Chicken Bus

The cheapest way to get from one city to the next in Guatemala is by chicken bus. It is also a very unique experience and you need to use the system at least once if you go to Guatemala.

I was able to get from Comalapa to Antigua for less than $2 and it required a transfer in between. The chicken bus system appears--at least to the ignorant eye--to have no system or schedule. Yet, somehow it works. Luckily the first time I used the system I went with two other volunteers, one of which had prior chicken bus experience.

What a wild ride. Chicken busses are school busses painted in funky colors. I think the seats are made longer so they can uncomfortably fit three adults. The busses are operated by two people, the driver and another.

The other has to yell out the open doors where the bus is going to as well as to climb on the roof to put the bigger luggage. Did I mention he does this while the bus is moving? He also collects the fare. I am not really sure how he knows who he has collected from or not as he does not collect it at entry. He chooses--to me--a random time and collects from those he has yet to collect from.

After our first bus we hopped on a bus in Chimaltenango. We were fortunate enough to be able to sit down at the very front of the bus instead of having to stand the whole way. I watched out the open door as one young Guatemalan hopped on the bus and either decided it was too crowded and got off, or he fell off. I saw him fall on his backside and smash his head on the tire of a parked car. I have no idea if he was okay or not as the bus just kept on going. All I saw was some kind soul making sure he was okay. I decided at that point that the further inside the bus the better. I made sure one of my hands was touching my wallet at all times in that close of range.

The bus itself winds at high speeds up and down the mountain. It doesn’t really stop for those getting on or off; it just slows down enough for the transaction to take place. Sometimes the only thing in between objects and a chicken bus going at high speeds around sharp corners of the mountain is the sound of the horn on the bus.

There is no such thing as personal space on the chicken bus. With such a cheap fare the busses need maximum capacity in order to operate. In order to find maximum capacity on the chicken bus, you just have to add 3 people to every seat and then load the aisles up until you are no longer breathing oxygen, just the carbon dioxide from others as they exhale. Once you reach this point, you only need to add about a dozen more people to achieve maximum capacity.

Life of a Volunteer

Being a volunteer in a third world country opens your eyes to a lot of things. One of which is just how much we take for granted. I thought I was mindful of certain luxuries that I have become used to, like for example the internet. While staying in Guatemala I found there are even more basic things I take for granted.

To start this post off however, I want to mention everything about the life of a volunteer, at least at Long Way Home.

The 'working' day starts at 7am and finishes at 4pm. I use the word working loosely, as we didn't work nearly as hard as the Guatemalan staff. That isn't to say we didn't work. We certainly did. We also enjoyed having a fifteen minute break extend beyond a half an hour and our hour long lunch extend beyond the hour most days anyways.

Living in a commune, other house keeping and living tasks were divided among the volunteers. Things such as keeping the kitchen, bathroom and outside living area clean are tasks we would be used to at home, as well as the cooking. The cooking however had it's own challenges.Without a fridge, we wouldn't be able to keep things cold. Anything that needed to be refrigerated had to be purchased the day of consumption.

This also meant that other things you commonly expect to be cold--drinks, for example--had to be consumed warmer than usual. I found this to be an unexpected thing I take for granted.

Some things can be kept cool in the pilla. A peela is the special sink that we had to use in order to help preserve water. The pilla served as our multipurpose sink. Beyond refrigeration, it also was used to wash dishes and wash clothes.

The pilla has 3 compartments. The centre stores water and a special bowl called a palangana. That bowl is the only thing that should retrieve water. On the right side is where you store dirty dishes. On the left side is where you put clean dishes. It also is where you wash your clothes. It shouldn't be a surprise that there are no washing machines here. The right compartment is the one that gets the most action. If you ever need water to rinse a dish, or your hands, you get it from the centre area and pour it out over the compartment on the right. It took a little to get used to it.

Then there is of course going to the toilet. Do you know how natural it feels to throw toilet paper into the toilet once you are finished with it? Well here, you need to throw it in the garbage instead. It shouldn't get flushed. At the school, the toilets even have two holes, one for your wet waste and one for your dry waste. This toilet didn't flush, you just would pour a little water to wash down the wet and cover the dry with some sand.

That brings us to some daily chores that are unlike what we are used to at home. The only garbage we really make is the aforementioned toilet paper. A daily chore is to burn it. Instead of making garbage, we have found other uses for it. Anything that can be composted is, any left over food is given to the dogs and the rest of the garbage we make, we cram into plastic bottles which are used as alternative building materials. Bringing the finished bottles to the recycling centre is a daily chore.

Things as a volunteer seem so simple. There wasn't a lot of the hustle and bustle that technology seems to bring to weigh you down. You had to rely on good old fashioned socializing to help the down time pass, or reading. I did a lot more reading this summer than I have in a long time. I read 5 books the month I was in Guatemala, some of which were nice sized books. It feels good to have rediscovered the lost art of reading.

