Travels con Capella

Flat out

2008-05-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

I'm regretting the dearth of photos for this story.

Norlan drove me around the first 2 weeks of field work. He is a mechanic for an agricultural cooperative that also contracts out driving services. Norlan proved early on his knowledge of great food around the countryside. He joked that his belly was further proof. Everywhere we went he knew bakeries or road side restaurants. An old friend used to say Central America has the best baked goods. I'm inclined to agree.

About two weeks ago on the visits to El Jaguar and Finca Esperanza Verde Norlan and I drove into San Ramon to meet the administrator of Finca. San Ramon is about 18 Km from the reserve on actually fairly good roads. That means most of the dirt road was flat and with only small pot holes. Norland is adept at driving on these roads. It is an art, no doubt.

After the meeting we set off for the Finca. Just as the concrete road ended and dirt began a loud bang signaled the end to the useful life of a tire. Around the 50 pounds of red beans, the spare tire and the two toolboxes in the back of the truck we found no jack. Without a jack we were stuck in the middle of the road.

Norlan found a mechanic in San Ramon with a jack. I knew this when the mechanic rode up on his bike with the jack strapped to the rear rack. The strapping was a used bicycle inner tube.

Not wanting to drive without a spare we went to Matagalpa for a new tire. New tires aren't exactly "new" down here. Vulcanazadores set up shop with used and some new tires and rims. Shops advertise with a tire set upright braced inside another tire with "vulcanazadore" painted on the sidewalls. I have always wanted to check out these places.

Selecting a new tire was quite a process. The tire of choice, the lesser of many evils (a nail was pulled from it before being put on the rim), needed an inner tube for us to use it. Norlan oversaw things with a professional eye.

Back on the road we made San Ramon and a few kilometers more before the new tire blew out, the second flat of the day. We drove back to San Ramon with the tread flapping against the wheel well. At a stately pace of 10 km an hour everyone was able to observe our passage back to the man with the jack.

Turns out the new tire was inflated so high the tread couldn't take the strain and just exploded. Norlan went back to Matagalpa on the spare and I caught a ride back to the Finca. We both missed lunch during our 4 hours of tiring work.

Finca Esperanza Verde

2008-05-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

FEV is south of El Jaguar and east of Matagalpa. Near the town of San Ramon, FEV, like El Jaguar grows coffee. It is indeed a finca, or farm, with farming a big part of what happens there. All veggies eaten on site are grown on site. Fruit trees provide too.

FEV is run by an NGO out of North Carolina. It was started with community development principles firmly in mind. These principles are enacted through donations to the community of San Ramon, building schools and other activities. All employees at the Finca are from San Ramon, except for Giff, the administrator.

I stayed for three days, wandering the forest and trails, visiting the mariposaria (butterfly house), and talking with Giff. A sloth hung from a tree near the parking area. Bananas hang between two trees attracting birds. Convenient rocking chairs on the hill above the bananas made for easy bird watching.

The cabins are comfortable and small seemingly designed to encourage you to be outside as much as possible. The local brick makes the cabins very cozy as the temperatures cool at night.

Benjamin guided me around the Finca, through Sendero Amarillo winding through the topography to the reserve borders and back deep in the forest to a Cascada Manakin. Benjamin is an eager, enthusiastic guide, learning the ecology, birds and plants of the Finca. We spent some time learning how to use the bird guide books, matching plates to distribution maps to identify birds and where they live in Mexico and Central America. No one had taught him how to do that. He was an avid student and his future clients will definitely benefit.

Benjamin is in an interesting situation at the Finca. With a university degree he is considered an outsider in San Ramon, even though it is his home. His lack of knowledge about using the guide books may be a result of the other guides deliberately not teaching him. They may see him as a threat. He will be a very good guide if he can make a go of it at the Finca.

Norlan (l) and Benjamin (r) rest on the Sendero Amarillo.

Nebliselva El Jaguar

2008-05-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

Catching up on posts with these next few. Domitila was the first reserve I visited and the only one so far to get a report on the blog.

