As August 2011 inched closer, I began negotiating my return from a year working in Australia for a Market Research firm, but try as I might, I could not rally my head or my heart behind returning to the U.S., let alone to working in an office. Determined to participate in something outside of myself, to facilitate change, and to get some firsthand experience in an area that I want to pursue a career in, I resigned from my job, and bought a plane ticket to Guatemala. In this way, I found myself in Comalapa, in the pouring rain, feeling as though I had forgotten every word of Spanish I knew, and wondering what exactly I had gotten myself into.
Despite some previous international experience, my two plus months in Guatemala shed light on poverty in a way I had not yet encountered. The local community is ninety-five percent indigenous Maya, and many here survive on subsistence farming and less than two dollars a day. Long Way Home´s primary goal is to give the people the arsenal to help themselves, rather than to impose an external solution. Although the organization works on a variety of projects; from a clean water program with Engineers Without Borders, to a community sports and ecological park, to building a school out of trash using green building and alternative construction, most of my responsibilities centered around the construction of the school. Occasionally I spent some hard but relaxing days weeding and tending to the gardens, but mostly I was covered in mud and doing whatever task was required of me that day. I laughed a lot, I showered very little, I made tortillas with Fedelia (the most wonderful woman ever and the mom to all of us!), I took Matt´s still very anesthetized and now one-eyed cat Meester home from Antigua in a Tupperware container on a chicken bus, I had a very very large mouse proudly dropped onto my blankets by another cat, Chairman, and well...I loved every minute of it.
To Ashley's full reflection on volunteering with Long Way Home, please click here.
Let the world change you, so you can change the world - Che Guevarra
I only have a few days left in Comalapa with Long Way Home, and it is with a heavy heart that I am now about to write my reflections over my time here. A heavy heart because writing this means that I am on my way away from here, despite the fact that I feel like there is still so much for me to gain from living here. I feel like I have only seen the surface of all the work that goes on here, and there is so much more I can learn from Long Way Home, and therefore a return in the near future is a real possibility.
When I think back on the past 4 months here it is incredible how fast time has flown by, I have never experienced it go so fast before. Every day has been filled with new challenges and fun experiences. I can still remember arriving in the airport and being a bit nervous about what I had gotten myself into. But as soon as I saw Rebecca jump around a corner with a big smile and give me a big hug I already felt at home. When I arrived to the park and met all my new workcollegues/friends/roommates I knew that I had arrived at a good place, and every day since that feeling has been reinforced. The next day I was already busy working, and I got to meet all our Guatemalan workers who all welcomed me with a big smile and some Spanish conversation even though my Spanish was far from conversational at that point in time.
In the beginning everything was new and exciting. It is fun to notice how things that have never been a normal part of my life, now have been fully adapted into my new life here. To wash my own laundry by hand in a sink, boil water before I can take a bucket bath, only have limited choices when it comes to groceries, mud and dust everywhere, sharing a room with several other people, living in a house with thin walls, work long days and being bit by small critters are all things that I have been accustomed to in the last several months. I can imagine that this life does not sound very attractive to many people, but to me these have all been very easy adjustments to make thanks to all the positive aspects of living in such a special community. I have learned so many new things about development work, made new amazing friends from all over the world, learned a new language, gotten new intellectual and physical challenges, had little kids run up to me on the street and give me a hug just because, people smiling to me on the street and saying buenos dias everywhere I go, cozy and fun nights around the fireplace and perfect climate have all made my time in Guatemala some of the best months of my life.
To Ashley's full reflection on volunteering with Long Way Home, please click here.
It started with one of those moments, a total coincidence, right time and the right place and a right frame of mind.
I met Mateo in San Pedro in a restaurant on one of his brief and rare breaks, just as I was planning on moving on from living with a Guatemalan family for the previous five weeks. We got to talking and that is how I came to find out about Chimiyá and Long Way Home. The project intrigued me with its philosophy and philanthropy both very close to my own values. A quick check on the website assured me that this Texan was legitimate and the following Monday I was bumping down the road to Chimiyá in a tuk-tuk.
