For the last week, every road that I take to work has been under construction (since we switched offices, I no longer live next door to the office and I must walk a bit further). During the last week when I’ve had to walk to work, there has been a massive effort to make it incredibly difficult to get around. Mountains of dirt in the middle of street, hordes of workers throwing dirt, huge machines blowing diesel smoke everywhere and swinging crane arms next to passerby’s and stands selling hotdogs. Yes, they do not close off the street. They don’t put up tape or caution signs. They leave massive trenches in the ground for anyone to fall in. It really is an incredible sight to see. Families, children on bike, and food stands just hanging out by the construction with huge cranes working full speed just feet away. Every day I am blown away as I follow the crowd of people up an over the mountains of dirt, dodge the machines, and hop from boulder to boulder. How is this safe? It’s not. But that could just be my opinion. I took a video for you to enjoy but it really doesn’t portray the intensity of the situation. I took this video between the time they had the big mountains packed back away under the ground and were just beginning to build new mountains.
So as I have been writing about my experiences and about my work, I thought I should tell a bit about my work and what I do there. The place that I work is a nonprofit fair trade organization called Mercado Global. We work with women artisans that have formed cooperatives to produce fashion-forward jewelry/textiles for US markets. When I say fashion-forward, I refer to fashion that has an end consumer already in mind. With that said, our US designers study trends of the market and work with the artisans to create a product that can be sold to large retail stores. Our most recent orders have been with retail stores as Nordstom, ABC Home, and Levi. By designing out products for such purposes, we are able to provide a market that these Mayan artisans have never had before and we do it on a very large scale. I think this is what sets us apart from other fair trade organizations working with artisans here. We have sales on an unprecedented scale and we are creating a sustainable business for these cooperatives. We make it sustainable by providing business training to the artisans, teaching them skills in finance, accounting, and developing savings programs with the coops. By doing so, we are giving these women the tools to seek out other markets and to understand how to run an effective business. We also work in development in the communities, providing scholarships and improvements in schools through the help of donors and foundations. We most recently provide 5 truckloads to the school to begin building a library, a computer center, and a more secure school. Anyway, I feel like I’m still marketing the organization! Which brings me to what I do at Mercado Global, I assist in the marketing activities. I create enewsletters, blogs, videos, press releases and basically work to portray the impact that Mercado Global has in the communities to donors, foundations, and the potential customers who will purchase upscale jewelry with a cause. I also do some work in sales, mostly cold calling to small retail stores.I enjoy the creation part much more and always enjoy the time of the month when our enewsletter comes out.Being that we are in Guatemala and let’s just say they do things differently down here, I also take on many roles.For instance, I was an electrician this morning splicing together wires in hopes of changing the location of our phone and internet lines. I found it very interesting the handy-work that everyone seems to use to fix things down here. Such as the meter box and the cluster of wires spliced into it with massive quantities of electrical tape. I’m assuming they don’t have much “code” down here…
I really do enjoy my work here most days. Yesterday, I went to a cooperative and conducted my first interview in Spanish with the artisans. It’s a real learning experience every day. Some days the lessons are more obvious than others, but I usually come around to it sooner or later.
Well it has been a while again since my last entry and a lot has happened. Caitlin ended up finding a cheap flight to come see me on March 25 and we had a wonderful time touring around Guatemala until she had to leave again early yesterday morning. I’ll back track a bit now and give you the synopsis of our adventures.
Caitlin flew in Thursday, March 25 and I took the chicken busses to meet her in Guatemala City. It’s about a 2.5 hour ride for Panajachel and you have to switch busses a few times, unless you catch the direct which I did not. The ride on the chicken busses was pretty uneventful, thankfully, and I arrived at the airport around 8 and tried to entertain myself for the next hour until her flight got in. I spaced out thoughts of how bad I needed to use a bathroom with budgeting my sandwiches and watching ridiculous repeating advertisements on the collection of TV’s above the exit. As I was about to break into my last piece of gum, Caitlin appeared 10 minutes earlier than expected and I was overjoyed to see her. It was such a surreal feeling seeing her in my country of adventure. A lot of the experiences on the trip felt that way with her and I loved sharing my previously perceived adventure of solitude. It was an interesting feeling experiencing the once unfamiliar scenery of my solitary mission, with the person that I longed to experience it with.