The next set of field visits were to Nebliselva El Jaguar and Finca Esperanza Verde. Jaguar and FEV could not be any more different climatically. Jaguar is near Jinotega, in the north and in the mountains, so high in those mountains in fact that it is cloud forest. Every night heavy rains drummed the tin roof of my cabin. Every evening and morning clouds obscured everything, heavy wet clouds bookending the rain.

Birds are everywhere. I saw my first wild toucans here, three of them sitting in a tree just outside the cabin. Chachalacas, large noisy birds, could be heard calling from within the forest. flew from tree to tree. My driver Norlan had a near obsessive need to see Chachalacas, something he got from his father. I suspect this comes from hearing they are good to eat. Norlan was very disappointed not to see the flock of 8 flying from tree to tree near the cabin. (Note: the photo is not mine.)

El Jaguar grows organic shade-grown coffee in the reserve. They have an exclusive contract with Whole Foods through Allegro Coffee for all their coffee This is interesting in conservation
circles. The shade can come from native trees and plants which serves to preserve native flora and fauna, increase carbon absorption, and allow multiple crops to grow on one area of land. I really don't know much about it. What I just said there could be total bunk.

A big chunk of the reserve is unmanaged cloud forest. Thick forest. The kind of forest you imagine when imagining JUNGLE. Things growing everywhere, on everything, taking advantage of any sunlight from a fallen tree to canopy and all points in between.

The cabins fit the surroundings very well. This one is barely visible at the top of the mountain, seen over coffee and bananas.

All five reserves visited!!

2008-05-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

Believing I've been away for nearly five weeks is easier knowing I visited the last reserve yesterday!! I am fatigued and ready to be home. The blog entries reflect the amount of time in the field and my fatigue. All visits have been excellent. I could easily have been on vacation for the quality of location and room and board. Were it not that I was working the whole time.

If anyone knows of some good digital transcription software I would be most appreciative to know of it.

Murciélagos en Masaya

2008-04-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

Volcan Masaya is a national park about 30 minutes south of Managua. We drove in after hours to catch bats. Merlin Tuttle is teaching a group of students and biologists about bats.

The cave and trap site were on the other side of the crater, an active crater that off gases all the time. The lava is visible at night though we didn't stop on the way out of the park.

The group of students had set up a bat trap at the mouth of a cave. The cave looked like it was a collapsed lava tube, collapsed a long time ago if the trees growing out of it are any indication.

The trap is two parallel series of monofilament line strung vertically above a plastic bag. Bats flying out of the cave hit the line and slide into the bag. The trap is so effective that the bag has to be emptied frequently to prevent the bats from suffocating, a very unlikely event so long as someone is there to watch things.

Rafting Rio Cangrejal, Honduras

2008-04-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

So we had some fun in Honduras. We went rafting to gather photos and information for a sample brochure and video to show the sustainable tourism training participants. Rough, right?

Rio Cangrejal falls out of the coastal mountain range near La Ceiba. Funny thing is I think I rafted this river in 1993 when hitchhiking back to the States from Costa Rica. I know I have a business card from La Moskitia Ecoaventuras in my desk at home from that time. The logo hasn't changed in that time.

The river was higher then but the rocks (big rocks, lots of rocks) were pretty much still the same.

A little show of our trip is here.

20 angry men

2008-04-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

A story from Honduras that slipped my mind.

The north coast of Honduras seems to be pretty active for tourism development leading to land speculation on many fronts. Driving from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba we stopped at a small village, Barra Vieja, on the beach. A huge amount of fill had been brought in or moved around to form a raised area that earth moving equipment had flattened out. We learned later this would be some big hotel.

A few minutes away a row of thatched houses stretched down the beach. A few people sat under the sun shelter in the distance. We walked around a few of the huts, talked with folks hanging out.

Back in the van we drove further into the village. Very suddenly a large group of men appeared from a village that previously was sleepy and empty. They made motions like they wanted us to stop which we didn't until one guy with a bicycle stood directly in front of us in the road. About twenty men surrounded the van when it stopped.

