Caldo de Frutas

So Steve, Dave and I went up to the windbelt test site to check it out and ran into Santos (one of the guys from XelaTeco) who was installing some waterproofing there. He told us about one of his aunts who sells Caldo de Frutas out of her house just a little ways away.

We took off through an orphanage, across grass and beside little fence trails until we ended up on a dirt road hidden amongst corn fields. We continued down there taking random rights and lefts at Santos' bidding, stared at by pretty much everyone. Eventually we made it to his aunt's house, were invited in and taught about Caldo de Frutas.

They take every possible fruit they can get their hands on, the usual apples, peaches, cherries, apricots, plums, etc, and some unusual ones such as nancies. They put them in barrels and ferment them for 8-12 months and then bottle them and sell them. It's not a really strong alcoholic beverage, but it's damn tasty and worth the trek.

Here's a photo of the three bottles we bought. The more observant among you may notice that in fact one of the bottles is empty. We drank the whole bottle before remembering to take a picture.

Caldo de Frutas, bottled in whatever bottles were lying around.

I'm really excited because this is the second moonshine I've had in Guatemala!

Dan.

Finca Venezuela

Dave's out at a community right now with Kate and Kyle testing a ram pump. We'll probably post photos and diagrams of that to excite you later. But in the meantime, that explains why Dave hasn't posted for the past week.

In July Kate and I went to a community called Finca Venezuela to study the feasibility of installing a ram pump to pump water from a stream up a tall hill to where their community will likely expand in the coming year. Almost none of these communities have access to running water and regular pumps are prohibitively expensive for people living off of a few dollars per day.

We spent most of the day talking with the locals. Sometimes it can feel like work takes place at a snail's pace because of all the formalities and talking you have to do. We had two goals for this community visit:

1. Feasibility of installing a ram pump in the community.
2. Questioning the community members about their candle usage for light.

The first was accomplished by trudging around outdoors, which is always fun: getting dirty, getting exercise, worrying about dengue fever and malaria. The conclusion was that the ram pump was feasible, but not exactly what we were looking for for an experimental installation (the technology is not yet fully developed).

The second was accomplished by trudging around from house to house eating and drinking coca cola talking to whomever was there. The conclusion was that people were spending over a dollar per night on candlelight. Compact fluorescent bulbs can produce WAY more light for a fraction of the price. One of the things that keeps poor people poor is the lack of capital to actually purchase a system that would let them save more money. One of the newest things that XelaTeco is researching is microfinancing their own products so that they could go in and tell a community that they could finance a small hydro system which would save them money in the long run.

Anyway, on to the photos:

This is what we have to work with. Neither the biggest nor the cleanest stream.


We're building a little dam to force all of the water through a narrow passage to measure the flow


I am writing notes and discussing where to install pipes.


The interior kitchen of one of the community members' house.


The eating table (I can't really call it a dining room without sounding like a sarcastic jackass).


Bed.


Other beds. The box of clothes is what they can afford instead of drawers.


These are some edible snails. They were attempting to breed them. I think it would be a good thing if they were successful, because whether they could buy more meat or could eat the snails directly, they'd be consuming more protein.


Two turtles they were also trying to mate, or at least feed for a while as pets before eating them.


There's Dan taking a split second camera pose break from his eager devouring of a giant passion fruit. Why can't we import passion fruits this big at home???


Kitchen. Luckily this one is outside, because it produces more smoke than heat.



Finally! A chicken on a chicken bus! This shot was taken super stealthily, which might explain why it's so shitty. The woman is wearing "traje" which are the traditional clothes the Mayans wear.

I hope you enjoyed our time together...

Dan.

Los Vigilantes

So there are a bunch of vigilantes by our house that guard the street corner near by. At first we were fucking scared to shit by them (excuse my spanish) because they wear all black, cover their faces in balaclavas and have machetes strapped to their back (like ninjas!) and blow their whistles and stuff. But we had a 70's party (more on that later) and all dressed up and then we went to talk to them and they're super chill. So we hung out with them for a bit and even took a photo with them. I figure that befriending the local vigilantes will be beneficial for our life expectancies.

Apparently in Xela there used to be a big crime problem I found out talking to one of the locals. But then some vigilante groups formed because the police were completely useless, and the problem was "solved". Here we are hanging out with "Grupo Uno" (Group One):

70's Vigilante Party! OH YEAH! Us gringos from left to right: Dan, Katie, Dave, Kat, Kyle. The vigilantes don't have names. My favorite is the one in front of me, who looks the most ninja like.

