asked to be moved to forward. We have a big game on Sunday against 'The Machine', the team currently in first place.

In signing off, the best part of the past two weeks has been moving into my new house, but that is a whole other post in and of itself. More to come.

The Refugio del Quetzal Team

Carrying one of many loads of wood using a nekapal

One of our trails mid-contruction

Breakfast in the park

Sunday soccer

Rockin' and rollin' again in good old San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta. After a relaxing couple of weeks and a successful site visit to two other Peace Corps sites with my mayor and team, we had a great week of work in the park.

Having been inspired by Brittany's site at Corazon del Bosque (about 3 hours from San Rafael) Marcelino and I started building a fence on our main trail that heads down to some of the best quetzal-viewing parts of the park. It serves both as a protective boundary at some points and a visitor corraller at others. But given that Marcelino and I are a team of two, sometimes three with Saul, the work went slow and steady. All the materials we're using for the fence (wood and bamboo) have been recycled back in to use after having been leftover from various projects at nearby coffee farms.

We're probably about halfway on the fencing with our main trail and have at least another two weeks to finish up the other half. After that, I'm looking to start building some signs using a router and a little paint. Updates to come.

Marcelino and Lisandro after a long day of work

Working with Marcelino to tie-off a piece of fencing

Section of finished fence

Don Carlos (mayor) helping out with fence construction. Campaign 2012 anyone?

After a couple weeks out of site due to meetings and a little vacation, I'm back at it in ol' San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta.

The last couple weeks in a nut shell:

I took my first couple days of vacation at the end of June to check out the rest of this incredible country. Stop one, Pacaya Volcano to visit another volunteer and good buddy, Jesse Festa. Pacaya is one of the more advanced Peace Corps sites and ranks as the second largest tourist attraction in Guatemala behind Tikal due to its proximity to Antigua and volcanic activity (see pic below). Taking advantage of the natural fire pit, we carried up a bag of marshmallows and roast them over the open lava to make schmores. Really tasty, but it came at the expense of almost roastring our faces off because the heat from the lava was so intense. Also, with the constantly changing and shifting lava fields one has to be wary of tumbling lava rocks as pieces break loose.

From Pacaya I headed up to Coban, about 5 hours northeast of Antigua. About three months ago I signed up for the Coban half marathon, which is a huge event in Guatemala and one of the premier races in the world. The problem with signing up for a race that early in a Third World country is that you never know how your health will be three months from the sign-up date. Sure enough, I was bed-ridden for about 6 days before I started my travels and ran all of 0 times in teh 10 days before the half marathon. That said, the nerves were pumping the morning of the race. But all went well and I wound up finishing with an average of about 8 minute miles and finished second of all the Peace Corps volunteers who ran.

Since I was in Coban, I wanted to check out my buddy Oliver's site who's working with a rafting association on the Cahabon River...did I mention he has no running water or electricity? He took us down a 22km stretch of river that took about 4 hours and did not dissappoint. We hit this one part of the river called the Devil's Throat that almost bucked us out of the raft, but managed to hold on. After visiting Oliver, I shot over to Semuc Champey (pics below) to see one of Guatemala's best natural wonders. Semuc is basically a limestone table above the Cahabon River and is fed by surrounding springs, making its waters crystal clear and the perfect temperature to swim in. We hopped from pool to pool, jumping off of little cliffs or trying to turn smoother ledges into slides. Definitely one of the highlights of Guatemala thus far.

From Coban I hopped on a bus back down to Guatemala City to pick-up Mac from the airport, one of my best buddies from the States. After a fun-filled weekend in Antigua, including the annual and infamous Peace Corps 4th of July party, we headed up to Lake Atitlan for a couple days of R & R.; much needed after a stressful and tough couple first months in-site. We stayed at Casa del Mundo, an unreal hotel built into the cliffs surrounding the lake with views of San Pedro and Santiago volcanoes. Those couple days really helped recharge my batteries and get me excited to go back to my site and get some good work done.

Pacaya volcano (Jesse's site). Very active and very hot....schmores anyone?

Another day at the office for Jesse

Semuc Champey from above

Travis, me, and Tony at Semuc

Mac and I on our hotel's private dock on Lake Atitlan at the end of his trip.

Taking GPS coordinates. Now we know what the park looks like and can make a map.

Hopped in the back of this pick-up to hitch a ride down from the park and found I was in good company.

One of the first completed sections of trail we finished late May

View of the neighborhood where my new house will be

What a difference a month makes. After the introductions and ice-breakers of April, May proved to be filled with much more momentum and an increasing sense of direction on the work front. Don’t get me wrong, it is still only month two in a brand new Peace Corps site, but I feel like we’re making leaps and bounds.

A lot of the work we focused on was in the park. With the rainy season approaching, Marcelino, Saul, and I installed drainage lanes on the sides of our most frequented trails and leveled out a few sharp edges to preempt what would have been guaranteed erosion. We also took measurements of the park for the first time and got a sense of the length of our main trail and how we want to change it. Right now it’s about 2km as I said in the photo below, but we’re thinking about extending so that the exit puts our visitor into the meadow as oppose to coming back the way he or she entered. One of the more exciting accomplishments was taking GPS points of the entire park to have a real visual of what it looks like with altitude change. The main advantage with the GPS points is that now we have the data we need to make a map of the park.

Looking forward there’s still tons to do, and we still need much more focus and direction. One of the main things will be registering it as a protected area at a local level through what’s called an Acuerdo Municipal, or Municipal Act. That will allow us to assure that the next mayor will not be able to come in and sell the trees as firewood at the most fundamental level, and at the highest level will help us register it with CONAP, the Guatemalan national parks agency.

