I'm getting a goat soon!

What you see in front of you is my future goat's future home :)

Don Miguel and I built this shed in his backyard, seeing that I don’t have room for a goat where I live, unfortunately....

At any rate, I'm pretty excited. I’ve wanted a goat for a while, but I knew I had to build his shed first. So - now that THAT detail is out of the way I’m planning on going up to San Marcos and getting my goat THIS WEEKEND (should be awesome)

Everyone should know a couple things – first of all, it’ll be a male goat. I thought about getting a lady goat buuuuuut it probably wouldn’t have worked out for various logistic reasons. Second, this will be an eating goat – in about 10 months he’ll be butcher bound and we’re gonna have jerk stew for dinner. Lastly, I don’t have a name picked out for him…..yet (!!)

I’ll be posting a picture of him soon and I would love to have your input as to what he should be named. All submissions welcome.

Ok, so that’s the most important part of the post, but I figured I might as well include some pictures of the building process (Don Miguel’s kids helped out too). Here we are splitting bamboo for the fence; Don Miguel cracked each piece with the axe:


And I pulled them apart (arrrr)


Here the kids and I are sawing the corner support posts:


The basic frame:


Starting to come together:


Lashing the bamboo slats with bailing wire:


Done! This will be a goat house in like 3 days. I’m pumped.

Making progress

Things have been going great with my bottle school – we finished pouring the first set of columns on Tuesday, and we’ll probably start with the horizontal beams in the next couple of days. But it’s been a while since I’ve posted pictures; let me start at the beginning….

First things first, you have to dig a big square trench. Here's where the school is gonna go!


I dug out some of this dirt a little while ago; the afternoon rains make it thick and heavy (chopping it up is no piece of cake). So you have to take an occasional break:


Of course, at some point you’ll need to get sand delivered (for the concrete):


Then you’ll place the rebar for vertical columns and move onto pouring the cimiento corrido (honestly, I’m not even sure what this is called in English, but it’s the base of the building's foundation, the stretch of concrete running along the bottom of the trench):


Then you lay a few runs of cement blocks on top of the cimiento corrido, completing the foundation (you can’t use bottles yet, unfortunately :) ) That’s my program supervisor Carlos Julajuj on the left and community coordinator Don Miguel on the right:


Next thing you do is fill in some dirt and prepare the solera de humedad, which will be poured around the horizontal series of rebar running along the top of the foundation:


Jumping ahead, you can see how much progress we’re making:


On the day this photo was taken we finished the columns, which are formed within a wooden “box” into which you pour the liquid concrete. The novel aspect of bottle school construction is that you install a series of pins in both the soleras and the columns while the concrete is still wet - future pictures will illustrate why. Here’s one of the village kids helping out, putting pins into their holes at 20 cm intervals:


That’s our head mason Frainer mixing cement:


I had to help out, of course (shirt on my head = sun protection):


Then the wet cement goes into the column form:


All and all, things are going good. Tomorrow morning we’re going to deliver a bunch more rebar to the site, which should keep work moving at an even pace. People are motivated, costs are staying low thanks to collaborating organizations and everyone’s support means we’re making great progress. These kids can’t wait to get their new school!

Slight insomnia or la pereza?

It’s been a while since my last post, maybe around 3 weeks, but I feel bad so here it is, 4:16 in the morning (I couldn’t sleep for other reasons) but I figured I might as well take advantage of stare-up-at-the-ceiling time, the dim glow of street lamps that paint my room.

(I also moved recently – I used to sleep in near complete darkness, light seeping in from behind a couple of room dividers, but now my entire room stays faintly awake all night.)

Part of the reason I haven’t been writing is all the rushing around. I changed houses, my supervisor came to visit, I’ve been traveling for the last couple weekends and frankly, things are just starting to seem banal. When I’m walking around my town, buying fruit in the market or eating fried chicken in my comedor, it doesn’t immediately strike me as an interesting thing to share (or so it seems). Then I realized, while laying in bed, that maybe I should just describe my state of mind.

