My cup runneth over

About three weeks into our first big GROW project we had our first major catastrophe. The outside part of the fourth wall of our new fish pond collapsed. At first look it seemed like maybe it had nothing to do with our project and only happened to be really close to it. But it turns out the little drainage ditch we made so all the muddy rainwater runoff didn’t run directly into the pond wore away at the wall on the other side until it caved- a wall that stood for over a century. My first thought after seeing the of mass of rubble lying on the ground was; forget the great fish pond, we’re going to be run out of town! We had collapsed their wall- right onto the road that was then impassable and in the process also severed a pipe leading to a community sink. But as we were out there in the rain working with some of the community to clear the debris away, they all still had smiles on their faces. They never once directed a single bit of blame or anger towards us or the project, but only looked forward to how they were going to fix the wall and make it stronger so this would never again happen in the future. It was then we realized that when you have gone through as much as these people have, a small section of collapsed wall is only a grain of sand on a large beach, compared to all the hurdles they have overcome.

Our tears of sadness and frustration with the new setback to the project turned into tears of humility for the greatness of these people. Believe it or not, they were the ones telling us not to worry, it’d all be alright. Within the same day the road was cleared, the pipe was fixed and within two days there was a beautiful wall replacing the older dilapidated one. This time the wall was supported by strong trees with root systems that will only get stronger over time. The whole process was amazing. This is just a small example of how wonderful a capable these people are.

Although La Florida’s history is amazing as well, I will not go to much into it here, But basically this group is made of 36 very large families that have been trying to uplift themselves for the past four years since they have had ownership of their land. For two years prior to buying the finca (farm), which was previously owned by a large landowner and then abandoned, the people here lived in makeshift tents out in the woods, in constant fear of government raids and the wilderness around them, fighting to gain the land they desired so that they could make a better life for themselves. When we first started our nonprofit, The GROW Initiative, these where the people we dreamed of helping. Although when we had originally come to the now community owned organic coffee finca we had only planned on staying a short time, within the first day we knew for sure that this was the place to do our first large scale project. Five weeks later and with the generous help of people from all over the world, the La Florida Nutrition and Aquiculture Project was completed. The project included the construction of an aquiculture pond with over 200 tilapia, a medicinal plant and vegetable garden, house to house and community nutrition education and a community participation greater than any we have ever seen on any of our past projects over the last three years.

Please check out The GROW Initiative Site to read more about the project and the history of La Florida.

In the past five weeks we have spent with these wonderful people, we have worked along side them in their fields, their schools and on the aquaculture project. All of our meals were shared in different families’ homes, usually by candlelight, continually laughing with the numerous children as the dogs and chickens weave in-between our feet hoping we might drop some scraps. We have traveled with them in the back of pickups and hiked with them many times in the pouring rain the half hour from the “main” dirt road to farm. We have spent most of this time without electricity as their hydroelectric generator is the only source and seldom works. In these types of circumstances you get to know people pretty quickly. Yet every day we are more and more amazed at the accomplishments of this group.

There are many people to thank that contributed to our efforts in this big project. As La Florida has a burgeoning cultural tourism project there are the occasional groups and individuals passing through. Those that were there over the course of the project helped greatly- whether carrying loads of dirt from the soon-to-be pond or clearing weeds for the garden. So thank you to the volunteers ranging from a group from Canada to those from Portugal to New Zeland. Of course thank you as well to the generous donors to The GROW Initiative, without whom the projects we were able to accomplish here would not have been possible. But for the work on this project and for everything else, the biggest thanks must go out to the community of La Florida, the people who are now a second family to us. Not only was it the hard physical labor which everyone from the kids to the president of the community helped with, but for the ideas and insights. From the start we emphasized to them that the project was not for The GROW Initiative, it was a project of the community and we were merely there to facilitate; and that is how it was.