Things were pretty stressful for a while as we talked with them. One guy with watery eyes scanned the inside of the van while talking, trying to get a sense of who were were and what we had inside. They let us go after a few minutes and we turned around immediately. We left unscathed though scared.

The north coast is usually Garifuna people. This group was definitely not Garifuna. We think these guys were setting up houses to be able to claim ownership of the beach if it comes up for sale. Drug running is another very high possibility.

Sound link finally working

2008-04-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

See previous post about Honduras night sounds.

Sustainable Tourism training in Honduras

2008-04-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

This is the second sustainable tourism training I've helped with. The first was Guatemala in December. Course content flexes based on the communities, participants, location. This flexibility is important as little consistency exists from one training to another. Like I know after two trainings, right? These are only a few in a series though, beginning before I joined up.

The trainings teach business skills like market analysis and segmentation, budgets, product development, partnering. Also image creation and branding, design basics for materials like brochures, maps, posters, signs. This time podcasting and YouTube were introduced.

Podcasting could be a really easy way to get information to travelers or potential travelers. It is astounding the number of earbuds stuck in people's ears on planes and where tourists are found. Presumably people with enough money to travel also have iPods. They probably also use the Internet for much of their travel research. A complete set of podcasts with details of a destination would help travels decide where to go and might actually help them get around on the ground. They can download the podcasts and listen to them in country.

Would this lead to museum-like recorded descriptions guiding people around a city? How many podcasted zombies would there be walking around Tikal, Mombacho Volcano or Grenada, Nicaragua?

Honduras Night Sounds

2008-04-10T15:33:00.001-07:00

Finally figured out how to get the audio online. Internet is spotty here at the Dodson compound. So, the audio follows after the jump.

The clip is around 6 minutes. I'm talking at the beginning and end a little bit. Working on my radio voice. If you listen closely the ocean comes through in the background.

Link to honduras sounds

Sounds of Honduras

2008-04-09T18:53:00.001-07:00

We flew from Managua to Honduras early Sunday morning. That was my third day in a row waking around 3:30 or 4 AM. The first two nights the howler monkeys at Domitila were the cause. The third time was the taxi to the airport.

From San Pedro Sula we drove to La Ceiba, a place of good memories for my mother who did her Peace Corps time in Honduras. Unfortunately La Ceiba didn't impress me. A lot can change in 30 years. Maybe a bit more time would improve my perspective.

The drive to Balfate, further down the coast from La Ceiba, was quite nice with the ocean to the left and ~8000 foot mountains to the right. The coastal range is really quite beautiful with steep rocky rivers. Balfate is in the middle of no where. The road here is unpaved, dirt with memories of gravel and holes showing the way forward. The compound at the end of our ride is owned by a retired plastic surgeon from Mississippi. He is the host of the sustainable tourism training that brought us to Honduras.

The first night, after a long day of work preparing for the training I walked around the grounds with my field recorder. I'll upload the audio when I figure out how.

Life list boost

2008-04-06T01:15:00.003-07:00

CAVEAT: All apologies due serious birders. I fully realize the following list will induce severe envy on their part. This envy can be resolved by visiting many of the places I will visit, including Domitila Private Wildlife Reserve.

David Davenport, EcoQuest Travel, brought a group of high school students from Raleigh, NC to Domitila while I was there. He kindly let me accompany he and his group on five hikes they took Friday and Saturday morning. As a result I saw and knew what I was looking at more than I otherwise would have.

Here is the list.