Parque Chimiya

Long Way Home is also partnered with a local Guatemalan group to take care of Parque Chimiya. This is a park that people of Comalapa can come and visit. It has a soccer (football) field and a basketball court. Both the field and court are very nice and I regret not using them more with my fellow volunteers, although we did use them more towards the end of my stay.

The volunteer house is also located at the park. While I was there a new Guatemalan family moved into a house on the property. Living there was the man hired to look after the park. To prepare for the move, we spent some of the working days away from the school and at the park doing different odd jobs.

One of the jobs was to rebuild and extend a bamboo fence to give the family a little more privacy.

We also worked hard on installing a evapotranspiration field (ET field) for the house. To do this we had to dig a large trench about 5 feet deep and maybe 15 feet long. We then lined the bottom of the trench with big rocks, followed by larger gravel and then smaller gravel. Finally, to top it off we put sand and covered the top with some of the original dirt and grass we had dug up.

In the bottom of the trench we put a plastic pipe leading up to the sink. The ET field gathers waste water and the gravel and sand help to filter the water so it does not contaminate the land when it evaporates.

Most of the volunteers lived in the volunteer house and a few of the volunteers lived in the cabanas. We referred to that as upstairs as you had to walk up a steep hill to get there (we were on a mountain after all). In between the volunteer house and upstairs was the new family's home, a parking lot and some gardens where fresh vegetables were  grown and used by both the staff and the volunteers.

The Project

As mentioned in my last post about Comalapa, only 3% of people have trash pick up. Even the legal dumps are an eye sore in an otherwise beautiful country. One of Long Way Home's (LWH's) mission beliefs is "We believe in being good stewards of the environment" found on their website.

It was explained to me that we humans do not have a good plan for the trash that we create. I tend to agree with this. To be good stewards of the environment, LWH is using alternative resources to do their construction. What does this mean exactly? Basically, it means they have a plan for some of the trash we create as humans. While working with the organization, when ever I purchased something in a package, instead of throw it in a trash bin, I would cram it into a trash bottle. They called these bottle bricks. The key to a good bottle brick is using a metal bar and compacting as much garbage as possible into the bottle so it becomes hard like a brick. These bricks are then used in the construction of different buildings for the school.

Other environmental resources include dirt tires--dirt being pounded into tires to make walls--and earth bags. I can imagine the idea of using trash can sound gross to some people, but the school buildings that have been built actually look quite nice. At the tops of the buildings they use glass bottles which act as sky lights. These not only can look nice but will also require less electricity to light up the classrooms.

One of the projects I helped to prepare the resources for was the school logo. Different colours of glass were used. The glass gave from bottles and other various items that would have just sat in a dump. I had to organize the glass into colours and smash it. Then I sifted it into two groups, big and small. This was a very tedious project. After I had gathered a lot of material we did a floor pour--we poured concrete--for the floor outside the classrooms. When the floor dried over the next few days a couple Guatemalan workers used the glass to make the logo. I think it turned out great!

Unfortunately the building manager of the school, Technico Mayo, was not in the country when I arrived. He was spending time visiting his home in the USA. That meant we were doing a lot of other small and random projects not as closely related to the school, but still important to the organization. A lot of the work I ended up doing for these involved moving dirt and or digging holes. In my last weeks there however we spent quite a bit of time at the school. I got to see all the students currently enrolled and even practiced the little Spanish (very little) I knew with them. They were adorable and make the whole project and time spent well worth it.

Long Way Home employs several people from the United States and a couple from Canada as well. These people are wonderful altruistic people who work way harder than what they get paid to do (which is next to nothing). They have devoted at least a portion of their lives to the project, to trying to help break the cycle of poverty.

 There is also a Guatemalan staff who work very hard as well. They do a lot of hard labor and seem to do it with a lot of ease. They are paid more than minimum wage in Guatemala. They need to promote the environmental ideals or the organization by creating their own bottle bricks in order to get paid each week. If they don't make enough trash they are encouraged to get what they need from one of the illegal dumps in the area.

Finally there are the volunteers. The volunteers pay $300 US per month to volunteer. This money goes to the program costs, including paying the other members whom work so hard. It includes a place to stay and a great group of like minded people to spend your free time with. Not to mention it gives you the opportunity to practice your Spanish and more importantly help fulfill another LWH belief, that every person has the responsibility to work towards ending poverty.

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I just wanted to add some information about donating if this is something you may be interested in. Right now they have a "$21 can change a child's future campaign." The information on it can be found on LWH's webpage.

I appreciate you have taken the time to read my blog (please continue to do it) and I am sure the organization will appreciate any support you can give them.

Comalapa

Buenos Dias!

Welcome to the small mountain city of San Juan Comalapa. While walking through town, it is very common to say "Buenos dias" to everyone you see. Unless, of course, it is the afternoon in which case I say just "Buenos" or I say "Buenos" and mumble something because I don't know what to actually say.

