Life with the fat cut off

At the end of February, I headed home for 10 days. At my connection in Ft. Lauderdale, people were freaking out about the 30 minute delay to head up to DC. None of these people have spent time in the developing world. As you can imagine, life went on. Seeing family and friends was fun, and I was surprised how little everything had changed. This also has to do with the email updates people sent me over the course of the six months down here. I never once felt lost in a conversation or needed to be filled in about something. That was nice. But, being home still felt a little strange. It was kind of like I was visiting family and friends in a foreign country I had visited before. Hard to explain i guess. One of the biggest things I noticed about being at home was that I felt cooped up inside. Here, I'm outside all day long. If its cold outside, its cold inside. You never escape the outdoors. 

 Things I liked about being home:

1. Family and Friends minutes away
2. Hot showers with ridiculous preasure.
3. Throwing TP in the toilet.
4. An unendless beer selection
5. Options in general.

Transitioning back into Guate life was pretty easy. No freak outs like when I first got here. 

Work-wise: The coop received an Eco-Tourism volunteer to develop the tea tour. So, I have a new sitemate. He gets up here next week. Its tough getting back into work once you've been gone for a while. So, with my trip home, semana santa, and a PC conference at the begining of April, it'll be tough getting things done this month. However, I did order shirts for the coop, and film and edit a promo movie, which is below.

Semana santa (holy week) was last week. Across guatemala, people carry floats of Jesus and Mary through their towns. PC gave us vacation days from Thursday-Sunday, so I took advantage of the time to visit volunteers in Alta Verapaz.  One of the towns I visited, Salaquim, was a town two hours off off the paved road to Chisec. The town was pretty basic. We played basketball on hoops that reminded me of the Kevin Bacon movie, The Air Up There. 

In general, things are awesome down here. Life is pretty relaxing most of the time, its simple. Life with the fat cut off. 

My apartment and work at the coop

Sometimes the weeks move at a leisurely pace and sometimes weeks only seem to have two or three days. Sorry its taken me so long to post something. I moved into an apartment in Coban about 3 weeks ago. Most of my furniture is made up of pine brought in on the heads of carpenters from the rural areas. There is an abundance of pine in my area, so its all pretty cheap. My living room has a bench, 2 chairs, a kitchen table, shelves, a stuff table, a fridge, an old bed which i use as a couch type thing. The one window in the living room lets in a decent amount of light, but I can flood the room with light when I open the the wooden double doors leading to the courtyard of my host family. My bedroom, which is off of the living room without a door, has a full bed, two shelves connected by a pole to hang clothes, a desk, and a bedside table. The bathroom is off of the bedroom to the front of the apartment, and it has running water, a sink, a toilet, shower with an electric heater that trips after 5-10 minuts of hot shower. My kitchen is outside in a shed - like structure towards the front and has a pila (look on first post for a picture of pila), 4 - burner stove powered by a butane tank, and a prep table. I really like the setup, and my host family is really great. They have four of the most well behaved kids I have met here in Guatemala.
Check out a video of my place.



A few things that annoy me:
Fleas: The host family has two dogs, which had fleas at some point/still do. So, I got fleas. I no longer pet the dogs, and Im looking forward to hanging out with my dog Pepper at home who has seemed like a prince since I got down here. I used a whole can of raid, sprinkled baking soda all over my apartment (not sure if that works but was willing to look foolish), and have resorted to appllying bug repellant before going to bed. Basically, I wanted to turn my apt into a bug - unfriendly place. Any tips from home are much appreciated.

Noise: I live next door to the only place in Alta Verapaz with beer on tap. This is a blessing and a curse. While the taps have taunted me because I cant have more than two beers, it is nice two have 1 or 2 frosty Mozas, the local dark beer. However, they blast all your fave 80s hitz Monday through Saturday until well past midnight.

So, I need to get flea bombs and ear plugs when I get home.

Work is really picking up. Ive come up with my work plan for the next year.

1)Help with Pruning and Harvesting Techniques. Ive already given a series of trainings on both and have painted signs that I strategically placed around the coop to remind associates of the proper harvest and post harvest techniques. For example, "Dont shove too many leaves into a sack because you will break up the tea leaves and the final result will have a lower quality." I call them my Guatemalan powerpoints. This will help them have bigger tea yields and have a better handle on quality control from the field. One of the previous volunteers left a book on tea which I have read cover to cover, which has aided me in my tea education.

