Please don´t put your child in the luggage rack

And a few other photos from Antigua this weekend...

chicken buses y fotos

hiya!

antigua was its usual tranquil/monotonous/picturesque/unfriendly self. but it was so great to see KEN TU and visit with his friends. it was nice to catch up on DC gossip while eating and drinking well. we also paid a few visits to our friends, gerson & nery, at Fat Cat Espresso. so yum. they´re both getting ready to compete in the guatemalan national barista competition, which is in a few weeks in guatemala city. i would love to go and watch because there are only 16 baristas competing, but yoga will likely keep me here for the weekend.

kevin and i returned from antigua last night after a grueling five hours. don´t get me wrong- chicken buses are certainly cheaper, and the duration of the trip is usually the same as a shuttle. for whatever reason, yesterday i began in a mood... which probably did not help our luck.

chicken buses are used in guatemala like the only public transportation from town to town. they are run by individuals (it seems), and like other business ventures here, they don´t always do things on time. when the buses fill up, they keep letting people on. capacity? nah. that doesn´t matter. it´s not like we´re driving on pot-hole-infested roads, on the edge of dirt cliffs or winding around tight switch-backs of a mountain with baskets and crates full of who-knows-what on the top of the bus.... no problem. let all those women with babies on when there are no seats. and don´t forget the men with machetes and such... let them on too. always three or four to a seat on usually an unpaved road with a driver who is oblivious to a speed limit (if there is one) or the road lines (which say don´t pass on the turn). anyway, it´s like this. you get the idea. loads of fun.

when the man came to take our money for the ride, kevin gave him 2 Q20 and 2 Q5, totally Q50 for the both of us. as kevin was reaching for his other Q5, the man mixed the bills. he took the Q5 and said "veinte más." we said, "no, hay cincuenta ahí para ambos. le doy en total. no más." this arguement went on for what seemed like an eternity, and i became quite scared that kevin might want to fight this guy.... for those of you who don´t know him well, he´s fairly stubborn. all the other passengers were eagerly looking on, not vouching for either party (which is also very typical here... every man for himself and the rest are bystanders). eventually, the man relented and passed us, continuing to collect quetzales from everyone else. each time he passed to collect from new passengers, i held my breath. when we finally exited the bus, he let us go w

ithout a nod, almost like he forgot that he attempted to rip us off and failed. basically, i was so glad to get home last night... even if we (excuse me- kevin, not me) had to kill lots of spiders that had occupied our house in our absence.

oh, by the way, before we left for antigua, we found and killed a scorpion in our bedroom. sigh. so there´s that. success.

incredible full moon on the lake

volcán san pedro in its majesty

locals doing laundry on the lake

the ultimate swimming hole and peaceful place

en kayak a las siete de la mañana en lago atitlan

ingrid, natasha, me and olivia in san pedro yoga studio (mas o menos "studio")

Un buen Chapin, and a thanks to David Stoll

One of my college professors, David Stoll, who has spent much of his career studying Guatemalan society both before and after its guerra civil, introduced me to Curtis Chapin, an old friend/colleague/acquaintance of his currently living in Panajachel, right across Lake Atitlan from San Pedro. While I can’t say I know too many 77-year-olds still walking and breathing (and let’s be honest, neither is particularly easy for Curtis), Curtis Chapin is up there amongst the coolest and most interesting senior citizens and people in general on my radar. This past weekend Stacy and I stayed with Curtis and his wife Augusta in Pana.

So, I had called Curtis a week after arriving in San Pedro, but he was in the States, so we didn’t actually speak until a couple weeks ago. And while David did mention that Curtis did have a heart attack, I must have selectively forgotten this fact, because after our phone conversations, I was definitely not expecting Curtis to be 77. I don’t know, maybe it was the repeated and adamant insistence that we didn’t need to bring anything because “[Augusta and I] have plenty of beer and whisky.” No lack of hospitality, and the mental liveliness and sense of adventure that might fit better in a body 40 years younger.

Curtis likes to talk. Our phone conversations before we met in person ate up my phone minutes twice, and the one time he left me a voicemail, he left two, because he ran out of tape the first time. And he tells a great story. By the shear amount of experiences Curtis can recount, it’s easy to expect hyperbole, but everything seems to be backed up with some non-bs knowledge. Anything we talked about, Curtis knew by experience.

On the upcoming dynamiting on the road between Pana and Solola: “It’s horseshit that they need to close the road for two weeks to do this. I’ve worked in dynamite. Two or three days max to lay the dynamite in rows 100 feet apart. Then blow up the hillside, it slides down over the road, and a couple days to bulldoze a new dirt road.”

