Rio Icbolay

Here are some pics of another tourist attraction I will get to be working with. The people of the town Rocja' Pomtila' live on the Rio Icbolay. They take you upstream for 45 minutes until you get to the natural springs where the river is born. I had this weird feeling like I had done this trip before for about the first 10 minutes and I didn't know why. Then I realized it was because it's a lot like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. To the pictures!

Hey Babs, here is a picture of me. I hope this is enough evidence that I still look the same. That is Roberto our tourguide in the front of the boat.

That´s Don Ramiro in the foreground. He is my counterpart and a good guy. Felipe is driving the boat. I have to assume he´s a good guy because he doesn´t speak Spanish and I don´t speak Q´eqchi.

The tour ends where the river begins. That´s me sticking my head into one of the spring where water shoots out. It felt good.

I convinced Ramiro to do the same, but in a different spring.

I really like this place. It is pretty.

And lastly, here is a video of some of the waterfalls. I am excited to work with these people at this place. I hope you can see why.

Names

Written April 4th (thanks seiya):
I have a lot of names here. I feel people of Latin decent are given a hard time in the States because it seems they have loads of them. They only have 4, 2 of which are given. The other 2 are inherited. One is from Dad and the other from Mom. I´ll use my old host family as an example. Dad is Mario Efrain Perez Rodriguez. Mom is Zonia Yolanda Quezada Ramirez. A daughter of their´s is Sheila Vanesa Perez Quezada. Get it? Just take the first last name from each parent, dad´s goes first. Sometimes you run into a kid with a last name like Lopez Lopez and it makes you wonder.
Ok, now that´s clear we can go back to my names. The Peace Corps folk are calling me Tigo (pronounced tee-go) or Tigo Ted due to the backpack I wear around town. It was given to me as a thank you by the people that run the Tigo phone company after I bought one of their brand new cellular telephones. When I introduce myself to a Guatemalan, I tell them both my first and middle name (Ted Sebastian) because quite a few of them have a hard time with the name Ted. As if that weren´t enough, the people who only speak Q´eqchi´ have a hard time saying both Ted and Sebastian, so their substitute for the common Spanish name Sebastian is Bex (pronounced Besh). So the next time you see me, feel free to call me any combination of those names and I´ll probably respond.

Settling in

Written April 2nd 2008
I made it to my site. So far, everything is great. I am just having a hard time believing that I will actually be living here for the next two years. In short, life is waaaay different. Too many things have already happened for me to tell, so here is one story that I think is a little funny. My little house (which you´ll see in a minute) was basically an empty room, so I decided to build a table and shelves using some extra wood Ramiro told me I could use. The second youngest of his ten kids, Julio, decided to help. Throughout the process of building this table, several other kids showed up and were intrigued to see this goofy white guy cutting up wood. When it came time to connect the legs to the table, I realized I didn´t have enough nails. I told Julio to tell the other kids if they wanted to come with me to the tienda to buy some more, I´d be happy to have the company. He then mumbled something in Q`eqchi` and three of the 5 kids present raised their hands excitedly signifying they were coming along. About 100 yards into our 200 yard walk, I realized all of them were walking behind me. When I turned around to see if I was moving to fast, I noticed that my gang of 3 had doubled to 6 and they were following me in a single-file line. I giggled at the site, but I didn´t question it. I heard one kid use the word “mex” (table) in a sentence to another kid, so I figured everybody knew what our mission was. By the time we made it to the tienda, we were up to 8. I bought the nails and one of the kids who spoke Spanish said we should take the back way home. I agreed happily, because that is what you do here. When we passed by the mayor´s office, I pre-empted the obvious question by telling him that my team of carpenters was following me to help me finish my table. He laughed like the jolly man that he is. By the time we made it back home, there were 12 kids following me in a single-file line. They all stood and watched (some tried to help) as I finished my masterpiece of a table. Afterwards, we knocked down some coconuts and drank them dry to celebrate a job well done.

I took a video of where I will be living, but the connection here is too slow to upload it. I'll take some pictures and post them in the near future.

I like it here, you should come check it out.

Last week in San Lucas

I move to my site in a couple days. I am excited, but of course that comes with some sadness. I have made some good buddies here in San Lucas and I really enjoy my current host family. Here is a quick list of things I will miss about this town:

• playing basketball
• hearing my host family shout random bad words in English just to make me laugh
• bread
• internet
• the other trainees that are now my friends
• being able to speak Spanish to anybody I want

Leaving those may be sad, but I have a whole new set of challenges ahead I am ready to face.

Tomorrow we go to the ambassador´s house to swear in as official volunteers. That means I get to wear that tie I brought.

Remember that Mayan language I get to learn? I had my first class yesterday. The 5 others and I spent a good chunk of the class laughing at these ridiculous noises we are expected to make. We left with soar throats due to said noises. Let me give some examples

• Ma sa´ leech´ool laa´ex = how are you guys?
• Sa´ qach´ool laa´o = we are good
• B´ar wank eb li china us ixq = where are the beautiful women?
• Sa´ che´= in a tree

Right now it looks just about as foreign to me as it does to you. I´ll let you know in two years if I figure it out.

