Guatemala

 

A Not-So-Pleasant Commute

Guatemala - March 03, 2006

Today we took a supposed "luxury" bus from Cichang to Flores, Guatemala. Oddly enough, luxury would be the last word to describe our commuting experience. The way the bus system works here is that the owners of the bus are only allowed to keep the profit from people sitting in the seats, but usually allow their drivers to profit on anyone else on the bus. As a result, people are jammed in the bus like sardines, since the driver is allowed to profit from as many people as he/she can fit on the bus. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to sit on any bus that is going a fair distance. On our bus today, we stood for nearly 3 hours, going through extremely sharp turns and very frequent slams of the break pedal. To make things worse, Patrick was very sick (most likely from something he just ate) and was forced to stand the entire time.

We decided that because of Patrick's current illness we should get off early in Flores to have a chance to get a little rest. Because of our current vicinity to Tikal, one of the largest and most well-known Mayan ruins in history, we have decided to visit the ruins as a fun excursion. Health permitting, our goal is to be there tomorrow before heading over to Belize.

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Encouraged

Guatemala - March 03, 2006

Last night was a pretty rough night of sleep. We were already well aware of the fact that the region we were in was home to many wild animals including snakes, tigers, elephant and insects such as spiders and ravenous mosquitoes. But it was a rude awakening to see a monster tarantula on the bedroom wall minutes before we went to eat. When we came back in after dinner, it was gone (so I spent the night waking up wondering where that thing actually went). In the morning, we noticed there were two black scorpions not far from where our beds were. Yikes!

We were both humbled and encouraged today as we talked with Eliseo and Juana. Through our conversations we were both surprised to learn how we have been able to also encourage and inspire them. They are both preparing to step into a phase of life that is totally dependent on faith and pursuing a calling. Although they both love the people and the community here in Chichang, it is a drastic difference from their lives in Antigua where they have a beautiful home, a good career and an amazing family. It has been particularly difficult for them to cope with leaving their children behind.

But, as they mentioned to us, these few days have given them a a big boost in encouragement to know they should take the leap of faith and move here to this village. They could both see that we were in a very similar situation not too long ago (being called to pursue a calling and uproot from our lives) and how liberating and exciting it has been for us in this journey.

I was so blessed to be able to meet this couple. It has been incredible for us to hear the vision that this couple has for this village and for it's people. Although we are leaving with nothing tangibly to show from this project, it is a great feeling as we leave knowing that we were meant to be here. It is very evident Eliseo and Juana will undoubtedly be used to impact an incredible number of lives.

-Lee

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New Guatemala Photos 2

Guatemala - March 01, 2006

New photos have just been added from the western highlands, northern highlands, Tikal and Antigua Guatemala. Check them out! -Lee

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Can You Ear Me?

Guatemala - March 01, 2006

Midway through yesterday's trip, Eliseo stopped to show us a river and signaled for us to get out of the back. Seeing his excitement, I knew it would be smart to respond promptly. I had been enthralled by the audio book I was listening to and without thinking, yanked my headphones out of my ear with quite a bit of force. As soon as I pulled the ear buds out, I noticed that I was unable to hear out of my right ear. When I glanced down at my headphones, I noticed the gray bulbous soft-plastic tip was absent from the right headphone. I reached in with my pinky finger and my heart nearly stopped when I realized how far the tip was lodged in my inner ear... so far in that Patrick could not even see it. My first reaction was to try and pull it out with a pair of tweezers, but realized that might only worsen it. Eliseo quickly made the decision to take me to the nearest doctor he could find, and in five minutes we found one. However, this wasn't exactly the clinic I was expecting.

The small, dark, musty room contained a rusty examination table draped in old butcher paper. On the floor just under the archaic leg stirrups, several dried drops of blood were visible as remnants of a prior visit. When the doctor (who happened to be smoking), looked in my ear with his instrument I felt him push the earbud even farther into my ear canal. He, shook his head, pulled out a rudimentary chart of the ear canal and said "the sing is riiight here." It was about three-fourths of the way down my canal. The doctor looked at Eliseo and said (in Spanish) "I'm going to need you to hold him down." Then he pulled out an 8 inch pair of needlelike tweezers to rescue my earbud (and my hearing). I felt the cold tweezers slide down my canal and within a minute, could feel that he was pulling it out safely! Thankfully, everything turned out great. I won't mention what he charged us for 10 minutes of his time, but it would be safe to say that we were ripped off.