As you can see by our photos the children here have this light within them and can lift anyone out of a bad mood with one of their smiles or laughs. Walking down the street we would be greeted warmly by everyone we saw, feeling not as an outsider but as a true part of the community. Leaving La Florida we had tears in our eyes as we pulled away, riding in back a pick-up as always. Things we miss are still coming to us, but mostly it is just the warmth of the people. Being in such capable hands, we know the projects we started there will continue on, just getting better and bigger with time. We look forward to going back someday and feasting on some tilapia raised in the aquaculture pond! Until then, we will have the photos to remember everyone by and stay in touch always. And if you ever find yourself in Guatemala, go to La Florida, you’ll be glad you did.
The before and after pictures for the Aquaculture project. The medicinal plant garden can be seen in the background of the after picture.

Really, we loved it.

We have so much to say about La Florida but not the time to say it, but we did not want to leave the blog on a rant though. The five weeks we spent there were incredibly rewarding in so many ways. We could not have asked for a better location to complete our first big project that was wholly implemented by The GROW Initiative. We promise we are currently working on the blog that our time there and the wonderful people deserve. We’ll get it up when we can, perhaps after a visit to another organic farm we are going to work on in Belize (another location where at least generally there is no power, not so conducive to staying up to date on the websites!). For now, we’ll let the pictures speak for themselves- we took about 800 while we were there (no exaggeration) but our album has just the highlights, or check out the GROW site which tells much more and will soon have a full report of our projects there!

My God they’re biting my eyes!!!!

So in this wonderful paradise we have found a problem; BUGS! I once read a quote from a very wise man that said “I friggin’ hate all of these damn mosquitoes!” While I might not be as wise as he, I certainly can agree with his logic. Why not use bug spray? you ask. Well, while DEET 2010 proof tends to work on most of the mosquitoes (except for of course the ones that go for your eyes) here we are dealing with more complex problems. Here we have an entire array of biting bastards. The worst of which is completely immune to DEET, you can hardly see, and they hurt worse and itch more than nearly all the rest. While they are pretty much invisible, you can kind of hear a high pitch laughter as they fly in you shirt, up your pants, and through the mesh of your mosquito net like it is the Holland Tunnel.

The moral of this story: if you come to the tropics, forget the bug spray and the mosquito nets and use the room that you save for the gallon of calamine lotion. Remember you can at least take comfort that the pink color is not a sunburn (since you’re not getting any sun as you’re trying to cover up every square inch of your body despite the heat). Oh, you might also want to bring along mittens to wear. It worked well when we were kids to keep us from scratching our chicken pox, and apparently you don’t gain this type of self restraint with age.

And when you pass back through customs and they think you’re a poor heroin addict because it looks like you’ve been shooting up for years but keep missing veins, just tell that customs official to spend some time in the coffee farms of Guatemala and see what his arms and legs look like!

It’s actually a good thing no one here understands English, because sometimes it’s just too much to take, and the profanities I shout would make them think I was crazy for sure. Although I’m guessing it doesn’t matter as a Gringo yelling at himself, scratching from head to toe, and swatting at the air might just cause the same affect.

But other than that, life is great! Actually it really couldn’t get much better than how it is going now. We’re sorry about the five week hiatus, but we will be putting up some more blogs about our amazing time in La Florida and our projects very soon.

We're back in Florida!!!

Well, La Florida to be more precise- a small coffee finca SW of Xela, about an hour from Colomba, the closest “city” that can’t even be found on almost any map. It is rural, and just the way we like it. Granted this also means no electricity, but there is running water-running straight from the river. We came for a week and we’re staying for a month. We are no longer riding the curtails of other organizations, now The GROW Initiative is initiating its own project! Since things do not always go to plan in the developing world, we’ll wait until we really get our big project rolling before the big reveal! But we’ve been doing a lot of different things here like helping out different families with different agriculture projects, teaching them how to update their website and fix their broken email, Brooke has been teaching about the environment in Spanish (interesting considering it’s hard to even hold a conversation!) or teaching English, making chocolate straight from tree to mouth (yum!), getting bit by a goose, and exploring the area, picking fruit along the way.

We’re still turning into corn tortillas, or is it corn tamales that we have more often? Eating with families every meal has been a great way of getting to know lots of people in the community (it took us a while to understand their concept of a week though- they kept saying “Yes, you eat with a family for a week and then you switch to another family” but somehow for us this translated into 5 families over the course of a week… not sure of that math!). The people here are truly amazing.