Birds:
Magpie Jay
Oropendula
Mangrove Cuckoo
Black Headed Trogan
Whiteheaded Puffbird
Brown Crested Flycatcher
Yellow Throated Vireo
Turquoise Motmot
Squirrel Cuckoo
Wild Muscovie
Tri-colored Heron
Barethroated Tiger Heron
Northern Potoo
Crested Caracara

Herps:
Yellow-headed Gecko
Mexican Parrot State
Banded Gecko

Mammals:
Prehensile Tail Porcupine
Four-eyed Opossum, Philander Opossum

Insects:
Tarantula
Tailless Whip Scorpian
Scorpian (specific type unknown)

Ticks

2008-04-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

After the third hike of the day at Domitila Friday I swung in a relaxed way in a white hammock under the thatched roof common area. A few bugs flew around in the relative cool and shade while outside temperatures hung around 100 with a brilliant blue sky all around. I swiped a mosquito away from my forehead and returned to journaling. A few notes later the mosquito buzzed the same spot. Again I shooed it away. After the third swipe I registered the mosquito as a crawling thing that wasn't going away so easily.

A close look at my shirt and pants showed hundreds (yes, hundreds) of tiny ticks. Little red dots, smaller than the head of a pin swarmed around the cloth. I briefly entertained the idea of freaking out and running for the shower. Inwardly screaming I calmly walked to my room, stripped and turned on the shower. The vigorous soaping and rubbing made me feel much better, confident that I was clear.

The contaminated clothes are sealed in a plastic bag here in my room in Managua, sitting like a puffy bomb in the corner.

Lets say I never knew so well the freckles and birthmarks on my body as I do now.

Domitila Private Wildlife Reserve

2008-04-06T00:32:00.000-07:00

Domitila is this -

and this -

and this -

I heard a gecko last night

2008-04-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

Clucking in shadows and heat.

Going on walkabout

2008-04-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

Spent a few minutes today planning visits around the country. This looks to be a chock-a-block kind of month. No complaints here. I'm looking very forward to having something (data) to look at.

The schedule is really quite intimidating. Before getting into it let me respond to Mark's comment: what exactly I'm doing here.

Several months ago, spring 2007 I think, I found an article about Domitila Private Nature Reserve. The article described this private land owner's goal of conserving her land and running tourism on it, specifically sustainable tourism. The idea that land necessary for biodiversity conservation can be preserved while also providing economic income is a basic tenet of sustainable tourism. Instead of extractive uses the land is visited, appreciated, conserved. That is the basic idea anyway.

Add to this the increasing importance of private lands for conservation purposes and the difficulty of government to protect important ecosystems and manage protected area systems and you get my study. How are private protected areas, in this case in Nicaragua, using sustainable tourism to conserve land?

I'll visit 5 private nature reserves over the next few weeks. Domitila is Thursday for a few days. A large group from North Carolina will be there. Together we'll walk the entire reserve. Very Exciting! Domitila has an agreement with Paso Pacifico, a local NGO to replant trees in their dry tropical forest.

Sunday we leave for Honduras for a week. There is a sustainable tourism training there. Upon return I'll spend a week north of Managua visiting El Jaguar and Finca Esperanza Verde. I'm told El Jaguar has an exclusive contract with Whole Foods for their organic cloud forest coffee.

From there it is back to Managua for an Earth Day celebration. Details yet to come. The next day, back to the field, this time flying to San Carlos near Costa Rica to catch a boat to Sabalos Lodge. This area is the vacation spot of choice for Nicaraguans and prime birding. Montibelli is the last place. I hung out with the owner's son today and in Guatemala in December. Pomares has a reputation for his bird guiding expertise. Meeting him you can see why, very charismatic, very knowledgeable.

Lots of work. Here's hoping it pays off.

Sandino welcomed me

2008-03-31T21:02:00.000-07:00

Augusto C. Sandino were the first words I read in Nicaragua. Hero of Nicaragua, "General to Free Men," his name was across the airport visible from the tarmac as we taxied to the gate. The flight from Houston was very easy. On a mostly empty plane I was still surrounded on three sides by families with young kids. Any fears of were allayed by their good behaviour. Can't blame them for not understanding their situation. Life would suck being unable to pop your ears.

My friend and, now, colleague, Sandy Coria met me at the airport. So great. We worked together in Guatemala last December. I'll see a lot of her over the next five weeks. She will do much of the planning for my travels around Nicaragua. I guess she'll even go with me to Sabalos Lodge on the Rio San Juan.