Mateo and Cat, although possibly a little surprised that I had kept my word, were incredibly welcoming, and I was given the tour of the five acres and what was to be my home for the next five weeks.
From the waterfall at the far ends of the park to the welcome banner at the entrance and all in between, this place had a presence; a safe place for Guatemalans to come to learn, play and enjoy and a place for us gringos to think outside the square, to challenge ourselves, to learn as well and hopefully to do and share something positive.
Everyday living in Guatemala is a total experience in itself. You will not easily find all those conveniences from home, that is for sure, but in Chimiyá it is another step further, this is the Guatemalan countryside. For starters I am living in an adobe (mud brick) hut with a solar panel (a bit of a luxury considering the main house has no electricity) and I bathe (successfully) using a bucket of cold water. I can now master the tangle and bustle of a Guatemalan market to buy food, I can cook the Guatemalan staples in a variety of ways and I can bake using only an element (burner), a feat that I am sure Mateo is ever grateful for, seeing my prodigious making of lemon cakes. I also have a healthy respect for the Guatemalan highlands during rainy season; the sound this rain and thunder can make under a tin roof has to be experienced to be believed. And I have a new bravery around snakes, Chimiyá snake count: seven.
As for the project itself, it really is amazing, my first real experience of what Mateo and Chuwi Tinamit has created unfolded on the second day. I was up by seven eagerly anticipating the arrival of a local class of Mayan children. They arrived twenty-five strong all singing and upon seeing Mateo all broke into a mad run to be the first to hug and be hugged by the bearded Texan. Wow, what a sight, one which I know will stay with me forever. The children then looked at me and it is my turn to introduce myself, "Me llamo Amelia y soy de Nueva Zelanda", I sing a Waiata, a Maori greeting song from my country, and the ice is broken and these children become part of my Chimiyá family. That day we hoe a terrace together and plant seeds in the organic garden, then I clean out the bodega (tool shed) and continue cleaning out the cabanas for more future volunteers and end the day enjoying Cat's amazing cooking.
My work over the five weeks has been incredibly varied; I have learnt to do things I never thought I could or would get the chance to do.
Hoeing, although not normally a task for a white girl in the Guatemalan highlands, was a job I was to become pretty good at, from preparing, planting and weeding the organic terraces, to the botanical garden. Visually I must have looked quite an oddity, pants tucked into polka dot gumboots hoeing away in the Chimiyá sun.
Adobe work is also another skill I never thought I would put on a CV, but Anne (another volunteer from the States who joined the family a few weeks after my arrival) and I successfully made four adobe stoves or BBQs for families and the like to use around the park. For those of you that are unfamiliar with adobe work it is incredibly dirty work, you stick mud blocks together with more mud and water to create your construction. I am sure the local kids thought it was funny seeing Anne and I covered nearly head to toe in mud; we did have a lot of fun.
Teaching at Chimiyá has also been another amazing experience, from English, to geography, to poi (a Maori dance performed with balls on a string), and even the Maori action song that I sung that second day. Through this Anne and I were invited to be part of the local parade accompanying the class dressed in their traditional traje (clothes) and have lunch with the mayor during the festivities of the week-long San Juan Comalapa feria (festival).
I was there to see the community kitchen basically completed (what a pretty garden is out the front!), I witnessed the first corporate sponsor of the park arrive (Hurrah) and plonk a new scoreboard for the soccer field on front of the existing sign. Mateo had to quickly move it again while the cement was still wet. And while I was there all the plants so lovingly tended to by Cat were sold. I watched families and couples walking around the park, relaxing or watching the mobs of boys that would come to play soccer on what must be one of the best soccer fields in Guatemala. I also witnessed Julian's never ending battle trying to mow the soccer field with a temperamental or just mental hand mower.