Site Visit

Ok everybody, I made it back from my site visit. What a place. The people are great, the parks are incredible, and the heat and living conditions are bearable. Instead of boring you all with words, let us enhance this presentation with pictures. Here we go:

This is one of the lagunas in the municipal park Salinas Nueve Cerros. It is one of the parks that I will be helping to develop and then market. I didnt go swimming in it because it has...

a bunch of these guys. Ya, that is a crocodile. The first day in the park I also saw howler monkeys, turtles, a barba amarrilla (one of the most venomous snakes in the world), and countless species of plants, bugs (I guess I didnt get to see a lot of bugs, they were mostly just biting me), and birds.

This is what the houses are in Santa Lucia, where I will be living. I took this picture from the soccer field. The woman on the right is sewing a bag to sell. Their backyard is pure tropical rainforest and the border of the national park Laguna Lachua, another park I will be working with. Nobody really speaks Spanish in Santa Lucia except for the family I will be living with for the first three months. Everyone speaks Qechi, a Mayan language that I am going to learn. The house I am going to stay in doesnt look like this either. It is the only one in town made of cement. I am hoping that after those three months, I might be able to convince them to build me a place like the one in the picture.

Another attraction to Salinas Nueve Cerros. All that white stuff is salt. There is a natural salt water spring that the ancient Maya used. Throughout the park, you can find big pots buried in the ground that they would use to extract the salt and then go trade it amongst other Maya or even the Inca in South America. The dude in the foreground is Jose Antonio or just Tono for short. He is the head of Project Lachua, the govenment organization in charge of the Eco-region Lachua. The guy on the left is Elman. He is in charge of the farmland that is also within the park. The next guy is Don Adolfo, an agricultural engineer that was in for the week to see how the crops are doing. Next to him is Don Manual, the guy that knows everything there is to know about Salinas. I guess that is what happens when you take care of a place everyday for 10 years. He is also my next door neighbor in Santa Lucia. Don Ramiro, my work counterpart/host dad is not pictured because he had some other work to tend to that day. I just felt I had to mention him because he is a splendid man and I spent most of the week with him.

Don Manu again. That mound behind him is actually a Mayan tomb. There are a bunch of them around Salinas, some of which have been excavated and you can crawl into them. It is a little creepy, but you feel something when you are sitting inside.

This is just some of the stuff I saw last week, and there is still loads I have yet to see in the region. As you can see, it has a ton of potential for tourism. The challenge is going to be including the communities in that development so that they will care for these places in the future. I am counting the days until I get to move there for good at the end of the month.

Off to the Beautiful Boonies

They told me where I am going yesterday. Aldea Santa Lucia Lachua. Population 325. Located in the tropical rainforest in the northwest of the department Alta Verapaz, near the Mexican border. 7 km from the national park Laguna Lachua. I will have electricity, but will have to use their methods of catching rainwater. The nearest town with a market is about 20km away. I will be working in and with several associations including the national park, a municipal park, and a couple rivers. My main responsibility will be developing the whole ecotouristic (is that a word in English?) region and promoting it. They tell me the place is beautiful, and the pictures I have seen on Google confirm it. I am beyond excited for the "work" ahead.

There will be monkeys and jaguars! Lots of them! All over the place!

On Monday I will meet my counterpart (host country national that I will be working with) and then we will be off to the site for the rest of the week. Once there, I will find a place to live and get a quick feel for the area. I move there for good at the end of the month.

We won our basketball game on sunday. I fouled out early in the 4th quarter. Something tells me life in the jungle is gonna be a little different...

Fotos and Softball

The title says it. It will only let me load 5 pictures per blog entry:

El Salto de Chilasco. The tallest in Central America.

The main lookout for the waterfall. You can see why it is called cloud forrest.

A view from inside a church overlooking San Cristobal

The bottom step of a Mayan temple currently under excavation

Teaching folks about tourism

Cool, cool stuff. On a side note, yesterday was awesome. I got asked to play on a fast-pitch softball team by a guy who is a friend of my host family who also used to be on Guatemala’s national baseball team. Although I have been to the batting cages in recent years, I don’t think I had faced live pitching since like 8th grade. I was nervous, but I figured what the hell. That feeling intensified a bit when they told me I was batting lead-off. They must have seen something in the combination of my way-too-small uniform and soccer cleats. Turns out I had nothing to be nervous about. The pitching was equivalent to the medium setting at the batting cages in Boomers. Big, juicy meatballs that were just fast enough to be straight and right down the middle. I led the game off with a triple off the top of the wall. In our double-header, I failed to make it on base once in my eight at- bats. I told the team that I am only going to be in town for another month due to my job. They said depending on how far away they send me, they would be willing to pay for my trip to make it to the games and that I could stay at any one of their houses. I told them that would be great.

If this rain lets up, I have a basketball game at 6 tonight.
I find out where I will be for the next 2 years tomorrow. I am a little nervous about it.