Sandy drove us through the dark mostly empty streets to my home for the next 5 weeks. I wish I could have gotten a photo of the Rotonda de Christo. huge statue of Christ standing on a large sphere in the center of a traffic roundabout. In the day light maybe.

Met up with more members of the team, Jorge, Wayne and Marvin. They were here still, working late. I can tell this place is a hub of activity. I'm gonna like it.

I liked the sunsetting from the plane. Off in the distance is some bump in the land, visible in the first picture. Lights from the surface replaced the sun, marking roads mostly, winding lines bulging out and blossoming into villages and towns and finally Managua. Quite beautiful actually. Tomorrow I expect to see... what exactly, maybe volcanoes, probably Lago de Nicaragua.

Volcanos at Atitlan: Pretty active place

2006-08-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

A volcano burped in our presence yesterday morning.

Crossing the lake to Panajachel, a 30 minute ride by narrow launcha, the entirety of Lake Atitlan comes into view. The mountains ringing the lake are only the first line with many more mountains visible beyond. Some great number of these mountains are volcanos.

Zipping across the lake I wondered, what happens to this place if/when a volcano blows. And at that very moment Olivier's hand taps my shoulder and points into the distance.

A small puff of smoke was just developing from the pointed peak of a volcano. We watched it grow, rising higher and higher, taking on a mushroom shape until the wind spread it across the sky.

The camera came back

2006-08-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

Good news!! My friends Olivier and Manue rode back with Lilian and I from Nebaj. They are brining my camera with them to San Juan!! I'm soooooo psyched. I'm so dependant on that thing now I can't tell you.

Lago de Atitlan

2006-08-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

First full day on Lake Atitlan in San Pedro. Arriving by boat from Panajachel in the rain makes this sunny day really nice. Staying in San Juan, the little town 1 km away from San Pedro. San Pedro is a major travelers town. Lots of gringos wandering around. Lots of support for travelers.

Soon as I set my pack down at little way up the hill from the dock a gringo in black got up from the table a few buildings down. He clearly had me pegged for something. He got up a little too quickly, his face showing a mixture of greed and desparation. He had to wait his turn to approach me as another tout was already working me for a ride up the hill to the town center or to a good hotel or any number of other attractions of the town.

Once the way was clear the man in black approached. Long, unwashed hair dangling, head hanging, he looked at me sideways asking for a cigarette. He then launched into the traditional greeting of the tout: Where are you from? I know a great hotel. I can walk you there.

I told him I was from Guatemala, that I had a place to stay and walked away.

I dread coming to places like this. I actually feared landing at the dock. Heavily traveled areas always feel more dangerous. The travelers are mostly who scare me. This gringo for example seemed more desparate and prone to thievery or deception than the touts striking up business.

And so I made my way to the language school, on foot, and then to San Juan, in the back of a pickup, where the pace of life and presence of tourists is slower.

Pictures of Atitlan may be in short supply as I left my camera in Lilian's car yesterday. I'm really, really bummed.

Geometry of Ixil

2006-08-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

Traveling in the Ixil met all my best travel criteria. Off the beaten track due to remoteness and little tourism infrastructure(compared to other areas) few people come here. Many of the gringos we saw were probably development people. Even if there were many other gringos the feeling is very distant from the developed tourist areas.

Nebaj, Chajul, Cotzal, the three main towns of the Ixil triangle, are still very traditional, tradition seriously modified by the Spanish conquest for sure but tradition nevertheless. A majority of the women wear traditional dress. Some of the men still do as well, though most wear western dress of button down shirts or t-shirts and pants. mud brick and spanish tile dominate architecture in Chajul and Cotzal instead of cinder block and concrete.

And the area is stunningly beautiful! The towns sit in deep valleys surrounded on all sides by high forested mountains. Saturday Lilian, Jason and I walked out of Nebaj over a pass into the small town of Acul. Coming into view the Acul valley had all the pastoral beauty of Europe with the wildness of steep mountains. We were stunned and stood just looking for a few minutes.