Until next time.

Saul putting in some basic drainage lanes

Marcelino and I measuring the length of our most traveled trail for the first time. Turned out to be about 2KM.

Recording our results

Don Carlos, mayor of San Rafael, in his truck as we check out the upper limits of the park

What a whirlwind of a first month. April in San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta proved to be a taste test of all the unexpected challenges, new experiences, and emotions that I was expecting from my two-year service. I had plenty of ups-and-downs with work and getting settled-in, but overall I really like my site and the work that I'll be doing here.

The park to which I've been assigned is called the Refugio del Quetzal, a terrain of about 8,000 square kilometers, that the current mayor bought during his first term. It serves as one of the few remaining habitats for the national bird of Guatemala, the quetzal (pictures below). The bird itself has been on the brink of extinction for a number of years due to deforestation and habitat destruction, an unfortunate common theme in Guatemala. Our goal is to preserve their environment, improve their numbers, and hopefully open the park to tourists in the future to generate revenue for the community of San Rafael.

In my first month we've already made some good progress. During Semana Santa we started a log book of all the visitors, giving us good marketing information on the profile our average visitor. We also asked for voluntary donations from our visitors, which generated about Q600/$85 in four days, enough to pay for a few tools and wood to continue building-up the basic infrastructure. As far as the infrastructure of the park, we basically have none. The trails need attention, we don't have letrines, and there's no place to throw away garbage. So we started small this month and are really focusing on improving the entry to our park with better stairs and drainage. I've also put together a budget for our most basic needs (tools, manual labor, and materials) to develop the first part of our trail. The total is about Q14,800/$2000. Now we just need an outside organization to help with the financial support, which is definitely the part that will stall our process the most.

San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta

Refugio del Quetzal

Quetzal, national bird of Guatemala

Saul swinging from a vine

The air in the Aurora International Airport was thick and heavy as we walked out of the gate of Flight 1033 from Miami. I drew in a deep breath that quivered with blend of anticipation, anxiety, and the resignation of giving-in to the complete unknown. Looking out from the huge panel windows that enclosed the airport, I could see that Guatemala City was not a forgiving place. Like many third world capital cities it had the corrugated tin-roof hovels, a layer of smog, and vast sprawl of a city that seemed to have crept up on its inhabitants. I had seen capital cities like this before, but knowing that this would be my home for the next two years was a daunting prospect. Not knowing where I would live, what I would be doing, who my friends would be, if I'd have friends, and all the other question marks and unanswerable questions combined into a weight that began to suffocate me. "Well, this is it...Peace Corps," I quietly said to myself.

As I slowly settled-in to my surrounding over the next month, the weight of unknowns slowly lessened. I made friends, felt encouraged by the efficacy of Peace Corps training and their support structure for their volunteers, and formed a great relationship with my host family in San Antonio Aguas Calientes where I lived and worked during our three-month training period. Before I knew it, not only was I accustomed to the new lifestyle complete with chicken bus public transportation and the occasional bucket bath, but I began to appreciate its simplicity and earnestness. Every night I sat around the dinner table with my host family after the standard dinner of eggs, black beans, and tortillas (to fill the gaps that the other two left). With no T.V. or other distractions, we were forced to enjoy each other’s company; chatting, laughing, and sharing stories from the day. Also, being a town with a 97% population of Mayan Kaq'chikel inhabitants, there were many dinner conversations between mothers, grandmothers, and grandfathers in the local Mayan language (called Kaq'chikel). I found those conversations to be the most interesting, ironically enough because I had absolutely no idea what they were saying. The language, phonetically, was like nothing I had ever heard before; a guttural blend of clicks and hard-stopping consonants. Unfortunately, like the other twenty Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala, spoken Kaq'chikel faces extinction due to the disinterest of up-and-coming generations who prefer to invest their time learning English.

San Antonio crew with Jorge (Spanish teacher)

Development work is a slow process, period. It's unlike any other field to which I've been exposed and it definitely has pluses and minuses. During my three months in San Antonio I got my first taste of development work with a local women's cooperative of weavers who were looking to better market their goods and - in general - increase revenues. Luckily I was not alone and had the help of three other stud volunteers: Molly, Brittany, and Maria. Combining our experience, creativity, and problem solving skills the four of us met with the group (or their leaders) every Friday for three months to give them a better set of tools to compete for their share of the incredibly saturated Antigua woven goods market. The philosophy of Peace Corps work is "capacity building". That's to say that in every thing we do, the single objective our work is sustainability. With the women's cooperative, they were involved in just about every step of every process we did. They learned how to organize themselves, how to work as a team, basic business tools (marketing, cost-benefit analysis, etc.), and - at the end of our three months - hosted a two day cultural fair in San Antonio to attract tourists from Antigua where they sold typical Mayan food and their woven goods...not bad for a group of ladies who didn't receive high school education and grew-up in a severely machista culture. There were frustrations, but overall we had a very positive experience and were satisfied with our work.

Doña Irene preparing for Day 1 of the two-day cultural fair

After the three months, the thirty-two volunteers in my class swore-in as real deal Peace Corps volunteers on March 27th, 2009. I had the honor of speaking on behalf of the group at the swear-in event, which was held at the Ambassador's house, and gave a ten-minute speech in Spanish following the Ambassador to thank everyone who helped us during our training.

At swear-in with Ambassador McFarland

Now I start my two-year service where I expect a whole new suite of challenges: gaining the confidence of my co-workers, community integration, and dealing with general isolation. The fact that I'm a new volunteer in a new site adds a whole other layer of complexity as well. The list of challenges is long, but I welcome them with open arms.