Butchered Cows, German Shepherds and Osama (Me)

The past couple weeks have been pretty busy. Work has started to fill more and more time which has been a welcome change. I have still been able to get out on the weekends and visit some great spots in Guatemala. It has been a fast couple of weeks and the next two will be even faster. I have a trip to the beach planned and then we have Reconnect at the Peace Corps center, a chance for our group to reconvene and discuss challenges, problems and solutions. More updates to come soon. 

Crazy clouds on Friday evening. Photo taken from my front yard. 

This is Don Pedro standing with freshly butchered meat. He and his wife have become good friends of mine and I stop by a couple times a week to work on gardens, composting and trying to find enough people with chickens to vaccinate. One benefit for me is that every time I stop by they feed me a meal and send me on my way with a bag full of tortillas and homemade cheese. I stopped by their place on Friday on my way to Don Teofilo's house and ate lunch with them. I had to leave early, but they asked me to stop back by to pick up tortillas and cheese on my way home. When I returned, the scene above is what I found. It seems that one of their cows had fallen and broken a leg, so Don Pedro busted out the knife, skinned and butchered the cow right there in front of the house. They leave the meat out for a day or so to cure in the sun, wrap it up in the cowhide (on the ground in front of him) and store it in a dark room to eat later. They were nice enough to give me a couple good sized chunks of the meat which I took home and grilled that night. Delicious. 

A giant lemon given to me by Don Teofilo after I injected his cattle and horses with vitamins. Put next to the Nalgene for scale, this thing is pretty enormous. 

Here is my latest enterprise. I have become the local seed salesman of my town. What I do is buy large quantities of seeds and split them up into lots of 1Q (just enough to cover the costs of the seeds, no profits) which makes them affordable for just about everyone. I sell these seeds to people and then help them plant their gardens, so it works out well for everyone. 

Planting a garden with the family of my landlord's sister, Doña Tina. This is her son Dimas and he is ready to plant a garden. 

Here are the kids planting radishes. They were pretty excited about having a garden and seemed to be able to stay on task...

...until the chicken feathers started going into everyone's hair. Then all hopes of work were over. Luckily we had completed most of the work by that time.

Doña Tina's daughter Kimberly. 

First things first, arm every Guatemalan schoolgirl with a butcher knife. Actually, this was from a project I am doing with the school in my town. We are making a garden and have not found any suitable land yet, so for the time being we are planting inside of tires. This requires the knife this girl is ominously hiding behind her back. 

Here I am talking to a few of the kids about how we are going to cut the tires and plant the gardens. 

Showing where and how to cut the tires. 

And chaos ensues...no, here the kids are trying to flip the tires. This can be a hassle, our trainer David likes to say that the tire is laughing at you and that seems to be about the most accurate description. These kids were not having luck with this tire. 

Here, myself, my neighbor/schoolteacher Hugo (on the right) and Paulino (the cowboy hat) were wrestling with a particularly difficult tire. We finally did get it flipped. The tire gardens work like this. You get an old tire, cut two  holes on opposite sides (for handles) and then cut all the way around the tire. Then you flip the tire inside out to give yourself more surface area for your garden. If a tire still has a good amount of tread or loose wire, this can cause problems. This particular tire was small, compact and had a lot of tread on it, but we still whipped it. 

A timeless classic in both Guatemala and the US. This is probably the only pickup in my town that is not a red Toyota. Almost identical to the Nic Miller original. 

