Goooooooooooolllllllllllll!!!!

So I went to my first Latin American football (soccer) game last night. In fact it was the first game I've ever been to. It was definitely an experience.

Me, Kyle, Kate and a few other friends made the trek over to the stadium to see a highly anticipated independence week match between the Xela Super-Chivos (Super-Goats) and the Guatemala City Cremas (Creams?). I'll leave it up to you to insert the inappropriate joke of your choice here. It was kind of cold and drizzly out, but always thinking ahead, Kyle brought along a bottle of Quetzaltecca which helped us out in a couple ways: First, after buying a couple plastic baggies of Pepsi, we had some tasty drinks to keep us warm, and second, we were able to barter with some locals for some seats in the packed stadium.

As the start of the game neared, the field cleared and a SWAT team walked out onto the field. Interesting. I figured there must be a VIP coming out for the opening face-off (or whatever they do to start soccer games). But no, it turns out that the SWAT team was escorting the refs onto the field! Apparently, the fans here don't take too kindly to botched calls. I also noticed that the fans for the visiting Cremas had their own fenced off pen-like area in one corner of the stadium. Almost like their lives could be in danger...

With the refs safely in the middle of the field, the Cremas came onto the turf, met by deafening boos, miscellaneous projectiles (explaining why the Pepsi came in bags) and the odd firecracker. Then the Super-Chivos came out (accompanied by their super goat mascot of course). Now beforehand, I had noticed some guys laying out long strips of red paper around the edge of the field, but hadn't really taken much notice of it. As the team came out, these red strips of paper, which were actually tens of thousands of firecrackers, were lit off in a display of excess that would make any 12 year old boy shed a tear of joy. As the entire stadium filled with smoke and gunpowder fumes, I noticed people in the stands next to us pulling out their own personal stashes and shooting off roman candles and bottle rockets out over the stands while they shielded their faces with one arm. The whole thing made a complete mockery of all those firecracker safety talks we had in elementary school. Kyle added a nice perspective by stating (accurately) that to have a show like this in the States, you would need to hire a team of "pyrotechnics engineers", submit detailed plans and safety procedures, and get multiple levels of official approval. Here you just need a few hundred bricks of mighty mights and some brave fool to set them off.

To be honest, the rest of the game was a bit anti-climactic after the opening events. The Super-Chivos got trounced 3-1, there were no streakers, brawls or other disorderly conduct, and the refs (again escorted by SWAT) left the field without incident. We went to a little cantina afterward and drank some Coosha, a homemade liquor that may make you blind after habitual use, but costs only 60 cents for a small bottle. See you soon (hopefully).

Dave

Mexico and back again

Tourist visas here in Guatemala last 90 days, after which you have a couple of options. Continue staying here and pay a large per diem fine when you leave, or leave the country and return. Officially you must leave the country for 3 days, but there are a couple of ways around that. Steve, Kyle and I needed to renew our visas within the next days to weeks, so we figured we'd all go together to Tapachula, Mexico for tasty tortas and a visa renewal.

We left together early-ish in the morning. I jumped back on the coffee train, which I've been trying to stay away from, due to my hangover from the XelaTeco party the night before. Normally drinking with Guatemalans leaves me muy crudo (very raw or hungover) the next mornings. The coffee made the long chickenbus and microbus/collectivo ride much more endurable.

There are a couple of vital pieces of information we picked up about renewing visas in a day. Here are the most common methods:

• Check in with a parking lot in El Carmen (a small Guatemalan border town), who offer hourly, daily, monthly parking services, and visa rewals starting at 700Q, and working their way down quickly with minimal bargaining.
• Leave out of Tecun Uman (a larger Guatemalan border town) and enter back in El Carmen, where the officials are more susceptible to cheaper bribes.
• Stay out of the country for the official 3 days.

We figured the second option was superior. Tecun Uman was really sketchy, and there were lots of groups of tough sketchy looking people armed with large guns staring us down as we walked through the streets towards the border crossing. I'm going to try to never go through that town again. The immigration officials were professional and actually nice, and there were no problems getting out of Tecun Uman. It rained, which really sucked. And we saw the river that significant numbers of Central Americans cross illegally to smuggle themselves into Mexico, final destination USA. I can understand why there are hundreds of deaths, because it was flowing pretty fast. Apparently during dry season you can simply wade across. Read Enrique's Journey for a more gripping journalist's tale of this illegal journey to the states.

We entered Mexico without problems either, and bussed to Tapachula for tasty tortas. Mexico, even supposedly much poorer Chiapas, was noticeably richer than Guatemala, and the food is much better too, even just crossing the border. We ended up at this cantina where they didn't cook food, but were happy to oblige us gringos with our hungry demands for tasty tortas, which were so good we each ordered another. In the cantina, there were two prostitutes who were extremely friendly. And then fucking Steve started winking at them! So one of them came over and displayed her hideous gummy pointed toothy mouth which scared us into leaving. Well, after 3 L of beer... They served Coronas in 1L bottles, called "Familiar". Our waitress explained they were family-sized. One for papa, one for mama, and one for each child.

We returned back through El Carmen with no troubles. When confronted with officials who don't speak Spanish, you have two options as a foreigner:

• Pay a bribe. 50-100Q usually seems to work.
• Play the "no entiendo" (I don't understand) card.

We played the "no entiendo" card and it worked like a charm. I cracked up laughing when I heard Kyle speaking Spanish with an American accent (he normally speaks fluently with a slight Argentinian accent). It nearly cost us our guise. But we got through without needing to pay any bribes or "service fees" and all we got was a verbal reprimand for not staying out for 3 days.