We took a cab to our friend Sara’s place in the city and caught up on the last two weeks, while Caitlin finished typing her last paper for school. The next day we decided to go to some hot springs at Santa Teresita and it was an excellent decision. The hot springs were commercialized and was actually more of a salon and spa, but we didn’t mind because they had many pools and the “spa treatment” wasn’t much money so we enjoyed hydro therapy baths and delicious smoothies. It was a great day to just relax from stressful weeks and long hours of traveling. From the hot springs, we had to decide how to get back to Panajachel and the assistants at the hot springs informed us the only way to catch a bus back to Panajachel was to take a cab back to the city. Cab’s ran about $40 and being on a budget I told him that there must be a better way and we headed out. With Caitlin trusting that I knew what I was doing we barged out into the town to find some chicken busses that would take us back to home. My initial instinct of where the busses stopped was incorrect so we flagged down a bicycle taxi and asked the small Guatemalan man to take us to the bus stop. He gladly took us, even after we informed him that we would be a heavy load. He said that we were not his heaviest and was impressed by the small man’s strength as he slowly but surely peddled us up a steep hill. I want to make sure that you have the image of our mode of transportation at that point. These bike taxi’s or trike taxi’s rather, had us sitting across a bench seat in between two wheels and then a man on the back peddling over the last remaining wheel. I really wish we would have been able to get a picture…
We found the chicken bus that would take us back to the city and got settled in for Caitlin’s first chicken bus ride. I told myself that I wasn’t going to make her ride on the crazy busses but our options were limited and it was midday so I figured they would be safe enough. So after a short trip back the city I asked the driver what would be the best stop back to Los Encuentros (our transfer stop to Panajachel) and he looked at me with a bewildered expression. Apparently, my directional ignorance misled me into thinking that there is only one road into the biggest city in the country and that it might be a challenge to find the highway with the chicken busses going the direction we need. Nonetheless, the driver told us that we would need to go above and take the metro to the otherside of the city and take the busses there. So, Caitlin and I trekked our way through the Metro Station looking like real travelers with our hiking packs and successfully made it to our suggested stop. As we got off, we found 4 highways crisscrossing with busses zooming every which way. Feeling very uncomfortable and exposed, we put on a confident face and took off in a direction just to be moving. After stopping a few street vendors we gathered the general direction where the busses would take off from and headed that way. A little ways on that path, I was feeling bad for putting Caitlin through this and suggested that we just get taxi to take us to the closest shuttle agency and just make do with the extra cost. We headed for the group of taxi’s gathered on a street by the highway and I heard the familiar call to Los Encuentros coming from one of the chicken busses. I proposed the idea to Caitlin and she went along with it and the next thing we knew we were off towards home – for the next six hours. Needless to say, Caitlin had the whole chicken bus experience – loud Guatemalan country bop rattling your ear drums, overcrowded seats, delays in towns, and fast maniacal driving. Let me tell you about their driving. Since these drivers don’t own the buses and only get paid by how many trips back and forth they make, they drive fast. These guys really are nuts. They zoom around the mountain curves and pass everyone on the road. The full sized school buses fly around corners nearly going on two wheels, meanwhile tossing every person from their seats who didn’t grab on to safety rail fast enough. It was actually a blast for the first few hours watching Caitlin hang on and laugh out of astonishment about the rollercoaster ride. We arrived home safely later and I promised Caitlin we would travel more comfortably in the future. A good experience though.
We spend the night in Pana and then took the next day’s early shuttle to Xela, the second largest city to the west, to some more fantastic hot springs. These hot spring, Las Fuentes Georginas, were really incredible. I mean we were way up in the mountains and they basically just damned up the water dribbling of the mountain and put up and restaurant and some canbanas around it. It was a fantastic time.The cabanas weren’t by any means elegant but the best part was that we could use the hot springs all night if we wanted, even after it was closed to the public. It was gorgeous looking up at the stars and the near full moon. We some really nice people from Washington state and learned about the guitar shop the guy owns on San Juan island and made hesitant plans to meet up this next summer. The water felt amazing in the cold brisk mountain air and took your breath away as you entered in from the cold. The jungles surrounding the springs were also a sight capable of stealing away your breath. After the late night dip, Caitlin and I had an awful time getting a fire started in the cabana, which would be necessary to be able to stay warm enough through the night. Everything there was just damp, including the matches and we exhausted all but three of them before we ended up with fire. I’m leaving out some other adventures that include finding a phone to call an airline to cancel a flight, horrendous miscommunication on shuttles and having one shuttle driver threaten the other, standing outside McDonalds at 7 am waiting for them to open, and probably something else I’m forgetting. Anyway, it was a fantastic time to Xela.