-Lee

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(Slight) Change Of Plans

Guatemala - March 01, 2006

It's been an interesting experience for us to go against something that intuition (or logistics) would tell us is the illogical thing to do. However, we are learning exactly what that means at the moment. Logically, it makes a lot of sense to begin heading south so we can depart Costa Rica in time. Instead, we have decided to go north to the highlands of Guatemala.

A few days ago we were sitting outside waiting for Jaime to pick up his wife, who had been with her parents for the afternoon. Jaime came out and asked if we would like to meet her parents. "It will only take five minutes," he said. Those five minutes quickly turned into four hours. In fact, we were even invited to stay for dinner. Unbeknownst to us, Lilian's parents (Eliseo and Juana) are at a similar crossroads that we faced just less than a year ago. They both feel called to uproot from their comfortable lives and follow a calling in the northern highlands of Guatemala. The village they feel called to (Chichang) is very remote and very impoverished. But they know it is something they are called to do. As we sat and listened to both of them, I was amazed at the boldness and the faith they both exemplified, especially coming from a place in life where it would be very easy to settle down.

On the following morning of the departure, we got up around 4:15 am in order to get an early start on our eight our journey to the Guatemalan highlands. Eliseo and Juana were hoping we could ride with them in their car, but we found out late last night that the car was not working properly. As a result, we ended up riding in the bed of their Isuzu pickup truck all the way up. Thankfully, they were both kind enough to prepare the back for us far beyond our expectations, complete with a mattress and even a tarp to shelter us from the rain It was a pleasant surprise to see what they had set up for us, since we were both mentally preparing for eight hours on a hard metal pickup bed.

When we finally reached our destination, we were amazed how far inside the thick jungle this community was set. Just few minutes after our arrival, we watched two locals with shotguns enter the extremely dense vegetation in attempts to find and kill a tiger that had eaten two cows in the last week! Poisonous snakes, crocodiles and many other insect and animal species are also very prevalent here.

Eliseo wanted us to get a grasp of this community he and his wife feel called to reach, so he took some time showing us around and introducing us to some of the villagers. From our initial assessment of the village and it's people, the poverty and health issues are quite extreme here. The majority of families live with little to no access to clean water, and the majority of water is drawn from small water basins that are barely below the soil. One family we visited had a two foot deep water basin in their back yard that they were using for everything (drinking, cooking and cleaning). The sewage from their outhouse literally ran right into the basin. All four of their children sadly had very evident signs of malnutrition and ringworm. I really felt an incredible heaviness and oppression at that home. There were no smiles, even from the children. It was a major contrast from the smiles of the children we witnessed just a few weeks prior at Ixil.

At the moment, we do not know how long we will stay here, but we are blessed to be in the company of two individuals with such an incredible vision. We definitely feel humbled and encouraged to see the enormity of what this great couple is called to.

-Lee

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New Well Site

Guatemala - February 28, 2006

Jaime took us today to the western highlands of Guatemala to see the next well site and to drop off a large volume of materials (including generators, PVC and concrete). Our day started around 5am, since the highlands were roughly around 5 hours west of Antigua. When we arrived at the Mayan village, the color palette of the bright clothing popped sharply off the green vegetation, with brilliant shades of pink, yellow, teal and orange evident in the dress. Once we stopped at the site to unload the heavy equipment, it was unbelievable to witness the willingness of the women to get involved. We had some incredibly heavy items to unload from the truck (such as generators and air compressors weighing upwards of 100 lbs, and 40 lb bags of dry concrete), but it did not seem to phase many of the women at all. In fact, a few even enthusiastically joined in with babies strapped on their backs! Needless to say, we were humbled by the work ethic and the excitement the people conveyed about having a new clean water well in their village.

On the drive back to Antigua, Jaime and Liliane gave us a treat by taking us to Lago de Atitlan (Atitlan Lake), considered to be one of the most beautiful lakes in Guatemala. To say the least, it was well worth the detour. There were 3 volcanoes surrounding the lake, skyrocketing off the ground nearly 4,000 feet. It was an amazing site and a perfect end to our time with two of the most amazing, genuine and hospitable people we have come in contact with.