On maple syrup (why it came up I don’t remember): “I worked in maple syrup when I was living in Vermont.”

On the San Pedro mayor’s hatred of gringos because they’re supposedly introducing the locals to drugs: “I just don’t believe the hippies are going up to locals and saying, ‘here, try some drugs.’… I’ve done 86 different types of drugs in my life, so I know about that. Tried (one particularly addictive narcotic) every way imaginable, and the only drug I ever got addicted to was cigarettes.”

And an example of why it’s important to take the stories with a small grain of salt: “In a way I’m responsible for the end of piracy on Lake Atitlan a few years ago.”

Great stories, and Curtis has lived more than anyone I know. His service in clandestine branches of the U.S. military, abruptly ended when he married his first wife, a Hasidic Jew and card-carrying member of the Communist party. At the age of 50, he moved to Guatemala and was one of the only two gringos living in the most violent zone of the country during the civil war, the Ixil Triangle, sneaking in and out of Chajul under cover of night (kudos to David Stoll for being the other white guy). And now he runs a business employing Mayan families for their bead work, paying a living wage, and turning most of the profits into scholarships for the children in those same families.

He’s stubborn man, too. When Stacy and I arrived (about 2 hours late), we went for a walk, and even though we were afraid he was going to keel over (he didn’t), Curtis kept on going about twice as far as we expected. Luckily he wasn’t too stubborn to take a Tuk-Tuk back to the house.

Along the walk, Curtis seemed to know every vendor on the street, and stopped to talk to each in a Spanish that’s still broken after 28 years in Guatemala. He sponsors a local futbol team called the Chapines – in an awesome coincidence, Curtis’ last name is slang for a “true Guatemalan”, and in a way, he’s become one. And at the end of the walk, when we finally convinced Curtis to stop for a coffee, Stacy had the honor of buying Curtis a Wild Bull. Chapin drinks his Johnny Walker mixed with cold milk.

earthquakes and yoga and nostalgia, oh my!

Usually, I wake myself when I´m having a bad dream. Kevin´s been having unusually bad-weird dreams lately, and I always know when he wakes from them. Last Friday morning at 5 am, Kevin and I were suddenly awoken. We were silent and completely still, but everything else was moving- the floor, the bed, our clothes on the shelf, the roof. I thought I was dreaming. Then I heard Kevin say "That was an earthquake."

WHAT!?! Incredible. Maybe you wouldn´t call it an earthquake... it only lasted about 30 seconds... but still! Guatemala popped my earthquake cherry. I talked to people about it all day, and I preferred to call it a "lakequake."

Then as I sat down to check my email around 5:30 pm, there was ANOTHER one! The computer almost fell off the little plastic desk. I expressed my fear and surprise with facial expressions as the couple at the internet cafe began speaking loudly and rapidly at me in awe. Twice in one day? Is this what it´s like to live in California?

Anyway, another week has already come and gone. I taught my second yoga class last weekend. Tourism is picking up this month, which is great. I had seven students! The class overall went well, I think. No one is much for giving feedback yet... not sure if that is good news or bad news... But the students, for the most part are super nice and very receptive. I really hate not having any background in group instruction... but hands-on learning is the best way, right? The space is so wonderful, even though sometimes it´s impossible to fall into a state of relaxation because of the unique surroundings: roaming dogs, loud tourists walking around the bamboo walls, sqawking birds, nearby construction, squirrels having their breakfast and dropping the remains of nuts and berries onto the students lying below... It´s a definitely a challenge to concentrate here.

Next month, there will be some changes in the studio- namely a price increase for the classes. In exchange, we hope to begin providing tea after the classes, as well as a meditation session at 8am throughout the week. Right now, we are completely dependent on three somewhat lazy workers who have been promising a table and bench for the studio for OVER A YEAR. So. We´ll see how that pans out in the coming weeks. There are a lot of things I´d like to do to improve the studio, but as each instructor gives HALF of their earnings to the workers, it may be counter-productive to take the initiative. Who knows. There´s always something new to learn about a culture the longer you live in it.

That being said, here are a few things that I was surprised to learn that I miss terribly:
- my guitar!
- pillows
- grapes
- having a washing machine
- fresh cold milk and honey nut cheerios
- wifi (namely using the internet whenever I want and not being aware of how much every minute is costing me)
- reliable electricity
- being able to call people I know when something I see or hear reminds me of them
- riding my bike
- being out of the house at night and feeling completely safe
- being completely aware of the price of products and services, and knowing that I won´t be charged more because I´m white or because the woman selling piña has had a bad day.
- sleeping later than 7am
- and last but definitely not least... I miss Twizzlers like mad! surprise? nah...

