Home Improvement

Why is Dan hugging this filthy mattress on top of a burning pile of bricks? Read on to find out!

Could he be crazy? drunk? hungover? All are definite possibilities, but there is another more important reason for this seemingly inexplicable behavior. We had just finished the construction of our very own brick oven!

We started this project shortly after arriving in Xela and finding out that our house didn't have an oven. In a state of giddy enthusiasm, this seemed like a cheap and (get this...) easy way of providing bread baking capabilities to the intern house. Well, the project ended up taking the better part of 3 months to finish and involved feats such as carrying backpacks full of bricks across town, but in the end it was all worth it. This (in conjuction with probable drunkeness) is why Dan is looking so blissful resting his head on a dirty burning matress.

Below are some pictures of our handywork.


Dave

Here you can see the oven in operation.
We did weigh the pros and cons of building
a wood fired oven in our garage and in the
end staying dry while cooking won out
over turning the garage into a smokehouse.
Actually, we see this as a pro as well. Once
we get some meat hooks, well... welcome to
Jerkyville!

The first time we fired 'er up, we decided that
spraying some propane into the middle of the
fire would be a great way to speed up the
pre-heating process. Unfortunately, there's no
picture of the molten pile of Aluminum that
resulted. Don't worry Mum, no trips to the burn
ward this time.

I guess I still haven't explained exactly why there
is a old straw mattress on top of the oven. Besides
drastically increasing the chances of a house fire, its
main function is to add some extra insulation to the
oven.

Some leftovers from Bakefest I. Lamb roast, jerk
pork roast, spider-shaped bread. All delicacies
from the oven.

"Classical" Musicians For Hire

Its been a busy couple months for the Vigilantes of Funk. In between our weekly shows at Ojala, we've been having marathon practices 2 or 3 nights a week to make sure our funk is all in order. We were all feeling a bit burnt out after our Halloween show (see pictures on facebook: Los Vigilantes Del Funk) and decided to take a week off. However plans around here seem to be pretty fickle and Virgil and I ended up playing a show on Thursday night anyways.

Basically, what happened was: A freind of Kike's (the owner of Ojala) called him, to see if he knew any musicians who could play an instrumental set at university event. Kike called another friend, who called Steve, who told me and Virgil about this. Being as though we were kind of bored at work, we decided to meet this guy and see what he was looking for. What he had in mind was some classical music while people made their way into some sort of conference and then something a little more upbeat for the reception afterwards. Also, he wanted us to audition on the spot. Hmmmm...

Well Virgil and I don't actually know any classical music, but the guy said he was willing to pay us 200Q for the gig and we did have an acoustic guitar (me) and a mandolin (Virgil) - very classical instruments. Thinking quickly, I suggested to Virgil we play some "classical" Metallica and Guns 'n Roses. I figured as long as we played the songs slowly and with lots of picking no one would know the difference. It worked out great. We played "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Nothing Else Matters" and he said we'd be perfect!

This was all happening Thursday afternoon by the way, about 2 hours before we were to start playing. So we quickly went home to run over a few more "classical tunes" and put on white dress shirts (something I've seen classical musicians do a lot). When we rocked up to the university a bit later, the scene was frankly a bit intimidating. Everyone was impecabbly dressed in suits and ties and the conference was in a small, church-like room that looked like it could have hosted a presidential address. We met our buddy and he ushered us right up to a small stage at the front of the room and told us to start playing. We were both pretty dazed by the whole thing and were pretty sure our sham was going to get called. But in times of trouble you've got to go with what you know, so we launched into some "classical" Grateful Dead. We played for about 45 minutes while the suits filed in, and I've got to say they were diggin it! We left as the conference started to a solid round of applause and went to go grab a bite to eat before the reception set.

The second set went smoothly and we got fed lots of tasty food and a bottle of wine. After we wrapped up, Juanta, the guy we had been talking to, paid us and then invited us back to his bar for more free drinks and food. We ended up getting pretty drunk with him and his friends and had a damned fine night. It turns out that he also wants the Vigilantes to play a weekly show at his bar, which sounds sweet to me. I'll keep you all posted on what happens.

Dave

Concrete Slides...

Dan and I had to change the oil in our motorcycles the other day, so to warm up the engines a bit first, we decided to take a quick cruise up Baul, a nearby hilltop park. I had been up Baul a few times but had never partaken in one of the main attractions - the infamous concrete slides. This is pretty much the first thing people mention when Baul comes up (after the spectacular view). So seeing as though we were up there anyways, and for a change there we no annoying kids hogging the slides, we decided to give em a rip. Up until this point, everything sounds cool. However, here's a few extra details: (1) The slides are steep. And long. (2) It had been raining and the slides were wet. (3) I was wearing sandals. (4) We decided to slide down on flattened oil containers for extra speed. (4) The slides are made of @#*!ing CONCRETE!

