Guatemala, June 2019
I was on my way to a small village in the rural highlands of Guatemala to make chicken coops for Mayan families. While the bus was making its way to Quetzaltenango, I was glancing through some documents sent to me several months earlier. Included was a list of items that was described as "essential" and additional words to the effect that should you neglect to bring any of these things with you, a living hell awaited. The list was full of the sorts of things that as a kid, my family viewed as concocted by Madison Avenue, and completely unnecessary. We never once bought insect repellent, chap stick, sunscreen, sun glasses, rain gear, security whistle, water bottle or a fanny pack. My father viewed as frivolous anything the neanderthals had gone without.
There was one item on the list that caught my eye because of the wording - "sandals (for showers)." When I first saw this I had the distinct impression that this was less than forthcoming which I later found to be the case during a phone conversation with the trip leader. Evidently, on occasion, scorpions have been found in the shower stalls in some of the places where we will be staying.
Needless to say I didn't pack any sandals but once we arrived and I decided to take a shower, I gave it
a good going over before I stepped inside. The shower stalls where we stayed in Guatemala were small compared to what I'm used to. Small enough that it's not unusual to bump against the shower curtain while you're in there. The minuscule bar of soap provided by the hotel was difficult to hold onto and I dropped it. Bending down, I spotted the soap and once again inspected the wet floor for critters. Relieved to not find anything but the soap, I grabbed it and began to straighten up. In doing so, my butt cheeks came together and clamped shut on a fold in the curtain. I jerked around so fast I nearly ripped the curtain off the rod.
When we arrived in the village I got started on the chicken coop project. On my first trip to Guatemala I volunteered to build coops but the entire set up was disorganized and I begged off after a couple of hours. I was frustrated by this since providing chickens was such a simple way to improve a family's diet and their income. Sadly, the tools and process used to make the coops was so basic that it took four adults an entire day to finish a single coop. When a group of volunteers visits these highland villages there are limited resources to tackle everything that needs attention - installing clean-burning stoves, delivering clean water filtration systems, providing medical care, emergencies brought on by domestic violence or abandonment, etc. Improving the method for making coops had always been something that was needed but resources are scarce. I got busy doing other things on that first trip but kept thinking about a return trip some day and a more efficient way to make chicken coops.
Seven months later I was back in Guatemala in an attempt to make up for quitting on the coops the first time around. I had spent a couple of months designing and building jigs (holding devices) for the various construction tasks (cutting lengths, drilling pilot holes, framing, etc.). I was able to make everything at home before I left but had no chance to test the design because the lumber that is available in Guatemala is sized differently than the wood in the U.S. I had carted the jigs and power tools all the way down to Guatemala with the real possibility of ending up looking like a complete buffoon. One of the devices I made was too large to fit in my luggage which required me to cut it in half and reassemble it after I arrived.
My lack of Spanish made for a painfully slow start but once we got organized, two people could finish a coop in about 90 minutes. The devices simplified things so that we could rely on youngsters and the adults could work on other projects. Xela AID's scholarship program for village kids enrolled in school requires them to work several hours a week as tutors, serving meals, housekeeping, etc. Every day, a half dozen kids aged eight to twelve years would show up to help out. They took to it right away and I soon fell into a supporting role handing out materials and recharging power tools. These kids, girls and boys, worked in teams and quickly mastered the techniques of operating the tools and constructing the coops. They worked quietly and steadily, rotating the different tasks among the team as they went from one coop to the next. They did their own quality control once having been shown how. After the second day, there wasn't much for me to do. Occasionally, I would catch a glance from one of the kids and an expression clearly meant to ask, "What are you doing here, old man?" No matter, I was glad the jigs worked and many more families than in the past could look forward to having their own chickens, eggs, a source of protein and eventually some income.
When each coop was finished, the team of kids would write their names on it with a sharpie. On the last day we spent in the village, the kids also helped deliver the coops with chickens to the families that were next on the waiting list. The kids and a few of the on-site staff knew the process as well as I did by mid-week, and I left the jigs and tools for future volunteer trips - typically five per year.
With a week of chicken coups behind me, our group of volunteers had moved onto a unique twelve-cottage inn carved into the side of a cliff above the most beautiful lake in the world. I wasn't going anywhere for the next two days and figured on testing the limits of the bar and kitchen. I've been to only a handful of places outside the U.S., so my perspective may be limited but I wouldn't trade the Casa del Mundo overlooking Lake Atitlan for anything. For those two days, you couldn't have driven me off that property at gunpoint.
The first morning at the lake, while cinching up my belt, the buckle came off in my hand. My current girth requires some force to pull my belt through the buckle to a point where the prong can line up with the last hole. After several years and thousands of violent wrenchings, the belt and buckle had finally succumbed.
Later that morning at breakfast, a couple of fellow travelers mentioned that they were going shopping in the village. It was the last two days of our trip and I planned on staying put, so I handed them the buckle-less belt and asked them to find me a replacement of equal length.