When we got let off the microbus in Coatepeque, we'd missed the last chickenbus to Xela, so we negociated with taxis until we got a crazy cab driver to drive 80 km/h through mountain switchbacks in the dark, cutting oncoming lanes at each blind switchback (there's no other way to take them at that speed). Steve and I figured we'd probably die, but miraculously we didn't.

We ended up checking out a beauty pagent, which was what you might expect. A theatre full of Guatemalans whistling like crazy at the scantily clad women on stage. We missed the Ms. Indigenous (where the girls are dressed in traditional clothes). Then I returned home and some girls we met at a bar last week came to our house and cooked us a big tasty Tex-Mex feast. A good conclusion to our Mexican trip.

Dan.

Office Hijinks

Howdy y'all. So I'm leaving this morning for a road trip to Coban, which is about halfway between here and the Caribbean coast. We're going to check out a couple potential micro-hydro sites and discuss the possibility of setting up a co-operative company to operate and maintain the power plants. Anyways, I thought I'd share a humorous little anecdote before I left.

On one of our previous site visits, I was driving the AIDG truck out along a pretty rugged dirt road. It was pretty heavy going, but I was having a great time 4-wheelin it through mud, ruts, over rocks... well you get the idea. Apparently though, I was having a bit too good of a time and somehow ripped off one of the plastic fenders on a rock or something.

No biggie though, the truck has taken much more abuse than that during its short and neglected life. Being the upstanding volunteer that I am though, I offered to fix the damage and went out and bought some fiberglass and epoxy. I fixed the fender up and as chance would have it, I happened to have a bit of Loctite high strength epoxy left over. Hmmmm.

Now by this time it was about 5:30 on a Monday afternoon and pretty much everyone was still kicking around the office. Everyone that is except for Steve, aka El Jefe. Yes, the captain of the ship had deserted his crew and unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong day. In my mind there was only one way to sensibly dispose of the extra epoxy...

The epoxy was first applied to the bottom of
a can of Gallo...

Then, after carefully preparing the surface
of course, the beer was firmly glued to
El Jefe's desk.

Meg would have you believe she was innocent
in this whole affair, but just look at those
mischievous eyes.

The task is complete. The plan being that Steve will
come into work the next morning, see the beer,
and try to drink it. Upon attempting to lift the frothy
goodness to his lips, he will be dismayed to find it
securely glued to his desk. Hilarity will surely ensue.
In a stroke of genius, Dan came up with the idea
of gluing a straw to the desk too, increasing the
frustration level of our beloved boss.

Ok, skip to Tuesday morning. El Jefe shows up for work and... well I'll let the next few pictures tell the story.

After cracking the beer and finding it glued
to the desk, Steve is determined to steal the
cheese from the mousetrap. El Jefe is one strong
guy (he used to wrestle in college), so he actually
starts lifting the desk up to tip the beer down
his gullet!

The epoxy held up admirably and Steve got
the beer (and desk) nearly to his lips before it
finally let go. I'll be filing a complaint to Loctite
shortly regarding their epoxy.


The satisfaction of thwarting the beer-trap.
Though there was a small amount of spillage,
this round definitely has to go to El Jefe. Well
done Steve!

Around lunch time, I was getting ready to head home for a siesta, tired out from my late night of gluing and early morning watching Steve struggle with the beer-trap. On my way out, I told Steve I was going home for a nap, and that he'd probably be pleased since I wouldn't be gluing any more objects to his desk for a while. Instead, he was actually disappointed that he wouldn't be getting any more free beers for the day! Don't worry El Jefe, its only a matter of time, only a matter of time...

Dave

Get ya mota runnin!

Ok, so Dan's clearly been dominating me in the blog posts department, but thats all about to change. Starting with this momentous update....

We got MOTORCYCLES!! Oh ya! Me, Dan and Steve (best friend of the Conquistadores) recently purchased Suzuki EN125 street bikes! Ok, I'll try and stop abusing the exclamation mark now. This was something we'd been talking about for a while, but seemed like it would fizzle out like so many other overly ambitious plans. Then out of the blue, Steve laid down the law, "Guys, we going to the lake this weekend, and we're getting bikes before we go." Whatever sort of rational reasoning Dan and I had was no match for such conviction. We got the bikes.

Since one of the reasons for the bikes is a possible road trip back to Vancouver, we thought it would be best if we all got similar bikes. It would kind of suck for everyone if one guy had to make twice as many fuel stops as everyone else, or couldn't keep up on the highway. After a lot of research we settled on the EN125 because of its gutsy motor (14 hp in 125cc ain't bad), reliability and of course its killer looks (see pics below). Also when the three of us rocked up to the Suzuki dealer and asked for 3 of 'em, we got a pretty sweet deal.

Right now we're still going through the agonizingly slow process of breaking in the new motors. We're making every reasonable effort to keep the revs and motor load down until the parts all properly seat, however some taxing of the bikes is unavoidable. Dan made the 3 hour trip to the lake with a female companion on the back the first weekend he had his, and I chivalrously drove 2 girls home (at the same time) one night this week. Down here, 125cc bikes are family vehicles though. Just last week I saw a family of 4 on a Honda CG125 cruising comfortably through Xela.

Anyways, I'm sure you'll hear more about the 2-wheeled thunder in the not-too distant future. Until then enjoy the pictures.

Dave

There she is in all her glory. 14 caballos waiting
to be unleashed!


Dan and I on a late afternoon ride to Fuentes
Gorginas last week. We are on a mission to make
1000 kms ASAP so we can start opening these
beauties up a bit.


You can see the steam coming up from the
ground in the area around these natural
hot springs. Another beautiful moment brought
to you by fossil fuels!

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.