A few more minutes walking brought us into Acul. Acul is a model village created by the government during the war to control the Maya. Two groups of Maya live here, about 400 families, thrown togehter. The fields and streets were very clean, well kempt, though pigs, chickens and turkeys wandering around or tied to fences don't match our criteria of clean.

Walking through town some children started talking with his, jumping from Spanish with us to Maya with each other. They wanted us to take pictures of them. Mom came out and we fully expected her to shoo us away. And an amazing thing happened. She approved and disappeared into the house only to return in her best dress, her finest wuipil and corte, shirt and skirt.

A frenzy of photography ensued. They loved seeing themselves in the digital cameras, laughing and poking each other at every image. Soon they were taking our pictures, quickly grasping how to use the cameras. We tried looking as serious as they do when having their picture taken but couldn't quite get there.

This experience touched all of us, the family too I think. Many Maya disapprove of pictures of themselves, some ask for money. This family only wanted copies. We have their address and will send the pictures.

Oh geez, and then there is the dairy and cheese! Great cheese. I'm bringing some home with me.

There is much, much more to tell about these three days in the Ixil but they must wait for the slide show.

PS: My connection here is too slow to upload pictures. Look for them later.

Pictures of Flores

2006-07-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

Flores is a beautiful town.

Dang, moving on

2006-07-23T18:47:00.000-07:00

I'm getting to know Flores pretty well. This is my fifth or sixth night here. There are places that feel more comfortable when traveling and this is one of them. I return here because of its proximity to San Jose, the little town where I studied last week, and because it has ready amenities. This coming week I travel again...because I left the school.

I feel really bad leaving, the good-byes were very difficult. I think leaving was the right decision. I told a little lie about why I was leaving and because I wasn't ready to share my concerns and criticisms.

The school seems very young. It is very much part of the social program of Bio-Itza, supporting families taking in students, providing jobs for teachers, engaging the community. This is one of the reasons I came here. My money directly supports the community and is designed so. But this may not be the best way to run a school.

For example, the pool of teachers is limited to the community, a population of 2000. They really have to take who they can get. To improve they must evaluate, criticize and risk firing. And, whoa, if you've lived in a small town you know how this can create animosties and cause problems. But to be succussful there really must be a way to evaluate teachers and train them very well. Such a small place must be superior to other schools to draw enough students and succeed. I was given no such evaluation nor even asked my thoughts, not even when I left.

My teacher, while technically competent in the grammer and clearly proficient in the language, she was unable to answer questions about why. For instance why a certain pronoun was necessary when using reflexive verbs. Her answer was just that the correct way was the correct way and any other way was wrong. I learned on my own it has to do with direct and indirect objects...I think.

So, dissatisfaction caused me to leave. I'm disappointed not to learn more about the program. I never saw the forest reserve. I didn't learn more about their future and how I could help through research in my masters program. I suppose this is something I can still do over e-mail. They are on the verge of a tourist boom. San Jose will have a paved road within the next year. The town anticpates this through some pretty extensive infrastructure development, an acquatic park, a beautiful city park and further development of the waterfront. Bio-Itza could really benefit. The community could really benefit.

So, I'll take my expectations about learning, how quickly the language would come back, to another school after a week of traveling. I've had to scale back what I thought I could learn in two weeks. Kelly, you were right about two weeks not being enough.

Winter down here

2006-07-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

From Tuesday of last week:

Day three in the region of Lago de Peten Itza (accent the 'a'). Third day of tremendous monsoon like rains in the afternoon. These suckers come down hard and fast. The joke around the school was that a whale washed down from the mountain and through the streets. Don Reginaldo, the director of Bio-Itza, started it and it spread.

Back home with Florinda and Fausto the cliff they/we live on collapsed in to the back yard of the house below. Fausto and his son, Ismail (Ishmael?) were hard at work redirecting the run off from my roof. I really should get pictures of their repair as it shows the weird combination of ingenuity and backwards thinking that goes for construction.

We really do live on a cliff. Well, my room is flush with a precipitous vertical wall. The rest of the buildings are further back though just as high up. And I was seriously concerned about washing down the mountain in these rains.