Chimiyá did become a family for me; Mateo, Cat and Anne, the children and the Chimiyá and Comalapa locals. Nights without television and electricity singing around the bonfire, eating Mateo's famous "beer chicken" (if you are curious then come to Chimiyá to experience this culinary delight), listening to Carlos and his Guatemalan band playing late into the night by candle light, being hassled for my thick New Zealand accent and my funny words (it's a torch not a flashlight!), the dramas with the newly purchased semi-suicidal goats, and watching out for Cuch the horse least he get stolen, again, (Cuch has since been sold), the snuggles with Chimi the kitten and ignoring Suz and Che (the dogs) and their attempt to eat our dinners.
Chimiyá was the right place at the right time for me. I can only hope that the people I have met along this leg of the journey have benefited or enjoyed my efforts and company as much as I have.
Perhaps as a lesson on the realities of life here, one of the last things I helped work on was the construction of a botanical garden. This garden has now been moved due to the theft of a large number of the plants. So such is the life of development work in developing nations. Sometimes it truly is three steps forwards and two steps backwards. That is why the work and time that Mateo and the other volunteers have invested here is even more amazing. For those of us used to the Western way of life which progresses at lightening speed and with utmost efficiency it is best to leave that notion behind and have patience and perseverance, admirable traits that are easy to forget in the developed world. They say that good things take time, and that it won't happen overnight; the selfless work at Chimiyá is testament to that, but it will happen and it is happening.
To start off in describing my two month experience in Guatemala, I must relate my latest "Guatemalan moment" that occurred about a week ago. Mateo and I were working on the chicken coop when three indigenous women came by to our tree nursery to look at trees to buy. Mateo left the chicken coop to tell the women the types of trees and negotiate prices and, seeing a wonderful opportunity for a break, I followed along. The women were all snacking on corn and one woman reached into her apron pocket and produced half a cob, offering it to Mateo. He graciously accepted the corn and started eating it and the woman took a look at me, realizing that I don't have anything to snack on. Seconds later, I received my own handful of corn bits, and, not stopping to think about their origin, I begin chewing the corn kernel by kernel. Almost finished with my snack, the situation became clear to me: I realized that that big bite the woman took out of her cob only moments before went directly from her mouth and into her hand, at which point she had turned to me and, with a smile, had offered me some of her corn. Upon realizing what had happened, I could only laugh and relate the story to Mateo. No doubt many reading this would be revolted at the thought of having a similar experience, but for me it was almost nostalgic in a way because I was taken back over 10 years ago to my only memory of the Guatemala City public transport. I was with my mom and I had recently lost a couple of teeth, so, sitting in the back of the bus, my mom bit big chunks out of an apple so I could tackle the smaller pieces. As Mateo put it, "something only a mother could do....or a random Guatemalan woman!" I'd have it no other way though; it was a wonderful Guatemala moment.
So really, what Long Way Home gave to me was four weeks full of "Guatemalan moments" (though obviously I was not constantly accepting food directly from the mouths of indigenous women!); "Guatemalan moments" defined simply as moments that snap you back to the reality that you are living in the lush rural of 3rd world Guatemala. My Guatemala moments came in all forms, be it trying to define the concept of "volunteer" to disbelieving Guatemalans, hearing forty-six 5th graders shouting "BOOY!!" in attempt to say "bull" (pronouncing "bull" as it would be in Spanish) in a heated game of Pictionary, or finding myself riding the multicolored, overfilled Guatemalan "chicken buses" and carrying on a lively conversation with the indigenous woman seated next to me about the significance of her traje, or traditional Guatemalan outfit.