Comalapa sits at approximately 7000 feet above sea level. As you walk up the hills that make up the mountain, one thing will surely take place. You will be out of breath.

One reason is because the view is breathtaking. With greenery falling under a gorgeous blue sky sprinkled with monstrous fluffy white clouds, the view never gets old. Add to it the peaks of different volcanoes on clear days and breathtaking doesn't even begin to describe it.

The second reason you'll be out of breath is the elevation. Exercising 7000 feet above sea level is sure to make anyone wheeze. The altitude has become a bit of a scape goat for everything. Why am I winded after a 2 minute walk up a hill? Damn altitude. Why am I feeling sick? Damn altitude. Why can't I speak Spanish? Damn altitude.

On one of the first few days that I arrived to this postcard-worthy setting, I went on a tour of the town. As you get into town there is a beautiful mural about the history of Comalapa. It shows the Mayan civilization and the eventual results of colonization. It also has pictures of the hope for the future.

That brings us to some of the sobering facts pertaining to Comalapa. Many people speak the native language of Kachiquel. This becomes truer the further you get from the town centre. The income of 64% of the population falls below the poverty line. That means the majority of people earn less than $2 U.S. per day. In addition to that 64%, 27% live in extreme poverty, which is less than $1 U.S. per day. These stats are similar throughout the whole country of Guatemala.

Only 3% have trash pick up. Trash ends up just sitting in a giant ravine. There is one such ravine just off the main road of town. It acts as a legal dump, while other ravines in the area and throughout the country act as illegal dumps. 90% of these dumps throughout the country are illegal, but nothing is done to enforce this.

That brings us to Long Way Home's role in the community through alternative construction. That will be my next exciting post!

My Gutemalan Adventure Begins

I remember my first every flight. It was to the Dominican Republic. There was some turbulence and we had a rough landing. I had no idea this was not normal so wasn´t concerned. Experienced flyer's however began clapping because we landed safely.

This was the only time I had experienced applause during a landing. In all the flights I have taken--and there have been quite a few--there was no clapping, until my flight to Guatemala.

My whole preparation for this trip was not up to my usual standards of what can still be considered unorganized at best. I left everything to the last day which ended up being a holiday and everything was closed. I bought sunscreen and toiletries at a 7/11. I also didn´t bother to check that it is rainy season and I should have packed a raincoat of sorts. Additionally the weather gets quite cold at nights and I didn´t bring any extra sweaters. I also did not pack a towel or washcloth. Ooops.

My flight from Toronto to Mexico City went off with no problems. I purchased the second and third Hunger Games books that I began to devour on the plane.

I had a few hour layover in Mexico and began to hear a lot of Spanish being spoken and realizing that this is what I can expect when I get to Guatemala. This started the adrenaline to pump through my body. When I got on the plane I had a bad feeling that I couldn´t explain. I figured it related to my organization.

Between staring out the window and reading, an announcement from the pilot came over the speakers. He said the wing defrost was broken. A short while later he announced it was too dangerous to land in Guatemala City and we were headed back to Mexico City.

A short while later yet again the pilot came on and announced that it was also unsafe to land in Mexico City. Instead, we landed at a random airport in Mexico somewhere between Mexico City and Guatemala City. There we had to wait for 3 hours for them to send a plane from Mexico City to pick us up.

My friend Kristen, a member of Long Way Home was waiting for me at the airport. I feel bad she had to wait so long, but what really could I do?

Long Way Home

As some may know, I have left Kuwait for the summer and have just spent some time in Ontario for my summer vacation.

My next adventure is in Guatamala volunteering for the organization Long Way Home. The following is Long Way Home's mission statement:

Our Promises

To the community, we promise:

• To provide a safe environment for education and recreation.
• To bring and share innovative ideas in the areas of appropriate technology, education, and micro-enterprise.
• To train others to be development workers.
• To be good stewards of the environment.

To the volunteers, we promise:

• To provide the opportunity to work hard, to learn, and to understand a unique culture.

To our supporters/contributors, we promise:

• To operate a lean organization that puts their contributions to the best possible uses in accordance with our mission.
• To maintain accountability and transparency with all project financing.

Our Beliefs

We believe every person has the responsibility to work towards ending poverty.

We believe in learning by doing and in leading by example.

We believe that successful community-development is driven by hard work at the grass roots level.

We believe that motivated individuals, with appropriate training, can learn to become leaders within their own communities.

We believe in being good stewards of the environment.

We believe that to break the cycle of poverty people need to know it exists.

Our Goals

• LWH is a bridge for bringing expert technicians from different international organizations together with communities whose needs match their abilities.
• To execute sustainable community development projects.
• LWH wants to train others to be development workers, both the why and the how to work towards breaking the cycle of poverty.
• Provide a base for other org to use our models (share successful models) as they are proven successful.
• Break the cycle of poverty.

You can expect that the next blog posts will be about my work within the organization.