Now that we've befriended the vigilantes, our main fear are the feral dogs. A couple nights ago Dave, Katie and I ran into a pack of 20-30 of them. We started by picking up rocks to protect ourselves and ended up running away down a sidestreet. If only the vigilantes would attack the dogs...

Dan.

Snip Off the Tip

So a few weeks ago when Dave was back in Vancouver attending a wedding, Meg and I (Dan) went to Lago de Atitlan to meet our friends and relax in San Pedro Atitlan, a chill village right on the lake. Our trip started on Friday at about 5pm at work. Kat phoned us asking if we wanted to leave to the lake IN 5 MINUTES!?! She teaches at a Spanish school and some of her students hired a microbus to take them down to the lake. The trip happened in lightning quick Guatemalan time...

I told Kat I needed half an hour to finish up at work and then pack. The driver was going to pick us up at 5:30pm. By 5:40pm it hadn't showed up so I phoned back and found out that the driver got lost and was still looking for the Spanish school. Meg and I walked to the park (10 minutes away) and waited there. At around 6:05pm (an hour and five minutes after the original schedule) we boarded the microbus and had a pleasant 3hr ride to Panajachel (also called Gringotenango, which translates roughly to Gringotown), where we stayed the night. I had a bit of an abdominal pain which I thought was probably from something I ate (like pupusas).

The next morning we had to wait around for our friends to arrive from the airport in Guatemala City (Meg's friends from the states, my friend Jordan from Nicaragua). We explored the city a bit and my abdominal pains got much worse. I figured if I downed some breakfast they would go away. By the end of breakfast they were pretty much unbearable, so we asked our waiter where to find a doctor. After wandering from location to location, we finally got a pharmacist to tell us where a doctor was, just up the street (yet again).

We walked in and a man motioned me into his office. I brought Meg in too because her Spanish is significantly better than mine and I was worried about things being translated incorrectly and having some kind of leg surgery or similar screw up. He started asking the usual questions, which were fairly easy to answer:

"My name is Daniel." Which sent him on a long soliloquy about the Biblical significance of my name. Did I know about the story of Daniel in the Lions' Den? Yes, of course, but that didn't stop him from retelling it. Eventually he got on to the diagnosis questions, which were also easy to answer:

"Yes, I have pain in my lower abdomen."

"Yes, it hurts like fuck when you press on it, please stop."

Then he turns and asks me: "Do you use a condom when you have sex?"

A bit surprised, I answer "Well... yes..."

He brightens up immediately and exclaims: "Aha! Well that explains it." Then he goes on to "explain" how wearing condoms puts back pressure on things and makes it easier for bacteria to enter your bladder. I was pretty sure I got this translation correct because most of it was done with obvious hand motions.

He starts writing up a prescription for some antibiotics.

"Actually, Daniel, do you know the best way to use a condom to prevent these infections?" he asks rather nonchalantly.

"No, I guess I don't, Dr.", I reply apprehensively.

"Well the best thing to do is to grab the tip and SNIP OFF THE TIP," he explains with a forceful scissors motion.

We were quite surprised to say the least. Afterwards we were recounting the doctor's office visit and Meg noticed that the plaque of the doctor and the diplomas on the wall all had a woman doctor's name, but the doctor who helped us was a man. And I'm thinking a very Catholic janitor...

Dan and Meg after breakfast in San Pedro.

Anyway, the antibiotics did wonders, and I'm fine now. Meg called her dad who is a doctor to ask his advice. He said that although he couldn't make a decision without actually seeing me, it sounded like I had an infection of some sort, even though it probably wasn't a bladder infection.

Jordan and I in the lancha enjoying some BANANA CAKE (from the famous Banana Cake lady of previous blogs with Rafer and Erik).

Meg's friends Jim and Whitney on the lancha.

After meeting up with Meg's friends and Jordan, we took a lancha (speed boat) across the lake to San Pedro and enjoyed a beautiful weekend kayaking around and eating at tasty restaurants. I even ran into a Spanish friend who I jammed with in Guatemala city and who gave me a sweet Pink-Floyd-ish CD he recorded with his friends. It's our house favorite CD at the moment (although I think we only have 3 or 4 CDs at the house).

Oooh... nice sky.

Here are a couple photos of San Pedro Atitlan, above and below.

Looking out from our hotel across the short part of the lake, with part of San Pedro in the foreground.

Dan.