To be honest, I was a little uncertain about the whole thing, but hell, I had seen small infants sliding down, so I was not about to back down. So I hopped on my oil container and let 'er rip. I started picking up speed at a pretty alarming pace and because I was in sandals, didn't want to use my feet to brake. I caught a bit of air going over a hump in the slide, but managed to stay on course. It actually all pretty fun...until the end.

The slides end in a small concrete 'holding pen' about a foot off the ground, so basically, your only hope of surviving is to land on your feet. Well, lets just say that if that happened, I wouldn't be writing this post. I hit the concrete and slid across the holding pen with one foot underneath me (which turned out not to be too good for my foot) until I hit the wall at the far end. The picture below pretty much sums up the results of my concrete slide experience. Needless to say I'm not big proponent. Guatemala is full of hazards though, and considering I was riding a motorcycle around in sandals as well, I probably shouldn't be too upset.




Until next time,
Wear closed toed shoes.

Dave

Los Vigilantes Del Funk

Alright. First off I've got to apologize. This post is waaaaay overdue. It is truly a momentous piece of news and there's no excuse for keeping it from our loyal readership this long. So, without further delay...we have started a band! We are The Vigilantes of Funk. Now, Dan and I have been skipping school/studying/working/family events/etc... to jam for as long as long as I can remember. We've even gotten our shit together enough to play a couple shows at parties, barbeques and that sort of thing. But this time, things are serious. After talking about it for a couple weeks, we got together a solid group including: us (los conquistadores), Steve, Kyle, Lindsay and Allison and started practicing. Through Steve's vast network of connections in Xela, we got ourselves a gig at Oja-La, a sweet bar/lounge before we had even found all our band members. We rocked our first show and now have a weekly gig there in the much covoted Friday night timeslot. Somewhat contrary to our name, we are playing a mix of rock, pop, local hits. Of course we always include a healthy dose of the funk.

Our current lineup, which has changed a bit since the band's inception, includes:

Dan (ukelele, bass)
Dave (guitar)
Steve (guitar, bass)
Virgil (mandolin, harmonica)
Allison (vocals)
Lindsay (vocals)

We've got a facebook page going for Los Vigilates Del Funk too. If you want to check out some pictures, set lists and the latest gossip from what's been dubbed "Xela's funnest band" add us and revel vicariously in our lives as rock stars.

Keep the funk alive.
Dave

Working hard or hardly working...

Unfortunately, at the moment it seems to be the former. Lately work seems to be really interfering with what I consider my primary occupations: playing music, riding around on the motorcycle and of course writing for Los Conquistadores De Pupusas.

Seeing as though all this time is being squandered on work, I though I might as well write a quick post to let everyone know what I'm doing. My big project of the moment is building an anemometer (wind speed measuring device). It is going to look kind of like a weather vane when finished and will record the wind conditions at a potential wind turbine site. We're going to install in a community near Coban for about a month to see if we can set up some wind power for the people there. I'll try and post some pictures when it starts to look interesting.

I'm also working on casting some new pelton cups (which are turbine parts) for a micro-hydro system in Nueva Allianza. I haven't really done anything on this project yet, but I'm totally stoked to start playing around with the casting furnace that another intern built. This could be one of the few projects where I feel the need to wear closed shoes as opposed to sandals.

I'm also headed out to check out a new potential micro-hydro site tomorrow. These visits are always interesting and usually accompanied by the eating of several dozen tortillas per meal. Yum.

There's lots of more interesting stuff I have to report on, but it will have to wait for another post. Just to keep our readership interested, some of the upcoming posts will be: "The Vigilantes of Funk", "Independencia", "Home Improvement" and "Concrete Slides: Economical Playground or Silent Killer". Stay Tuned!

Dave

Electrical Engineers...

...seem to have this reputation for being the "cleanest" and most high tech breed of engineers. People picture them working on satellite electronics in a NASA clean room, or meticulously soldering together microchips that will cure cancer and record the next five Friends episodes for you at the same time. Well, today its my pleasure to dispel this stereotype. Here's a picture I snapped of Dan's workplace while he stepped away for a minute (probably to replenish the empty bottles). Lets see how many out of place items you can spot in the picture:



To name but a few, there are:

- open alcohol bottles
- flammable aerosol spray
- high voltage circuit with exposed wiring
- a large puddle of water

Now, this would be pretty funny if I had set the whole thing up just to take a crack at electrical engineers. That is part of my sworn duty as a mech. eng. But this scene was not altered in any way - honestly! This is serious shit people. Keep a close eye on any electrical engineers you know and for god's sake, under any circumstances, don't ever stand next to one in a puddle of water!