Having sent my friends off in search of a new belt, I conducted a taste test of the six brands of Guatemalan cerveza they carry at the inn and was working my way through the appetizer section of the menu, when the shoppers returned from their outing. They'd been gone over half a day and seemed somewhat put out. Evidently, Guatemala leads the undeveloped world in malnutrition which had made finding a belt for me nearly impossible. They walked into countless shops featuring leather goods, unrolled the buckle-less belt and watched the proprietor recoil in horror. However, they persevered and eventually found possibly the one belt in all of Guatemala that was up to the task. I told them how much I appreciated their efforts but it did little to take the sting out of them having lost the better part of a day.
There was one item on the list that caught my eye because of the wording - "sandals (for showers)." When I first saw this I had the distinct impression that this was less than forthcoming which I later found to be the case during a phone conversation with the trip leader. Evidently, on occasion, scorpions have been found in the shower stalls in some of the places where we will be staying.
Needless to say I didn't pack any sandals but once we arrived and I decided to take a shower, I gave it
a good going over before I stepped inside. The shower stalls where we stayed in Guatemala were small compared to what I'm used to. Small enough that it's not unusual to bump against the shower curtain while you're in there. The minuscule bar of soap provided by the hotel was difficult to hold onto and I dropped it. Bending down, I spotted the soap and once again inspected the wet floor for critters. Relieved to not find anything but the soap, I grabbed it and began to straighten up. In doing so, my butt cheeks came together and clamped shut on a fold in the curtain. I jerked around so fast I nearly ripped the curtain off the rod.
When we arrived in the village I got started on the chicken coop project. On my first trip to Guatemala I volunteered to build coops but the entire set up was disorganized and I begged off after a couple of hours. I was frustrated by this since providing chickens was such a simple way to improve a family's diet and their income. Sadly, the tools and process used to make the coops was so basic that it took four adults an entire day to finish a single coop. When a group of volunteers visits these highland villages there are limited resources to tackle everything that needs attention - installing clean-burning stoves, delivering clean water filtration systems, providing medical care, emergencies brought on by domestic violence or abandonment, etc. Improving the method for making coops had always been something that was needed but resources are scarce. I got busy doing other things on that first trip but kept thinking about a return trip some day and a more efficient way to make chicken coops.
Seven months later I was back in Guatemala in an attempt to make up for quitting on the coops the first time around. I had spent a couple of months designing and building jigs (holding devices) for the various construction tasks (cutting lengths, drilling pilot holes, framing, etc.). I was able to make everything at home before I left but had no chance to test the design because the lumber that is available in Guatemala is sized differently than the wood in the U.S. I had carted the jigs and power tools all the way down to Guatemala with the real possibility of ending up looking like a complete buffoon. One of the devices I made was too large to fit in my luggage which required me to cut it in half and reassemble it after I arrived.
My lack of Spanish made for a painfully slow start but once we got organized, two people could finish a coop in about 90 minutes. The devices simplified things so that we could rely on youngsters and the adults could work on other projects. Xela AID's scholarship program for village kids enrolled in school requires them to work several hours a week as tutors, serving meals, housekeeping, etc. Every day, a half dozen kids aged eight to twelve years would show up to help out. They took to it right away and I soon fell into a supporting role handing out materials and recharging power tools. These kids, girls and boys, worked in teams and quickly mastered the techniques of operating the tools and constructing the coops. They worked quietly and steadily, rotating the different tasks among the team as they went from one coop to the next. They did their own quality control once having been shown how. After the second day, there wasn't much for me to do. Occasionally, I would catch a glance from one of the kids and an expression clearly meant to ask, "What are you doing here, old man?" No matter, I was glad the jigs worked and many more families than in the past could look forward to having their own chickens, eggs, a source of protein and eventually some income.
When each coop was finished, the team of kids would write their names on it with a sharpie. On the last day we spent in the village, the kids also helped deliver the coops with chickens to the families that were next on the waiting list. The kids and a few of the on-site staff knew the process as well as I did by mid-week, and I left the jigs and tools for future volunteer trips - typically five per year.
Later that morning at breakfast, a couple of fellow travelers mentioned that they were going shopping in the village. It was the last two days of our trip and I planned on staying put, so I handed them the buckle-less belt and asked them to find me a replacement of equal length.
Having sent my friends off in search of a new belt, I conducted a taste test of the six brands of Guatemalan cerveza they carry at the inn and was working my way through the appetizer section of the menu, when the shoppers returned from their outing. They'd been gone over half a day and seemed somewhat put out. Evidently, Guatemala leads the undeveloped world in malnutrition which had made finding a belt for me nearly impossible. They walked into countless shops featuring leather goods, unrolled the buckle-less belt and watched the proprietor recoil in horror. However, they persevered and eventually found possibly the one belt in all of Guatemala that was up to the task. I told them how much I appreciated their efforts but it did little to take the sting out of them having lost the better part of a day.