Yard Pong and Plumbing Adventures

So Dan and I had a pretty productive weekend working on the brick oven and the chicken coop, the latter of which is almost finished. Don't worry, more details (probably many more) on these projects will follow.

We also invented a new game that is basically giant ping pong, using our whole backyard for the table. We broke a cutting board in half to make paddles and used a plastic soccer ball for the pong ball. Appropriate infrastructure at its finest (A.I.D.G.). After dominating Dan in the inaugural tournament, I decided to climb up our large concrete wall in celebration (with my drink). The view was awesome as I basked in my athletic prowess. Being such a clearly excellent idea, Dan and Meg soon joined me on the wall and we enjoyed a few drinks while balancing on top of the protruding re-bar.

On the way down though, I accidentally stepped on this long, unsupported piece of PVC pipe that supplies water to our outdoor sink. It broke (unsurprisingly) and started gushing water everywhere. While Dan and Meg were laughing uncontrollably on top of the wall, I ran around in a drunken stupor trying to find a valve to shut the thing off. Since we have to pay for our water, time was of the essence. Unable to find a shutoff valve of any sort, we decided the quickest and best way to solve the problem was - wait for this... to sharpen the handle of a nearby toilet brush and ram it into the pipe stub. The first few times I tried to ram it in, it just created a jet of water soaking everyone and shooting the toilet brush back out. Finally I got the brush to stick. The repair was super sketch though and it seemed fairly likely that someone would eventually suffer the indignity of getting impaled by the toilet brush when it shot out of the pipe. By this time though, Dan had controlled his laughter spasms and using a cinder block, rammed the toilet brush in real good.

The repair worked like a charm and held up until the next morning when I found the main shutoff valve and was able to fix 'er up proper. Enjoy the pics below.

Dave

Microbes stake out their territory

So all those poor little parasites, amoebas and bacterias we spoke of in our last post have wasted no time in taking up asylum in our stomachs and intestinal tracts. In fact, there has been such a rush of microbial refugees to our stomachs that gastro-intestinal sicknesses have been sweeping through the ranks of A.I.D.G. (our volunteer organization).

Of our coworkers and friends, here's a breakdown:

ALL - diarrhea (bacteria and/or virus) at some point or other, some presently as you read this
4 - Amoeba intestinal infections
1 - Bladder infection (bacteria)
1 - Malaria (not really related to eating pupusas)
2 - Dengue fever (neither is this one)

Now while I pride myself on being a good host, I also pride myself on having a functioning digestive system. So we have decided to turn a potentially unpleasant chore - getting stool samples - into an exciting contest - Stool Sample Day!

All the AIDG interns are going down to the local clinic to get the scoop on our poop and the winner will be the person harbouring the most intestinal visitors - the Host of the Month. We are hoping that regular stool samples will allow us to continue to thwart death while still recklessly devouring pupusas.

Contest updates to follow... stay tuned.

The Virgin Post

It's been a long time coming, but we know you all wanted to read about our epic adventures in Guatemala. To start off with, let's explain the meaning of our blog:

Los Conquistadores de Pupusas

Translated into English, that means "The Conquerors of Pupusas". You probably still have no idea what a pupusa is. Let us explain:

A pupusa is a tasty delicacy found on the streets of Xela, and other Guatemalan towns. Originally from El Salvador, it consists of a warm doughy shell of corn flour and a mouth-wateringly delicious filling freshly fried in front of you. So far we've found that they come in one of four flavours:

(a) Pupusa de queso (cheese filling).
(b) Pupusa de chicharrones (fried pork skin which is much tastier than it sounds).
(c) Pupusa mixta (which is a mix of the above two).
(d) The secret flavour we aren't going to tell you.

While pervasive in the streets of Guatemala, great care needs to be taken in selecting an appropriate pupusa as they are equally well known for their life-threatening diseases. The lady offering the pupusa is key in determining suitability for consumption. The pupusa lady should have clean hands and fingernails, and should be offering the pupusa from a tidy and orderly establishment (ie: shopping cart). As with all things in life, cheaper is not always better.

In our quest to conquer pupusas, we will not only be satiating our voracious appetites, but also serving the greater good of preserving Earth's biodiversity. Although not as often publicized as other violent atrocities in the developing world, bacterias and amoebas are urgently in danger of being wiped off the planet by such abhorrations as "western medicine", "adequate sanitation systems", and "proper hygiene". We will be fighting valiantly and selflessly to provide safe havens for these biological refugees who have already been driven from the developed world and are fighting desperately for survival.

D & D, Los Conquistadores de Pupusas.