Life in Chimiyá is, no doubt, a life without the luxuries of home, but after a while you realize how truly artificial some of those luxuries are. The month I was actively working at the project, we had no electricity, no showers on site (in town there ARE showers, so no worries!), and our baking facilities consisted of a series of carefully placed pots to form an oven of sorts. These quirky obstacles never dampened our spirits, however, and we were always a positive, forward-moving group. By the end of the first two weeks I was at the project, New Zealand volunteer Amelia and I had built 5 grills out of adobe blocks and mud, planted about 70 plants in the newly cultivated botanical garden, and did a major garbage clean-up around the park. Intertwined throughout these three monumental tasks, we were always busy hoeing and planting in the vegetable gardens, teaching English, or figuring out some new foods that we could cook to spice up our normal menu of rice or pasta with veggies. Our efforts in the park all came to a head on June 24, for San Juan's big day, and the big soccer game was held at our beautiful field. Two days later, New Zealand and I started our travel during which I was going to spend no more than a week running around northern Guatemala with her until she was to continue onto Belize, to Mexico, to Cuba
My one week journey turned into a four week hiatus from Chimiyá, though my adventures all around Guatemala had not at all been in my original plan. Jumping into the turquoise pools of Semuc Champey, swimming in the caves in Lanqun, and climbing the ancient temples in Tikal, I discovered the joy of traveling and was unable to stop until I had completed the big tourist loop around Guatemala and even then some more. After Tikal Amelia bussed up to Belize, but I, without passport, was left with no other choice than to head back south and explore the volcanoes, beaches, and museums Guatemala has to offer. I climbed the highest point in Central America (Tajumulco), kayaked on the pristine Lake Atitlán (a blue-green lake surrounded by sloping volcanoes), and stayed in a paradisiacal hostel built on the Rio Dulce, all on a fairly small budget and all staying within Guatemala. After three weeks I sheepishly called Mateo to let him know that I was indeed returning in no later than a week to work at the park again and he was very understanding of my need to travel and had himself taken a much deserved vacation to the Honduran Bay Islands. We all (Mateo, Cat, and I) returned to Chimyá on the same day, well-vacationed and refreshed, and started right up the next morning working around the park, teaching English, and cleaning house in anticipation of the volunteers that were on their way.
My big Guatemalan adventure is ending and I am indeed sad that it is already time to return back to the States. School at UW-Madison will be starting where I will be starting my sophomore year, and life will be unbelievably busy. I am, however, already planning my hopeful return to Guatemala next summer. Chimiyá will definitely be a place where I will return if not to work, at least to see the progress of the park and visit Mateo and Cat and the two dogs and Chimi (the mouse-hunting kitten).
Adios Guatemala!
My name is Melanie Shrull and I am currently volunteering for Long Way Home. Matt mentioned he would like to send an update out from a volunteer's point of view so I agreed to write a email to let you know how things are going out here in Guatemala.
I, along with five over volunteers and interns have been in Guatemala for about a month now. Four of us drove all the way down through Mexico from Oregon which was an adventure in itself. Looking back, it seems like much longer than a month because of all the things we've accomplished and all the traveling I have already been able to do.
At the Long Way Home site we have been working lately to shape and repair our gardens and the tree nursery. The tree nursery is a huge project that invloves planting, growing and transplanting thousands of trees grown from seed that will eventually be used for reforestation. If you happened to catch any news of all the landslides that happened after the hurricanes in Guatemala a month ago, it's easy to see why this particular project is so important.
In addition to the tree nursery, we are also working to get our organic vegetable and herb gardens back in order. Unfortunately, while Matt was in the States recruiting volunteers for the program, most of the plants were untended and went to seed. This was a smaller project however, and most of the area is ready to be replanted as we get closer to the rainy season again. We are also working on a botanical garden for the children, which will have different sections of flowers that entice each of the five different senses.
Even after being here a month, I have already had a great opportunity to take part in the Mayan and Guatemalan cultures. Two weeks ago I was able to go to the Todos Santos race, in Todos Santos. This is a tradition that has been going on for decades, and it is always held the day after Halloween. The race literally translates to "The Killing of the Rooster", which refered to the tradition of sacrificing a rooster if a rider in the race didn't spill any blood of his own. We had the priveledge to watch Adam Howland race, which was quite impressive, as he is the only gringo ever to be invited to do so.
I have also been able to travel all around Guatemala in the short time I have been here, thanks to the small size of the country and the abundance of "chicken buses" that will take you almost anywhere you need to go, it is very easy to travel all over. I have been able to spend time in Huehuetenango, Quetzaltenango, and Antigua. I have also spent time up in the mountains in Siete Pinos and Climentoro. It is very beautiful up there but ridiculously cold after the sun goes down. I love traveling and am amazed at all the places I have been able to visit already.