Anyway... you get the idea. This week is actually going to be quite busy for Kevin and I. We´re both working every day, and I´m still taking Spanish classes. The house really needs to be cleaned because we´re hoping to have people over for dinner on Friday. Then, Saturday after my yoga class, we´re going to Antigua to meet up with my favorite, KEN TU, and attending a wedding brunch at Finca Filadelfia. I´m stoked about the weekend- apart from the actual trip to Antigua, which will likely be a bit of a nightmare. Alas...

More to come. Plus captions for photos! Hooray! Miss you all!

Shipping update

Okay, first off, I´m writing in darker green now, which will hopefully be better for the eyes.

Second, an update on our shipping address.  The best way to reach us via non-e-mail is to send letters, packages, and whathaveyou directly to the post office.  So here it is.

Stacy Williams and/or Kevin Nealon

Lista de Correos

San Pedro la Laguna, Solola, Guatemala, C.A.

The C.A. is for Central America, in case that was confusing.  That´s it for now.

fotos de la cámara de stacy

Body art and roasting

Who wants to get piersed?

That from my first trip to Panajachel.  I opted for the no option.  First, I don’t want to get piersed anywhere.  Second, for hopefully obvious reasons, I’m prejudiced against tattoo parlors that can’t spell.  Better-than-hooked-on-phonics literacy is a prerequisite for whoever inks me first.  I don’t want my tattoo cherry popped with a heart containing the word “Mawm.”  I know it's just henna, but it still lasts for two weeks...

Back in San Pedro, after two weeks of volunteering at FEDEPMA, I finally got to help out roasting coffee for an entire half day!  This comes after being told “vamos a tostar mañana” (we’re going to roast tomorrow) for at least 6 days.  I’ve learned that before the start of any given day, it’s best to not expect to do what I think I’m going to do.  FEDEPMA somehow manages to function by combining all stereotypes of non-profit inefficiency with the confusion of running a cooperative that’s trying to make a profit for its farmers, but also focused on other goals including education projects, then compounded with a very Latin American sense of time and expediency. If that sentence doesn’t make sense to you, that’s because FEDEPMA still doesn’t really make sense to me.  It’s an organizational clusterfuck, but nonetheless, the coffee eventually gets roasted, membership is a huge economic benefit to the individual farmers, and the organization does a good job of promoting organic farming and educating adolescents in the greater Atitlan region about agriculture and business administration.

Beans with the parchment.

Doña Loida and the mill.  For scale, she's about 4'9''

Cafe en oro.  No parchment.

Anyways, one of the things I did while not roasting coffee was to fertilize a small plot of coffee plants on the FEDEPMA property (most of the beans come from farms outside of the roasting center).  One of FEDEPMA’s other arms is organic fertilizer, or, in more simple terms, worm urine.  So I dug crescent-shaped ditches around each of the 129 coffee plants in this plot, then hand-poured 129 liters of worm urine, one for each plant, using a Nalgene bottle (I checked – the bottle was from before Nalgene removed BPA from its products, so I wasn’t tempted to drink).

Finally got to do some roasting on Thursday.  The process started out by removing the parchment from the beans (Coffee berries have several layers, the parchment is the last one that remains before the bean used to make a typical cup of coffee).   Doña Loida and I fed the beans through a mill 3 times to fully remove the parchment.  Then we roasted after lunch.

I really don’t want to go through the roasting process step-by-step, but I will say that, given my limited knowledge, the temperature control for the roaster is decidedly bushleague.  Basically you turn up or turn down the gas using a valve, and it’s really easy to turn up the gas too high and almost blow your face off.  If you’ve ever accidentally tried to light a gas stove after the gas has been running a little too long, hence creating a small, but startling, ball of fire, you may have experienced a faint ringing in your ears and general lightheadedness.  Well, if you turn the handle on the gas valve for FEDEPMA’s coffee roaster just 1/16^th inch too much, that ringing in your ears lasts the rest of the day.

Dipstick?  Checking the beans to see if they're done.

The belly of the beast.

Anyways, that’s it for now.  Stacy and I might help FEDEPMA employees learn to make espresso drinks, but that’s another project still to come, hopefully over the next two weeks, assuming I don’t burn my face off before then. 

techincal difficulties...

hola a todos! 

i have been trying to load a photo on this blog for the last 40 minutes... not sure what the problem is, but i´m afraid i´ll have to try again tomorrow. sorry for the delay in news... as we´re getting into the routine here, not much exciting is happening. hope life is treating you well wherever you may be reading this. kevin will probably do this with ease, so stay tuned. thanks for your patience! 

miss you all!