Once back in Pana, I had to work a bit because our donor trip for Mercado Global was taking place and our executive director was down from the states to show them how everything works in the organization down here as well as the impact that we have on the communities we work with. I was so glad that I was able to bring Caitlin along on these day trips because she was able to help me out on the marketing end by taking pictures for me to use in the future and was also pleased to give her the opportunity to take as many pictures of indigenous mayan people for her Central American photo collection. We had an excellent time talking with the artisans and dressing the American women in the traditional clothing and to try balancing baskets on their heads. It was so fun seeing Caitlin all dressed up! It was a really cool experience.
Another day, we went across the lake and rented Kayaks for a couple of hours to tour around the lake by San Pedro and admire the Volcanoes. We also enjoyed the markets and found a lot of great stuff to bring back home!
The last few day we went to Antigua for Good Friday, (the entire week was Semana Santa and there were processions taking place everywhere!) and we were amazed by the alfombras, or carpets, that were laid out on the streets. These weren’t actual carpets but were these works of art made of sawdust and bright dyes and were beautifully displayed in the middle of streets. We spent some time wandering around, eating delicious food, and being amazed at the quantity of people in the city. We ran into some bad luck though as we were taking pictures at the cathedral waiting for the procession to start. Someone slit Caitlin’s bag and took the money she was carrying in her wallet. Luckily, she didn’t have much on her and had left her credit cards packed in our bags at the shuttle agency, but we were upset at the situation and at ourselves for allowing it to happen. We were fine though, but it did ruin our afternoon. That evening we took a shuttle to the city and stayed at a nice hostel close to the airport and we enjoyed the company of a couple from Australia on their honey moon and an older gentlemen from Portland that was attending his runaway daughter’s graduation from a law school in Guatemala. Everyone has an interesting story.
The sad part of this blog entry is the part where I sent Caitlin off on her very early morning flight and returned back to a lonely Panajachel. It’s where it leaves me now writing this blog post and reminiscing on a great week. I hope that I will stay busy at work for the next 2 months and keep my mind off of missing people back home! Especially today I was missing everyone back at the COC in Cedar Falls at the sunrise service. Easter wasn’t quite the same here without family. I hope it all went well though for everyone and I’ll look forward to hearing about it!
Well I think I’ve written enough in this one post. I’ll be trying to post gain soon to give an update on what my work in office has been like and little more about what we do in the office. Stay tuned!
So after a few days of spending every free minute catching up on lost time with the guitar, I discovered with the help of Jenni, where a good carpenter might be able to help me out.She actually stopped by and inquired as to whether or not he would be able to fix it. The wildly old bearded man was certain that he could fix it and when Jenni showed me where he was at the next day we agreed on a time to fix it. He explained to me what he could do and the process for it and all for an incredibly low price. We talked for quite some time about the wood, the process the guitar would go through, how it would affect sound, and then we talked about much more. We talked about the volunteer projects he was working on, the woodworking schools he put on for kids, the organization he was trying to form, the common earth that we all lived on. It’s amazing the connection you can make with an old woodworker in the depths of Guatemala.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Yesterday I was able to pick up my guitar. As Eduardo (the woodworker) promised the guitar was sealed back together as promised. There would be no more sound escaping from unwanted areas. I thanked him for his work and paid him the rest of the meager sum that he requested and wished that I had a whole other opportunity to just observe in his workshop and understand the trade and discipline of woodworking. There is so much in this life to be interested in. To be passionate about.
After I got the guitar home, Itook time cleaning it and putting the strings back on. When that process was done and finally got it tuned, I enjoyed the next 3 hours playing everything I knew. Life is always better with music. I’m glad my host family enjoys it as well, because my favorite place to play is just outside my room in the common area surrounded by the beautiful entangledment of flowers, bamboo and vines.