So I come home and my fear of coming true. Crazy. And the fix? Catch the water running off my roof and route it around the other side of the building, away from the cliff collapsing on the other side. Eroding the other side is only a matter of time as all vegetation is cut very, very short or pulled up leaving nothing to hold the soil in place.

A deluge as seen from my bedroom window, facing east, the prevailing direction for weather.

After the storm, still dark but with glowing points of sunlight.

I can learn another language. Riiiiiight.

2006-07-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

Today is Thursday, Thursday night. Four days of language school behind me. Here is what I wrote Monday. Still a frustrating experience but I'm getting over it. the joke around the school is that I'm going through an identity crisis, not knowing which language to speak in. Words in both languages escape me. And my comprehension of spoken Spanish is through the roof. I just can't speak. I'm sitting in a room soundproofed to prevent sound from escaping but everything else comes in crystal clear.

Monday, the first day of language school and feeling pretty frustrated. Took an 87 question test to assess my ability. While the teacher looked on I sort of whipped my way through the questions, like I knew the language.

Which I don't, well, not really, well, sort of, kind of. Here is a common conversation with Alcira, my teacher:

Me: I don't know how to conjugate in past imperfect. I'll guess this one.

Alcira: You say you don't know the verb or even how to conjugate it but you know the right answer!

Me: Yeah, I don't know what I know or don't know.

So, right, how does my being able to answer a question on a test help me speak the language. I answered the questions mostly correctly. Many of the words, conjugated verbs in particular looked very familiar. Reading them and speaking them, remembering them to be able to speak them, is a whole different story.

I'm like a child all over again.
"I want"
"I need"
"I see"
"I know"
"I have"

And who needs those pesky pronouns anyway!!

Location, location, location

2006-07-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

Screenshots of Lago De Peten Itza, Flores and San Jose taken from Google Earth.

Chicks on bikes

2006-07-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

Flores is too small for cars. Walking across the island takes 10 minutes. Walking all streets, less than an hour even stopping to look up each street at the church atop the hill. Before you know it you've mastered the layout and focus changes to seeking new angles for viewing the brightly painted buildings.

Without cars motos and motorized three-wheelers dominate. Men drive the three-wheelers. Almost every moto is driven by a woman. They cruise around sometimes solo, other times with passengers. A three person family just drove by, child straddling the gas tank, mother driving, father behind. And a young couple rides the outer ring road in the gloaming beside the lake arms wrapped around for more than just support.

Women driving motorcycles is atypical for all other places I've seen here. Guatemala City is dominated by men. The highways too are dominated by male drivers. And the driving is crazy. Returning from Chichicastenango my driver sideswiped a moto and the two of them exchanged angry words and glances until my driver reached down as if to grab a gun and the cyclist sped away.

The leisurely pace of Flores is far preferable.

What AM I doing here?

2006-07-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, right, so you've probably guessed I'm in Guatemala. It only takes reading the first two posts to guess that. This is the first time in 4 years to be out of the country, excepting Canada in March. Canada is just not culturally different enough, you know?

But here is the full story: Friday June 30 was my last day at work, at a job I did for over 7 years. In that time I often talked about returning to school, getting a masters of PhD even. As the plan to leave the job progressed so too did applying to graduate school and planning a break. Guatemala is the break.

Guatemala is also thinking, learning and planning time. Two weeks of language school in San Jose doubles for learning about Bio-Itza (accent on the 'a'), a community initiative for economic development, cultural and environmental preservation through eco-tourism. Check out Bio-Itza.

Bio-Itza is a great example of a local initiative attempting to preserve land and culture and use it to support the community. Well, I hope they are. I won't know until living with them and studying their programs. But they have a 36 square kilometer forest preserve, the result of a land distribution exercise through the goverment. Don't confuse this with distributing land to the poor, activities sometimes threatened or enacted by those crazy populist goverments. I really don't know the program that gave them the land. Right now they are lobbying to make their preserve an indigenous preserve, the first such thing in the country.