Coming down here to work with Long Way Home has been a great experience so far. My spanish has gotten twice as good as it was when I came here, I have learned so much about the culture already, met some awesome people, and seen beautiful places. This is after only being here for a month. I am really excited to see where I am at when I go home in six months, and may decide to stay even longer.
This is a great oppotunity, and is probably the most real and all-invloving internship or volunteer program you will find. If you are having thoughts about coming down to volunteer, intern, or simply check things out, I definatly recommend you do. I have already talked a friend from the states and my mom to come down!
Hello all, my name is Ryan Beyer and I've been volunteering for LWH for almost five months now. Matt asked me to write a little about my experience while living in Guatemala working on the projects. Well, first and foremost, this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Being in constant contact with locals is amazing, I've learned so much from them. They've taught me the importance of simplicity, family values, and hard work.
The projects here at the LWH farm has been so gratifying. You actually get to see the immediate results of your work and the benefits for the community.
The community here is wonderful, while Matt was gone in the States, doing his fund raising, they completely took care of me. They were constantly checking in on me, bringing me food, and just making sure that I was doing alright. During this time I became good friends with six local neighborhood kids and other various members of the community.
Volunteering at LWH has also given me the opportunity to do personal things based on my own interest. I have just graduated with a geology degree have been conducting an independent study of the local geology of the area. This has been such a good opportunity to use the skills that I have learned in school and put them to practical uses. I've also been able to use LWH as a reference and upon my return to the U.S. have a job waiting. I leave LWH on May 28th with a feeling of accomplishment and gratitude.
It was the first time I had ever seen a living creature killed.
The machete was dull. We gaped as Adam Howland, a former Peace Corps volunteer and an iron man of a construction worker,
sawed into the rooster's neck with the same powerful motion he'd used earlier to cut metal rods. The headless body flapped frantically
and splashed blood onto the newly purchased land. Some of us who dared to get too close with our cameras were splattered.
The ceremony - magnificent and messy - was a nexus of Long Way Home's past and the future. It was a landmark that boasted how far
Long Way Home had come and how far Long Way Home had to go. It projected a future measured by shovelfuls of dirt, hours of labor,
and stacks of rammed earth tires.
I thought back to how close I was to never being there.
I am an Australian Media & Arts university student and had been traveling through Guatemala for about three weeks and had fallen in love with the country. Prior to Long Way Home I had completed a semester of my degree in Mexico and then traveled through Cuba, Belize and finally on to Guatemala, and after plenty of delicious food and cerveza consumption, my guilt got the better of me and I decided it was time to dedicate a little of my own time to something worthwhile. I had been corresponding with Lisa from the Texas office, who was lovely and very helpful. She responded quickly to my emails with thorough information detailing how to reach the park and what I would need for my stay. This was my first-ever experience with the infamous 'Chicken Buses', with their lewd, fluorescent detailing, loud conductor and no concern for personal space. That said, chicken buses are a great, and very cheap way to travel Guatemala, so please have no reservations about reaching the park, it was very easy and I felt safe all the way.
Upon reaching 'Parque Chimiya', I was greeted by Mateo, the director of the park, who has built the place up from the ground and the results speak immediately: Mayan children run through the grounds, playing soccer, laughing and riding their bikes. They are clearly thrilled with the park and this is what made me most happy to be here: it's evident right away what Mateo strives for and the work of the volunteers is greatly appreciated by the community. If you are after a solid experience as part of a rural Mayan community, which is set in some of the most beautiful landscape in Central America, then you probably won't find a better way to achieve this. You will be given the opportunity to work with the local people, and you can practice your Spanish to your heart's content.
The work is tiring, but if you have a reasonable level of fitness and you like being outside in the sun (with music blasting on the old stereo to help you work, of course!) then you will be right at home. That said, construction is not the only aspect of the Long Way Home program. Mateo also explained to me the various possibilities, which include administration and written work, research, management and the chance to work with the children in the school that is near completion. I found Long Way Home to be a very well-rounded project and there are plenty of different ways to contribute. Another very attractive part of volunteering or completing an internship with Long Way Home is the chance to take Spanish or Mayan classes, to practice local languages.