Tomorrow I think we get to milk a cow and make cheese! Everyone should come visit here, it takes you to a whole different pace and style of life, rather refreshing. (And if you do want more information, check out their website- www.websamba.com/laflorida, (under construction right now) or their blog blogspot.laflorida.com. More to come soon on our projects here, check back and to our GROW site!

Chocantariy, a beautiful place to volunteer

When things start moving, they start moving quickly. We’ve found more projects than we have the time/resources to do. Our second GROW project was in association with CasaSito. We had the pleasure of working with a wonderful team building a water catchment tank for a family in the small pueblo of Chocantariy, home to an underserved indigenous Mayan population. This means that we got to crowd our brains with even more foreign words, this time in Qui’che (one of 24 different indigenous languages spoken in Guatemala). Chocantiary is just outside of Momostenango, the small city where we stayed. Maybe in the near future it’ll even be a tourist destination of new hot springs, for it seems right when we were there a new volcano had been forming beneath our feet; there’s a broad section of scorched earth and hot water flowing now.

No one in the community has running water, though it is hopefully in the near future for those families that are privileged enough to have made it on the list for the new system. Unfortunately, some of the families that need the water the most have been unable to make this list and therefore have to continue walking long distances to a nearby river for all of their water needs. This is the case for Estaban, his lovely wife and 7 children (though we’re not so sure of the exact number… seems like different faces were always popping up!) for whom we built the tank.

From a big hole in the ground to a completed tank with a capacity of over 6,000 liters, we worked beside these warm and loving people to help improve their lives. The children were especially adorable (though as they ran by we were often scared of them falling into our perfectly smoothed cement!) and the food quite delicious. We certainly are getting to eat like locals; they say you are what you eat, and if that’s so then we are corn tortillas! The family was very generous “y muy amable” and will hold a special place in our hearts.

It was such a rewarding week and we got to make new friendships with the likes of Rory from Ireland, Maria from Germany, and Kim and Matt from the US and Estaban from Chocantariy; everyone was a different kind of character and all together we made quite the group. Hopefully we’ll have the same kind of luck in the future with other projects as far as the people we work with. But maybe next time we won’t have to always be running away from the rain at the end of the day down the steepest part of our walk back “home.” As for our week working with CasaSito, it culminated in a very unique fiesta at one of the schools they support with games (like a dance contest- two big gringo volunteers dancing with two tiny Mayan women, the most awkward thing I’ve ever seen), “big-ups” and good food. It was incredible to see the appreciation of the community for all the work that has been done there to help them uplift themselves.

For more on the Chocantariy Water Tank Project or to contribute to future projects, check out The GROW Initiative.

Guatemalensis and life in Xela

We now have two more weeks of Spanish school under our belt and are all the better for it. We loved the school we attended in Xela (Shay-la, I know, who starts a word with the letter X? Hmmm…but the thought of becoming a xylophone playing x-ray tech in Xela is enticing). Our host family was also perfect. Our new home away from home while studying was a long trek of a whole block away from our school. Our new family consisted of Fransisco, Edna, and their twelve year old daughter Astrid. I would describe the house as very… comfortable. We shared a nice little room, that judging by the multiple posters of teen rock stars, we must have stolen from the daughter, Astrid. The five of us shared one bathroom which was surprisingly not a problem considering we are still getting use to the millions of viruses, bugs, and bacteria that attack your stomach in the most pleasant of ways. The rooms were all located around a courtyard (very common in Guatemala) which meant some very cool emergency visits to that bathroom in the middle of the night, but also a perfect place to hang out or do a three hour secession of hand wash laundry (my favorite).

As all of our meals were provided for us, we able to try all of the wonderful local dishes of the area, as well as 15 different ways you can serve a hotdog in some combination with black beans and corn tortillas. But weather it was delicious tortillas with all the fixings, or white bread sandwiches with globs of mayonnaise (Brooke’s favorite), we were always happy to sit down for a nice family meal. While I have to admit that in the beginning the awkward silences were a little tough to handle. Our Spanish had not progressed much in our week in Antigua and the only English our family new were from the album Chicago’s Greatest Hits (an incredible album that if you don’t have you must get). Needless to say we had some pretty deep conversations. But as the days went by, our Spanish improved and the family was always great slowing down their speaking or at impromptu charades. Communication was even good enough that we could join Edna in the kitchen for learning to cook “comida tipica” of Xela and play an intense game of war (the only card game we knew the words to explain). In the end it really felt like home and we were very sad to say our final adios.