For one, Peace Corps is starting to feel normal. Living in Guatemala – yes, it still makes me smile when I say it or realize it, using it as a refrain with friends to explain when something ridiculous happens. But it’s also more and more normal – I just passed 10 months here in-country, and I guess things seem less novel. You just shrug off bucket baths in the dark with cold water. You sleep through the late, late night crowing of roosters. You try to ignore the booming explosions of fireworks – I can hear a 30 foot roll of Black Cats going off right now, which means that someone’s birthday has begun. You just sigh when your new landlord lags for days on promised repairs, or you return to your new place and the floor is inexplicably covered in a ½ inch of water. It’s just Guatemala.

Then I write this stuff down and I realize, “Oh…that is kind of amusing.” :)

One other thing, about the traveling I’ve been doing recently – it’s tiresome, just the sheer hours I spend on rattling, janky buses, barreling down roads full of potholes or around fallen trees or piles of landslide from recent rains. It’s 6 hours to Panajachel, or about 7 hours to Antigua, which are the two locations, respectively, where I spent the past couple weekends. That’s each way, and then I have to go back home, and that’s why I spend so much time loading up my phone with podcasts. Here are some favorites, all available on iTunes (lemme know if you have any suggestions!)

Al Jazeera
KCRW’s Left, Right and Center
The Economist
APR’s Dinner Party Download
The Nation’s The Breakdown
Talk of the Nation
This American Life
Slate’s Culture Gabfest
KEXP’s Music That Matters
Elevator Hip-Hop
ProperlyChilled.com

Also, here I am at my new place, having just taken a tuk-tuk across town with all my possessions.

Bottle School Construction has begun!

only a week late :)

I dunno; given the circumstances (Guatemala, the construction business and the fact that I recently spent a week in the States), seven days behind schedule seems pretty acceptable. I can’t complain.

I’ve included some recent photos; first of all, check out how many bottles we have now (thanks in part to the two teachers you can see in the foreground)


As for other building materials, here are kids from the community unloading the 360 cement blocks we’ll use in the foundation:


The big recent event came on Tuesday, when Cementos Progreso delivered the 250 bags of cement they donated to our project; that’s Don Miguel, my community counterpart, who's standing next to the truck:


Aaaaand…..that’s me unloading cement, Guatemalan style:


You’d be surprised how ergonomically correct this method is; you support all the weight with your legs – honestly, my back is fine.

Of course, you do end up getting kind of dirty:


I ended up having to wash my shirt by hand so I’d look presentable for the groundbreaking ceremony later that morning (pictures forthcoming – see if there’s a noticeable difference lol)

Here’s our head mason Frainer, preparing the rebar which will help form the structural support for the school’s cement columns. In the background, left to right: Don Miguel, Rosanio (Planning Office Director) and Anibal (Municipal Secretary)


Here are the kids starting to line up for the groundbreaking ceremony:


And here we are, about to place the primera piedra (“first stone”, ha ha but in this case it’s a concrete block) From left to right: Me, Councilman Alfredo, Mayor Miriam and Rosanio


Aaaaaand…..the first stone has been placed. I’m looking at Rosanio being like, “Is this supposed to support a building?” and he’s like, “yeah, it’s just symbolic anyway.” Lol


Yep, all ready to start building :)


Seriously though! I’m excited. Tomorrow we’re going to go buy the wooden boards with which to form the concrete columns and beams; once the sand and gravel gets delivered, we’ll be all ready to start pouring. Yeah bottle school!

Medical Mission

I got a chance to work as a translator for a team of doctors this last Sunday, helping out with a medical mission down in the coastal lowlands near my site. It was hot, tropical and a great learning experience…plus great people and lots of free snacks! The coolest part, however, was getting to watch intricate surgeries from about 2 feet away.


This guy had a cataract removed, and what you see is a doctor SEWING UP HIS EYEBALL (modern medicine is amazing)

Of course, hanging out in the operating room was just a perk; obviously there’s very little translating necessary for people under heavy anesthesia :) The rest of the time I stayed extremely busy during clinical visits, where I’d help Guatemalans make themselves understood to North American doctors with minimal amounts of Spanish. I spent a bunch of my time with Vaji (OB/GYN) and Aditi (otolaryngologist aka ear, nose and throat doctor).