-Lee

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The Village of Ixil

Guatemala - February 24, 2006

The majority of the people that live in Ixil are from the highlands of Guatemala. During the Guatemalan civil war (which just ended in 1996), many of the families of Ixil moved to Mexico until the fighting subsided. Several years later when they returned to their land, they discovered the government had taken the land they owned. Left with nothing more than the clothes on their back, they were forced to find a new place to live. As a result, 38 families decided to relocate to this village.

The people of Ixil have an astonishingly kind and compassionate spirit, and it is uncommon to see someone without a smile. Men commonly work in agriculture or ranching, while the majority of women stay at home to watch the children and prepare the meals. Families are fairly large, with most averaging 3-4 children. Although the family dynamic is strong, many of the children are left on their own at a fairly young age. The children are extremely outgoing, and throughout the week many constantly run up to us asking to either play, have their photo taken or be thrown up into the air and caught. It was refreshing to see the strong dynamic of the entire community, especially between all of the children of the village. At times, it felt like we were a part of a large family reunion.

The amount of money that each family will owe for living on the land is quite staggering. After a five year grace period, the families will then have eight years to pay 64,000 Quetzales, or approximately $8,000 USD. If they are unable to pay this amount, they will be unable to live on their land.

The biggest source of equity for the families in this village is the cattle they own, and the majority of this livestock is held in a very nice corral (complete with a single file chute system) on the edge of the village. This livestock will be a major part of what the families will use to repay the large sum they owe to live on their land. Talking with the ranchers, we discovered that they were recently misinformed by a corrupt local veterinarian that many of their female cows were sterile. His scheme in lying to the villagers allowed him to purchase the cows at a large discount (since many were apparently unable to breed). Peter, one of the members of our Living Water team, heard about this story and offered to check close to 80 cows to see which ones were pregnant. This was not an easy task for Peter but it provided a huge relief to the ranchers and the community, since many of the cows he checked were in fact pregnant (as opposed to being sterile)! Even more exciting is that Peter was able to teach the ranchers how to check for pregnant cattle for the future.

This sub-story has been exciting for all of us to witness, as it will provide both the ranchers and the community with knowledge that will help to maintain the lifeblood of the community. It was very exciting to witness the ranchers learning and to see the excitement in their eyes as they each were able to find a baby calf. At times, they were beyond words with how grateful they were.

-Lee

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New Guatemala Photos!

Guatemala - February 22, 2006

Check out the first batch of photos from Guatemala! A recent change you will notice in the gallery is that we are now including descriptions and micro-stories to some of the images. We hope this will help to explain some of our experiences in a bit more depth. Please feel free to post a comment or email us on what you think. We'd love your feedback. We are working continuously on new photos and will upload more as time allows.

-Lee

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No Shortage of Unclean Water

Guatemala - February 21, 2006

Ixil and Guatemala for that matter, suffer from a lack of clean water, not a lack of water. In fact, from the highlands to the lowlands to the coast, water is either abundant or easily accessible. Open wells, such as the ones that are in some of the homes in Ixil, allow contaminants to enter into the water source. The difference in drilled wells is that the water source (underground aquifer) cannot be contaminated from animals or people above ground either directly (dropping a dirty bucket into the water) or indirectly from cattle, animals, trash or human waste.

Today I spent most of the day helping Mary..aka Hygiene Mary as we all called her. Her purpose on this trip was to educate the village on hygiene and sanitation issues. I not only learned a lot while I translated for Mary but it also opened my eyes to the necessity of training the people in basic sanitation. Without proper sanitation, a new well becomes nearly pointless.

Mary covered basics such as cleaning your hands after working in the field or handling the animals, or prior to cooking and eating. Concepts that are engrained in our American minds from an early age are foreign to them. Some homes have no walls, with only packed dirt for their floor. Their beds are either planks or simply plastic on the floor, which they lay blankets on. The kitchen is as simple as a wooden table; when more space is needed, the floor is used.

Using clean buckets to bring water from the well, keeping the well covered, and emphasizing the need to rinse eating utensils and cookware with clean water may seem like common sense, but I saw that for some of them, it was something entirely new.