The school is Guatemalensis (and we’d recommend it to anyone!). We had wonderful teachers, Vilma for Brooke and Nancy for Donny. Five hours a day of 1 on 1 instruction has greatly improved our speaking. Well, minus a half hour break mid-morning where we got snacks like mangos, cookies or avocado and tortillas, plus coffee or tea! Whether you get snacks or not I think is a great way to rate a school. Plus other excursions like to some of the many thermal hot springs in the area or visiting the oldest church in Central America and seeing people weave trajes (typical dress) on giant looms. The directors, Nora and Rolando are great people that are very involved in every aspect of the school and are always there for the students. The school had a very laid back feeling where everyone was always joking around with each other that we really liked, and it wasn’t jammed with students either.

On the GROW side of things, we got to do our first project in conjunction with Guatemalensis. They have a long standing project of support of eight families supported by single mothers in one of the poorest districts of Xela, and amongst those 8 families are 22 children. They support them with food donations, scholarships, education, school materials and in other ways as well. When we visited their community we brought food and got to play with the children (got our butts kicked at futbol) and help them with their homework or do arts and crafts. For more on this project, check out The GROW Initiative site!

We are certainly going to miss Xela. From free concerts at Teatro Municipal with our “family” to a benefit to raise money for a school where we won private salsa lessons (yes, I dragged Donny to them), we have been very busy here. With Spanish school done, our focus has turned to projects and there is no lacking of those in Guatemala (as we are writing this blog a little late as usual, we’ve already worked on a great one, stay tuned for more on that!). We could be here for years with all the good work we could do and are looking forward to the weeks to come.

Oh, and we went through an earthquake.

Lago Atitlan

Time has been flying by, so this is a bit of a back entry, but Lago Atitlan is a beautiful place and deserves an entry. Taking a week off to study on our own was a good idea, though a little difficult to stay focused when you’re in a beautiful place like we were (one day in Panahajel and more in San Pedro). But luckily with hostels that had a rooftop with table and chairs we could away to try to get in our four hours a day of studying, while also taking in the beauty. The lake is surrounded by a handful of small villages tucked deep into the mountains and volcanoes surrounding it. The main mode of transportation is boats running between pueblos. For the most part within the villages there are only a few real streets, and endless tiny labyrinths of paths connecting everything. The people are friendly and at least in San Pedro there is a thriving backpacker scene where we met a lot of really great people, including some old friends from past cities. San Pedro also proved to have the best “bang for the buck” as we stayed most of the time for a measly $40Q or $5US total for the both of us, a much needed break after an expensive language school. Though that certainly included no frills- a tiny room for two and fortunately and unfortunately, we do not have photos of the bathrooms which left a lot to be desired, and that’s putting it mildly! But the courtyard was filled with fruit trees and hammocks, and good conversation with people from all over- thankfully mostly native Spanish speakers so we could practice.

Besides the studies, we hiked “Indio’s Nose” which was beautiful, affording a great view of the lake and many of the surrounding pueblos. One morning was spent on kayaks and in the clear waters. Another day we hiked to San Marcos, a pueblo not far as the crow flies, but unfortunately we haven’t figured out how to walk on water so it took a few hours but was a lovely hike. While there, we were able to meet with the head of the organization Pura Vida (check out their site!), which we may be partnering with in the future on a project for The GROW Initiative. The main focus is recycling, particularly plastic bottles and food bags, turning them into construction material for new houses and schools.

When we finally took off from the lake the day was filled with excitement as is usually the case taking public transportation. On an incredibly steep hill, 4,000 feet above the city there was a loud thump and the feeling in all of our stomachs told us that was not a good sign. Luckily it wasn’t the breaks but the drive shaft (is that what you call that thing? Ask a mechanic) under the bus- the thick metal had just snapped. No moving from there so we sat on the side of the road for the next bus our way. At least as usual there was good company to be had, including someone who lives in Xela that gave us some inside scoop info before we arrived. More on Xela and our great Spanish school next, stay tuned!