This ferocious looking creature is someone that Katie and I mistakenly encountered a couple of weeks back. We went to Lago Atitlan for the weekend to meet up with some friends and we arrived earlier than they did, so we figured we would walk a trail down to another hotel we had heard about and check out the swimming area. We asked around for directions, were told it was about a ten or fifteen minute walk and started on our way. We stumbled along and finally found what appeared to be a hotel. Nice stone walkways, cabanas tucked in along said walkways, it seemed clear to us that although there was not a sign this was what we were looking for. We let ourselves in through the gate, walk down a bit and come to a blocked part of the path, which had a wooden plank running up to another level. Katie looked up, informed me there were two really big dogs, I turned and told her let's get out of here. As we turned and started walking, I heard the wooden plank rocking back and forth and here come two massive German Shepherds our way. We turn and run, it is about 50 feet to the gate. One of the dogs was going nuts and was out for blood. The other more docile dog was nuzzling the crazy dog and just watching the scene unfold. So, we are trying to get out without being bitten and running away from this dog, while trying to fend him off with a towel and a water bottle. Finally, we got to the gate, locked it and I was able to get this picture of our foe from the safety of a locked gate. Eventually we found the hotel, another 10 minutes down the path. 

This is the hotel we were looking for, as you can see they have a great area set up down by the lake for swimming and jumping in. Although we were not guests, if you buy a drink they are happy to let you use this area, so we were obliged to enjoy a couple of cold Mozas by the lake. 

This is a shot of a mudslide that took place a couple months back near Chicaman. Basically the side of the mountain collapsed, wiping out a village and killing around 130 people, I believe. It was pretty amazing to see. 

Enjoying a drink and learning to play canasta at the hostel. 

Semuc Champey is a natural reserve in Guatemala, the most popular attraction being the limestone pools. It is a beautiful spot and made for a great trip. Getting there was a bit of a hassle, as it was 8 hours and 3 buses from where I live to get there. We made the most of it though and spent the weekend in Lanquin, about an hour from Semuc. We rode out to Semuc in a pickup that was driving around town with a 10 year old kid in the back yelling out "Semuc Champey!!!". This kid, Julio, was quite a character and seemed to be part of the Guatemalan Chamber of Commerce, as he knew all the tourist hot spots. As we made our trip he and his buddy were staring at my beard and eventually began calling me Osama. They also picked us up to return to Lanquin and when they saw me, again greeted me with shouts of Osama, although one of them mistakenly said Obama. I guess Fox News aren't the only ones who makes that mistake. 

A shot of the pools from the view point above. It was about a 45 minute hike to this spot and was worth it, as you can see. 

Here we found a nice perch to jump off of into the cool limestone pools of Semuc Champey. 

Work?

So, lately I have become acquainted with a concept that was a bit foreign to me for awhile there...work. When I arrived things were a bit slow and I have been doing a whole lot of getting to know the community, just talking to folks and seeing whether they have interest in my project. Recently, some of those talks have begun to pay off. 

Currently, I am working with 3 schools in the area, teaching the kids about the environment, composting, making a school garden and various phrases in English. All of the schools are great, although one of them is a 2 hour walk from my home and on the way back I gain over 1000 feet in elevation in about 3/4 of a mile. It is hard to complain though, as on of my co-workers lives in this town and makes this walk just about every day. 

This week, I began administering vitamins to cattle also. As I have said, many of the residents here believe that I am a veterinarian, so I figure even though I am not one I can take this on and confuse them even further. This was definitely a learning process. Here there are no real corrals, basically the cattle are set loose in the cornfields after harvest and graze there until it is time to plant, then they move them to the lowlands, near a river, an hour or so from here. Anyways, as they are roaming free, it presents a small challenge to get them and give them injections of vitamins. The guy that I was doing this for just grabbed a regular piece of rope, went out and lassoed a cow, running along with it so as not to be drug along and finally found a pole to use as a bit of leverage against the beast. We then proceeded to tie the cow's head to the pole, to keep it somewhat stationary while I injected it in the rump. I think we injected 5 cows with this process and I only had one close call--the first one, I didn't slam the needle hard enough, he got spooked and I almost caught a hoof to the shin. Lesson learned, make sure the needle goes in on the first try, apparently cattle don't enjoy being jabbed with sharp objects. 

Recently, the office of the association I am working with had their computer taken to the main office in Quiche and we are now using an older computer. After hooking up this computer, I discovered that after about 15 minutes, it fails. Every time. Which is nice. Also, when I looked at the manufacturer of this computer....none other than Micron, from the great state of Idaho. Thanks Micron. Small world, huh?