The other volunteers told me that the teachers were very good and the classes were reasonably priced, and were extremely valuable when working with Spanish and Mayan-speaking communities all day long. My experience with Long Way Home was mostly construction orientated, as I was only able to contribute for a week. I had a lot of fun tree planting, un-bogging stuck-in-the-mud trucks (maybe not so funny at the time, but in hindsight...), leering to do abode (mud bricks) and mixing and laying cement! I also did gardening, cooking and got to chat to lots of great people in the community and I think that was the highlight for me, as its a little difficult to have such experiences if you don't take a risk and get off the tourist trail a little.
When not working, the volunteers have plenty of time to hang-out, play cards, read, drink some beers and just chat, which was really nice, as now I have a few new contacts from across the other side of the world! Mateo was a great and very reliable guy, he knew exactly what he wanted but he was also very laid-back and welcoming from the minute you arrive in the park. I would recommend anyone to get involved, as the work is easy to pick up and the program is very flexible. As long as you don't mind a bit (a lot) of mud then you will enjoy it.
Each day at Chimiya, in addition to my work around the farm which included hoeing, building bamboo fences, planting, weeding, and running errands, fellow Groton School Senior Billy Hennrikus and I played soccer with a group of soccer-crazy kids from the surrounding hillsides, named Los Huevones. Playing soccer was a way for all of us to end a hard day's work in the classroom and the field. Through our work, we tried to build confidence among the kids, act as a role model and older brother, and prevent future gang violence on the hard streets of Comalapa. Doing this is a little easier than it sounds:
One day I was standing on the soccer field next to Mateo. We were watching some students from the Tecnico Maya School play soccer when he said;
"You know, PhD's write dissertations on building self-esteem in kids and experts study child behavior from all these crazy scientific perspectives, but to me it's really simple: Just build a soccer field and let them play every day, and they'll be happy. They'll run home to their parents with a smile on their face and say no to gang violence."
Mateo was right. Los Huevones came each day and played with unrivalled zest and zeal. I was impressed by their never ending energy and constant happiness. I was equally impressed by the lack of discipline and thought with which they played soccer; they all played like chickens with their heads cut off. I coached tactics as best I could, but most of them would revert to "mob-ball" as soon as we began the game. I'd have to admit that my coaching was a little subpar; they didn't listen extremely well and my Spanish isn't that good yet, but I think just my presence and my willingness to play with them was always enough.
There was one particular boy named Alex who proved himself to be a much better soccer player than the rest of his peers, and I also noticed that he was an excellent student of the game. Billy and I took the time to instruct Alex in some of the nuances of getting himself open and making the smart pass. He was eager to learn and he improved quickly. He was a nice little kid and he came to watch me play on Friday night with the SelecciÛn Comalapa team and cheered when I scored. I didn't really comprehend the impact I had made on him until the last day.
On the last day I emerged from the cabana with my suitcase and plane ticket in hand to find a gaggle of Huevones waiting to wish me a safe trip and wanting to know when I would return to Comalapa. Alex spoke to me last, and I did a double-take when I saw his eyes glistening and tears begin to overflow onto his cheeks. He pulled up his hood in embarrassment. He handed me a black plastic bag and started down the hill with me. Inside the plastic bag lay the moldiest and wormiest apples I had ever seen, but they had so much heart and gratitude behind them that I didn't care one bit.
A slight language barrier combined with the awkwardness of watching a 9 year old cry rendered me pretty much silent on the walk down the hill. I wished I could have told him that he didn't have to cry, and that I understood, and that he stood for everything I had tried to accomplish at Chimiyá, and that those apples told me I had stumbled upon my accomplished mission. But you don't tell anyone that, especially not a 9 year old.