Yes, I did get to wear scrubs. I had to change midday because it was so HOT.

The work was really rewarding; cracking the language barrier to help someone deal with their health issues creates immediate goodwill, especially seeing that lots of patients traveled from far away and were likely pretty poor. Also, you have to take into account that U.S. caliber medical services would probably cost a fortune and although the mission was charging for its procedures, I’m sure their prices were generous.

I learned how exhausting translating can be. The patient’s explanation of their symptoms would enter my ear in Spanish and leave my mouth in English, with the same vice versa for the doctor’s advice or questions. I did one straight 3-hour stint and, in addition to the sweltering humidity and coastal heat, all that switching back and forth just wore me out. The thing is, with the urgency of getting the translation right (this isn’t some simple miscommunication; you really want to help people with their problems) makes you concentrate really hard. I drank a lot of water.


No joke though; people really needed help. This was an ovarian cyst that they pulled out of this one woman, which measured about the size of an …..orange (whoa)

I’m going to let you watch this video though – watching a surgeon open up someone’s body with a cauterizing wand is pretty incredible…..

Returning to Guate

I just got back from a week’s vacation in the States and it’s like I completely forgot Guatemala while I was gone.

Back stateside, I definitely tried to put my Peace Corps life in perspective. I was standing in the kitchen and trying to remember life here in my site, the afternoon rains, my tin roof, cobbled streets, poverty and second hand clothes, tropical plants and trees and hot weather. Unfortunately, I could barely hang onto the thought. I’d recall an image, maybe it was the view from my office doorway looking out into the street, watching the people pass by, and then I would push the image away. There was too much good food to eat, casual socializing and car rides and bonfires, clean streets and beautiful houses, big buildings and paved streets, real coffee and doughnuts and sushi and every easy detail.

I’m starting to think that maybe I blotted Guatemala out, which is weird because I like it here. Up until this point all I’ve been telling people is how much I like the people, the climate, the food, the flora, the culture and my work – I have very few complaints. At the same time, I spent a week in the States and forgot everything.

I imagine it’ll take a few days to settle back into my site. Here, there are stares and stray dogs and bizarre questions about the United States, pollution and crowded buses and beggars, gun-battle massacres and fear, contaminated food and minimal hygiene, a lackadaisical attitude and complacency that shrugs in the face of, well, craziness. There are new stories, superstitions - these kinds of things have got me reeling a little bit.


I remember the sarcastic remark I made to someone about how odd it was to “vacation in the States”, but now that I’m back, I realize that it’s really no joke, whether for me and the 18 months of service I have left, or for the Guatemalans who live here everyday and can’t simply get on a plane and fly off to a foreign country.

One notable thing about my trip was the Greyhound station where I had to wait for a connecting bus at 2:20 AM last Wednesday night. Sitting there watching people lurch about, I saw poverty, stress and sense of wariness…it struck me that the setting was almost like Guatemala (although much weirder, more diverse and not nearly as poor).

Not quite a tarantula, but………

All I’m saying is that there are some seriously big bugs here.


This guy, this arachnophobia-inducing monster of a specimen, was in my house, most specifically in my living room where I watch movies or take naps (!!!!).

It was ridiculous – I was just sitting there, finishing up an episode of Boardwalk Empire (which is an awesome show, by the way) and I’m ready for bed. It’s already like 11:45. Then I look up and see this:


And yes, that’s a 2x4 right there. Comparatively, that’s how big a spider we’re talking. This guy is so big THAT HIS EYES ARE REFLECTING THE FLASH. Look closely – this spider actually needs redeye treatment. Here’s another picture:


Do you see the other spider? The little normal guy, hanging out in his web? Spiders that size, I don’t mind. I’m from Alaska – we love spiders because they eat mosquitoes. 9 times out of 10, I would never hurt a spider. Except of course, when this spider might suck my brains out in the middle of the night (I ended up thwacking him with a magazine).

SERIOUSLY. Is anyone out there an arachnologist or whatever? I’d love to know what this guy is called….maybe so I could pray that he never shows up anywhere me ever again (fat chance – this is number two that I’ve seen thus far)

I love the Peace Corps lol