2) Help improve Manufacturing Best Practices in the Warehouse. For example, the packers need to be wearing closed toes shoes, have hair nets, pennies, and should not be wearing jewelry. All windows should have mesh nets so bugs and rodents dont get in the warehouse. Doors should automatically close so dogs and rodents dont get in, etc. It is a slow process and will probably take the full two years+.

3) Develop the Sales team and adding distributors. This involves making the sales team work a little more efficiently and organized. Scheduled transportation pickups, recorded orders, regular sales calls in town, etc. Currently Chirrepec tea is distributed to Xela, Huehuetenango, Quiche, etc. Basically, out west. Ive been helping them find more distributors in other parts of the country including Guatemala City.

4)Help expand into foreign markets. Exporting The coop has 30,000 lbs of tea surplus a year. Im currently trying to find some clients state side that would like to buy some quality tea at a cheap price with a great story. Also promoting tea to smaller importers of tea. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Hope that sheds a little light on the , "Mike what exactly do you do?" questions.

Ive had the chance to check out some of Alta Verapaz. The waterfall at Sachichaj, lagoons at Setaña, an old coffee finca that has become the town of Campur, Lanquin, etc. Alta Verapaz is beautifull and Im extremely lucky to have been placed here. Let me know when you want to plan a visit down.

Christmas, New Years, and New Digs

So Christmas outside of the US was a little surreal. The decorations in Coban included a Christmas tree sponsored by Gallo, the national beer company. I saw one fake snowman, which made me laugh. I heard a Spanish Christmas song, Peces en el Rio, which reminded me of Christmas as a kid. The cooperative celebrated Christmas with Posadas. This includes carrying a manger scene through the tea cooperative from house to house over the course of 12 days. Little kids drum on turtle shells and blow whistles to a beat. Once the manger scene arrives to a house, there is a prayer service in Qeqchi, which is tough to understand, and then a rice and milk drink is served. Definately different, but cool to experience.

For Christmas, I met up with two buddies from my training group and a Peace Corps buddy and his old roomate here in Coban and his sister. We rented a cabin just outside of Coban for the 24th and 25th. Fireplace, soccerfield, etc. It was a blast. I cut down a pine tree from the coop and hung up the stocking my mom sent for Christmas. For Christmas eve dinner, we ate at a guatemalan buddies house, where we ate turkey legs the size of baseball bats. At midnight, everybody in Coban lit off fireworks. Think baghdad/fourth of july.

For New Years, the same cabin group went to Nebaj for a two day Hike through the Cuchumatanes mountains up to the cumbre of Huehuetenango. We were guided by an ex-guerilla fighter from the guatemalan civil war who was really familiar with the area. The area is called the Ixil Triangle and is well known for the atrocities that occured there during the war. We hiked the first day to Palob and spend the night in a wooden cabin with plenty of beds for all. We were all feeling pretty nasty so the five of us crammed into a tamascal, which is a sauna/bathhouse mayan families use to bathe. Think two tiny benches, a couldron of hot water, and a little crawlspace lit by a candle. The next day we hiked up to the Cumbre of the Cuchumatanes mountains. Check out pics below.

When we got to an intersection, we waited an hour for a truck to pass in our direction, and hitched a ride to a little town, where we were meant to stay. However, the place was pretty grimey, so we hitched another ride on a pickup truck down into Huehuetenango and enjoyed the amazing views as we dropped 1000 meters down the mountain.

We spent the night with some Huehue volunteers and headed for Lake Atitlan to meet up with a bunch of volunteers for New Years.

As you can tell, the lake is amazing. We stayed in Panahachel, which is pretty touristy and pricey. There are also a bunch of other little towns around the lake. After two days in Panahachel, I headed back to Coban. On the way back, I ate somthing funky and spent the next couple of days vomiting with various other stomache issues. No more street food for me.

Two previous volunteers from Chirrepec, came back to visit for a week. Marsha, the volunteer I replaced, introduced me to a bunch of families I hadnt met and gave me the inside scoop on various things.

Work is going well. Continuing the harvest and post harvest trainings. And, Im planning on organizing sales routes and transportation that is more cost effective for the coop.

Last weekend I moved into my place inside of Coban. I like it alot. I have two rooms and a kitchen shed with a sink in the back of a family courtyard. I finally get to cook my own food and hang out in my own space. Furnishing it is a work in progress. I do have a nice bed, which is an change from the wood plank i had been sleeping on for then last two months. I take a van shuttle 10 minutes down the road to the coop for work. Pictures to come.

I also booked my ticket home for the first week in March, so be there or be square.