He walked down the hill with his friends and disappeared around the corner and he was gone. Instead of telling him everything I wanted to say, I told myself right then that I had to come back and play with him one more time; it's the only way I could ever make him understand. Please read the "Comalapa Geological Report" by Ryan Beyer - 2006
Hi y'all,
I'm right now sitting among those just-unpacked piles of "to wash," "to put away," etc. but wanted to write quickly before I get caught up in restocking my refrigerator.
I went back to Guatemala for about 10 days, and in between visiting Tecpan with my sitemate Liz Hahn and traveling to Champey and La'achua with Carlos, I got to go to Comalapa and see Norm's digs. I think some but not all of you get his emails, so I wanted to share what he showed me.
First, I was proud that I managed to get the bus to drop us (Carlos and me) off at the correct place in town and walk to his aldea without getting lost. As we walked up (and tried to figure out where the front of the house was hidden behind bamboo walls) I heard Janis pumping through the open windows. He has a good size house, and is currently living alone. I was confused about exactly what he was doing; I get his fabulous emails but had lost site of the bigger picture. He's on this, I don't know, maybe 4-6 acre plot (he doesn't know either), with four major areas: his house (with a plot nearby for animals in the future), the nursery/ planting area, the huuuuge soccer field and space for a cancha poly-deportiva, and the nature hike/ forest area. He tells me the plot was purchased in the late '90s by Christian Children's fund, and is now run by his agency (there's even an old playground by the soccer field, which is on his list of fix-up projects). He's kind of the encargado of the area, in charge of all of these projectsgettingg the school children involved, as well as coordinating other volunteers who will work on the nature trail and getting the animal area going, among other things.
In between the nursery and the soccer field are two small houses, where he said Adam lived, and where the volunteers from Universities in the states will live, one one-room, and one larger one that could be (is?) used as a meeting area.
We walked through the forest, whose trail is not yet permanent, and he explained that there will be an area for the "5 senses." Each small section will be dedicated to one of the 5 senses. What a great idea to get children (and adults) to literally stop and smell the flowers. We walked down the ravine that borders the area to the north, and he pulled a fern out of the rock wall. "I've been needing one for the house."
And I saw the pile of manure, waiting to be spread across the soccer field. He dug his sandaled foot into it, saying something like, "this is pure gold." When I flinched at his cow poop - covered foot, he laughed and said he lives covered in the stuff;)
As far as the soccer field goes, it's pretty flat already, but he's got some deal with some guys who run the maquinaria at another project, and for a small sum and meals, they'll do the job (to plane it again) at night. Ha ha. Nice deal. Then I guess he'll start spreading the manure and plant the grass, and somewhere in there figure out how the irrigation will work. Right above that playground next to the field is a large water tank, fed by the creek at the bottom of the ravine, which he says will keep the field green year 'round.
After the tour of the park, we made some bisteak with arroz and verduras for lunch. I went to the tienda just up the dirt road to get a doble litro of Super 24 (which, btw, has a lite version out now), and on the way back down I passed an old couple, pushing a wheelbarrow down the road. "Tomamoslo aqui, mucha!!" the old man yelled after I passed. I turned around, laughing, and said it was for "aquellos por alla." "Ahhh, por Don Mateo?!?!" He laughed when I got back to the house and told him that. Actually, what was funnier to me was when the woman at the tienda asked if Adan was coming back. I said that I was pretty sure he was in the states and was going to get married. She says "se casa en los Estados?" When I assured her that yes, people in the States get married as well, she said, "si, pero solo por algunos anos, y despues se aburran y se dejan y encuentran a otros, verdad?" he he. It was a good "share our culture" moment;)
Anyway, Norm seems really fabulously content to be living and working there (while getting "financed" though this "internship" program at his U). He has the end product for the park in his mind, and although he image is clear enough that throughout his tour I could see exactly what he was talking about, he is also concentrating on giving ownership and flexibility to the children and the volunteers who will come.
I had bought some flower bulbs to take down, but then didn't b/c I wasn't sure if that would pass customs; plus I still need to look for the kiwi seeds he requested. Anybody know where I could find something like that??
I hope you are all doing well, and I hope that this wasn't too long. I figured that you all would like to know what our companero is up to.
Cuidense.
(ES)
(EN)