-Patrick

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Arriving To The Well Site

Guatemala - February 20, 2006

Yesterday we traveled about 4.5 hours southwest from Antigua towards the coast to get to the city of Ixil, (prounced ee-shEE-le). Ixil is a very remote village just a few miles from the Pacific coast of Guatemala. The village has approximately 38 families living along a one-lane road which is more or less a wide path. Ixil has no running water, sewer drainage system, electrical power or phone services. By all accounts it is quite primitive by western standards. Water is not scarce though. Several homes have a hand-dug well that can be used to draw water to bathe and wash clothes. Ixil received its first clean water well just last year when Living Water drilled a well and installed a hand pump on the west end of the village. With the spread out nature of the community and news that more families will be relocating here, the installation of a second well on the east end of Ixil was planned.

The drilling rig that is being used is a DR-20, a small two-wheeled unit that is unhitched from the truck and mast raised. The pilot hole was drilled today, which was roughly 100 feet deep and 2 inches in diameter. The pilot hole has three key functions: it provides a very good sampling of what the soil is like and also provides accurate depths of the water aquifers. During the pilot hole drilling, soil samples are recorded every 5 feet as well as every time a reservoir is reached. Indication and assessment of a water reservoir can be made based on the smoothness and size of the rocks, since the reservoirs commonly reside on a rock layer. The pilot hole is also imperative in the drilling of the main 4-inch drill hole that will commence tomorrow.

-Lee

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First Days In Guatemala

Guatemala - February 19, 2006

We arrived to Guatemala City late Thursday night after a long day of travel. Our expected 4 hour layover in Dallas was nearly non-existent due to a late arrival from London and near-comical delays in customs and every security check point we passed.

Our initial plans were to capitalize on the four hour layover by posting a couple of blogs. Instead, the one and a half hour delay on our flight coupled with our customs and security checks caused us to delay our Guatemala flight by nearly 30 minutes (and when we say "us," we mean we were the sole reason the plane had a late departure). Apparently it's not a good idea to have two bags on a plane with 2 unaccounted passengers. As we were going through the second security check we heard our names called numerous times on the loudspeaker for the entire airport. And wouldn't you know it, our departure gate (46) happened to be the farthest distance in the airport from the security check. When we finally reached our plane (out of breath), we were then humiliated as the pilot announced "Ladies and gentlemen, the two men that have delayed our flight have now just gotten on board." Then, just as we were about to sit down, the flight attendant stopped us and began to aggressively reprimand us for being late. It was one of those times that however much you tried, you couldn't sink any deeper in your seat. We were both so exhausted mentally and physically from the past several days that we were asleep before the plane was airborne.

We arrived Thursday night to Guatemala City and were able to find a fair-priced hostile (approx. $5 US) in the middle of the business district of Guatemala City. Neither of us thought that an old, rickety bed with a 1-inch thick pillow would look as appealing as it did to us that night (in fact, anything horizontal to lay on would have been more appealing than the rigid, sterile airport seats we became accustomed to sleeping in the last 2 nights). After a restful night in the hostile we hit up some authentic Guatemalan food and even had a chance to mail some of our items home. Word to the wise...Do not mail anything from Guatemala unless you plan on spending close to five times the average shipping cost. We were told by a postal worker that the prices skyrocketed after a Canadian company took over the mail system from the Government a few years ago.

We decided to head to Antigua that night to get a jump on being prepared for the well project. The station in Guatemala City is more like a circus, with literally hundreds of people and buses in every direction. After a few minutes on our first bus, we were told we needed to take a transfer to get to Antigua. We spotted our transfer bus at the opposite end of a fairly dark park. Apparently, this park was not the best spot for two gringos to be at this time of night (according to a few locals), which we quickly believed as we caught several people following us within a minute of walking into the park. Once we got through the park, we spotted the bus appropriately called a "chicken bus," (since they are known to pack people like chickens on these buses). The drive was a long hour, with extremely sharp turns and a driver that seemingly enjoyed taking the corners as fast as his chicken bus would allow him to.

We arrived to Antigua around 10pm and were greeted by Jaime and his wife LiLianne. Jaime is one of the key individuals that we were put in contact by Living Water. Within spending a few minutes with this couple, we knew we were supposed to be in Antigua a day early. We were amazed by the humility of Jaime, who wouldn't call himself anything more than a helper for the team (he's a lot more, by the way). Jaime is the go-to man when it comes to digging wells in Guatemala. His house was Living Water's compound; and Jaime and Lilian seemed to utilize every square foot in their house to accommodate the teams of up to 18 people staying there (showers, kitchen and food). Outside, we were able to see endless amounts of drilling equipment such as the necessary parts, trucks and tools that is required to drill a well.

-Lee

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