The Itza are Maya from Peten, the northern part of Guatemala. The town of Flores, where I'm staying for the night and the capital of Peten, is the ancient original city of the Itza. Lest this evoke images of bedding down and dining in old stone structures know that their city was destroyed by the Spanish. The Itza relocated across Lake Peten Itza. The small towns on the north shore are the current homes of the Itza.

Flores itself is an island connected to the mainland by a constructed causeway. This place is absolutely gorgeous! The island rises in the center with narrow spoke roads rising steeply from a ring road. The church, main park, ball courts, and theatre are all on top. This is a central gathering place at night for locals anyway. I was the only tourist when I walked through Saturday evening. Many more people wander the streets taking in the air and generally socializing. This is a place to spend many days just relaxing. It is also a launching point to visit Tikal, an incredible Mayan city. One of many in the area but the easiest to reach.

A bit of the tourist, a bit of not

2006-07-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

Wednesday morning I boarded a tourist shuttle to Panajachel and the next morning to Chichicastenango, both heavily touristed but cool places. I struggled with these places and the means of arriving there but had good times all the way. The wow factor comes from the non-touristy thing I saw in Chichi.

Thursday's and Sunday's are market days in Chichi. Hugely popular with tourists but also regular market days for locals. Upon arrival I wandered the town streets before entering the market. The cemetary on a nearby hill attracted my attention for the brightly color tombs and smoke rising from its midst. And, wow, there were two Maya ceremonies happening, a funeral and something that looked like a blessing. Um, yeah, wow. There are no pictures and I didn't hang out long or gawk, these are pretty personal events and blessings and funerals in the US would not be so interesting, you know?

I feel very lucky. Lilian, my host here, feels the same. Here are some pictures of the cemetary and the market. There is a movie also which might be too big to post. Look for that at the slide show in August.

This is a picture of the small church (?) where the blessing took place. The small orange glow is a fire tended by the man on the left. He would drag a crook, like a shepard's crook, through the fire while chanting in a mixture of Quiche and Spanish. The fabric in the right side is my pant leg. The picture was taken between my legs while sitting on a tomb.

Diesel smells like home

2006-07-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

It just does, diesel that is. The fume belched from busses, trucks and carros, not to mention the motorcycles (though I just did), curiously settles and transports me. Occassional wiffs of diesel fumes in the States evoke passing deja vu. Though there is nothing, nothing, quite like miles of struggling, surging motorized street clogging traffic to announce ones location. I am firmly in Guatemala, a surging, struggling place in itself.

The first hint of this place, the thing that tickled my brain's difference mechanism, actually came on the plane when my row mate left his arm touching mine and expressed no discomfort from our legs touching in the narrow space. We Americans are very conscious of personal space, our boundaries are wide. Folks in the countries I've traveled, "developing" countries, "traditional" countries, are much more comfortable with physical closeness. I like it. The physical proximity feels comfortable.

Even the streets are tight and close, stores chock-a-block:

This is the street one block away from the gated community where Lilian lives. That's her in the bottom picture. Lilian picked me up at the airport in her sister's cute little Toyota. You ain't seen nothing like that little car in the states. It is perfect for these streets and likely for the country which, Lilian tells me uses oil for 80% of its energy needs. The other 20% is hydro. But, yeah, little cars rock these streets.

I'll try to fit the story of Marcelino into a future post. Already stories to tell and I'm here less than 24 hours. The rest of the day looked like eating and driving around. Driving to get the car fixed. Driving to exchange money (cambiar dinero). Driving to get home. Lots of driving. Methinks some walking, outside the city will contrast well with the driving.

But I've had a soft landing with Lilian's help. This week will be my acclimitization week before heading wholly into the remote regions of El Peten, Guatemala's drier, low-land northern area. Gonna get good and immersed in the language and culture up there. Right now, I'M goin' to sleep.

In transit

2006-07-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

Michael is on his way South. When he sees this posting, he'll fill you in on the real story.

-KA on behalf of MV