Dangers of Guatemala

Sorry loyal fans, we've been really busy the past few weeks what with our exorbitant drinking binges, picking up Hall's cough candy promotion girls, and otherwise rockstar lifestyle (more on this in a coming post with photos). I thought I'd give you a nice warm fuzzy feeling that life is well and we are doing great. Ok, that's it, now on to some recent events...

A view of Xela over one of the most common security systems: shards of broken glass on top of your walls.

As mentioned before in some detail, gastrointestinal illness is one of the greatest perils (aside from wild dogs) in Guatemala. Dave and I have been doing our best to cultivate these endangered microbes in our intestines, and very soon we will be announcing the winners and honorable mentions for our Great Gastrointestinal Competition (aka Shit Contest). It's quite a close race right now, and the decision will be a hard one. But further upstream of the gastrointestinal tract, there is another perilously dangerous host of microbes; ones which neither Dave nor I will try to be saving. They live in your mouth and (get ready for a highly technical description): eat sugar and shit cavities.

The amount of sugar that is consumed here is incredible. Pretty much every type of food has sugar added, and then the omnipresent snacks are omni-sugared as well. Emily, one of the previous interns, left AIDG and returned home to find that she had developed 8 cavities. Kat, Kyle's girlfriend, returned home temporarily to find out that she has 12 cavities. I've decided that common sense is going to have to prevail in this country and I'm going to have to start brushing my teeth more than the recommended once every 6 months. Wait... was that for dentist visits? In any case, my dental hygiene is going to improve, so you'll all benefit if you ever stand closer than 4 feet from me.

This week there have been nation-wide protests over instituting a national ID card. I was unable to travel outside of Xela to a community needing urgent repairs to their microhydro generator until Tuesday, when rumour had it the road that I needed wasn't being blocked, presumeably because the protesters had slept in. Natalia, one of the girls at Xelateco (one of AIDG's incubated businesses in Xela), who lives near Cantel (on the other side of the road block) couldn't come to work earlier this week because she was threatened to be burnt alive if she crossed the road block. She's now living at her friend's house in Xela and can't return home for fear of being caught crossing the line. In general no one is too concerned here otherwise, although Natalia may move into the intern house temporarily, which will be good for our Spanish, and good for her physics and math courses she's taking; I've already been tutoring her a bit, which is tough in Spanish.

Another perhaps less worrisome trend (haha) is the robbery and assault problem here. I think I may have mentioned that a few of our colleagues were robbed. Usually a small group of thugs come up to the target or targets and tell them to give up all their valuables. They are usually armed with knives or tools, although guns are more common on highways and roads. One group that robbed Natalie and Josue was armed with large screwdrivers. Natalie was assaulted twice and Josue was robbed another couple of times. Once he was robbed of a candy bar (all he had) on his way to our house. I was standing a stone's throw away taking pictures of clouds when he urgently told me to get in the house before they stole my camera. El Jefe (the boss) was robbed in his car once at gunpoint and they took his laptops and other valuables. Natalia, from Xelateco, was robbed outside of Domino's Pizza a couple blocks away at 8am before work one day. Candido, one of the stocky guys at Xelateco was robbed on Monday night at 7pm right outside Xelateco (which incidentally is right beside the AIDG office) and relieved of 850Q (a lot of money for a Guatemalan). It was a pretty good language lesson in curse words when Candido explained what happened. I guess it's only a matter of time before Dave or I get robbed. Apparently when we rode our bikes to the lake last weekend we unwittingly rode through a particularly dangerous road, known to the locals to have gangs of ladrones (theives) armed with AK-47's. Ignorance may be bliss, but we won't be returning to that road any time soon.

Finally more of an irritation to some than a veritable danger, are those pesky chinches (bed bugs). All of our roommates and most of our guests have picked up bedbugs at some point or another, while Dave and I have remained incredulously immune. Based on empirical evidence, we believe that the bugs prefer women to men, and everyone else in the world to Canadians. So being Canadian boys provides us with a particularly useful immunity. Katie is especially annoyed at the moment, being the only girl in the house right now, she's basically like a black hole for the resident bed bug population.

I think Dave has a few words to say about my workbench... but from me, that's all for now.

Dan.