Have you ever thought about where your water comes from and how many people are involved in bringing it to your faucet?

Recently, out of curiosity, I headed off with Don Omar in his water truck. Don Omar is a pretty successful businessman in Santo Tomas; he owns a small farm and also owns a water delivery service called Transportes Rodriguez. Starting work at 6:20 a.m., we headed to a farm nearby to use its deep well to fill up the 55 barrel truck for the first run of the morning. We then headed to a small colonia (the romanticized word for a small neighborhood on the outskirts of a small town) where “not much water falls”. We drove through the Municipalidad de Magdelana Milpas Altas, heading out one of the only roads leading toward the mountain, across a small bridge and through fields and fields of corn before we finally reached the colonia. Somehow, Don Omar’s Tigo clad water truck made it up the steep hill at the entrance and through a narrow gap between the trees before we began delivering water house by house

As we went along, I learned about the fascinating history of this small colonia of about 700 people. The neighborhood, creatively named “El Once de Augusto” was founded on the eleventh of August. Positioned on the side of a mountain, it is a very impoverished place, with dirt floors and muddy, rut covered streets. This undesirable land was formerly owned by the municipality until, on the eleventh of August following Hurricane Mitch, the government of Santa Lucia Milpas Altas purchased land from neighboring Magdelena for its constituents whose homes were destroyed in a landslide caused by deforestation. Now, the area faces problems because its position is such that no water falls into the local cisterns and the residents must purchase water from Don Omar in order to eat and bathe. Although the mayor of Santa Lucia built a public pila for washing clothes, it is void of water and the residents of the Eleventh of August wash their clothes in a nearby river. Read more…

I had a pretty exciting encounter with a chucho today. A chucho is a wild dog. So as I was panicking that I couldn’t find my phone, I walked down the street to Zuleika’s house (one of the other fellows who happens to be staying with my host mother’s sister, or something like that). I needed to find my phone because I was worried I had gotten pick pocketed on the Chicken bus. As you know from my last post, this would be very easy place to get pick pocketed on the chicken bus, because there’s obviously a lot of other things you’re thinking about, like not falling out the open door… or putting your butt in some stranger’s face by accident. You know, like the usual stuff people worry about on their daily commute.

So anyway, I’m in a kind of frantic state, to say the least, and I’m walking briskly down the street to Zuleika’s house consciously thinking about how cold it was and how its not supposed to be cold in Guatemala, and unconsciously thinking about how I could have possibly lost my phone.

As I got near her house, this dog about the size of a small lab came running at me growling fiercely as though it was protecting its house. Of course, Zuleika’s host family doesn’t have a dog, they only have about 30 chickens and 10 turkeys in their front yard. This dog was vicious too, all growling and baring its teeth and all. Read more…

Today we commuted entirely alone for the first time ever. Just the five fellows living in Santo Tomas Milpas Altas. The world didn’t seem to like that idea.

Today Zuleika and I left the house twenty minutes late, knocked on Ian’s door to make sure he had left, and got to the bus stop at exactly 7:50. We got lucky and got on the micro bus that was waiting near the stop. If you’ve ever been to the Air and Space museum in Washington DC and seen the miniature van that the McDonald’s stand out front uses to move food around (come on, I know you have), this is what a microbus is. Its like a mini-van version of a golf-cart, and today there were 9 people inside, with 4 on the back row and one standing up bent over near the sliding door. Read more…

The chicken bus has changed my life.

As you read this post, please keep in mind that on my commute home yesterday, I was carrying a bag of 12 eggs in my right hand. 3 of which were already broken.

The “camionetas”, as they are affectionately called by Guatemalans, are a great way to start the day. Each ride on the camioneta is a brand new experience. They speed off as soon as you step your foot off the bus, sometimes soaking you in water. To get to seats at the back of the bus, you often have to pass through a nonexistent gap between two people who are leaning against each other because they are both sitting three to a row and falling off their seat, or sometimes even slide past someone who is standing in that nonexistent space. Read more…

This morning I awoke gradually in utter darkness because there is no outside window in my hotel room. I woke thinking there was a frequently traversed railroad track behind the hotel, when in reality it was just cars on the cobblestone streets outside the hotel.

Thus began a day of exciting exploration. We first went to a very quaint little commedor where I ate eggs and beans. Something new on my breakfast menu. Read more…

Oooh baby baby it’s a wild world.

This famous Cat Stephens song, Wild World, unofficially became the GCY founding class theme song the other day after Marguerite requested it a million times over on every van ride. I don’t think any of us have been able to get it out of our heads yet. Seriously everyone keeps singing it and if I didn’t like the song a lot, it would have gotten really old by now.

But that’s not the case because as I’ve gotten to know the lyrics very intimately, it turns out to be one of the most appropriate theme songs Marguerite could have possibly chosen for this momentous occasion. Completely at random, I might add. Read more…

Oooh baby baby it’s a wild world.

This famous Cat Stephens song, Wild World, unofficially became the GCY founding class theme song the other day after Marguerite requested it a million times over on every van ride. I don’t think any of us have been able to get it out of our heads yet. Seriously everyone keeps singing it and if I didn’t like the song a lot, it would have gotten really old by now.

But that’s not the case because as I’ve gotten to know the lyrics very intimately, it turns out to be one of the most appropriate theme songs Marguerite could have possibly chosen for this momentous occasion. Completely at random, I might add. Read more…

Dear Mom, Dad, Matt, and family,

These last few days, weeks, and months of my time at home have really brought out the depth of our familial bonds and have served to emphasize the significance the last eighteen years has had on my life. The frantic packing escapade managed to distract me from some of the more profound and emotional realizations taking place at the moment.

The most significant of which dawned on me while I was sitting on a fallen log in a captivating oak grove in Petaluma California with the ten other fellows as we were beginning to discuss our plans for the upcoming year. This is the moment when it really set in that the relationships in my life will never again be the same as I move into this new and exciting chapter of my life. Read more…

This expression “smile in every picture because that may be the only one people see” is one that came  to mind a few weeks ago as I was sitting in the staff room of a YMCA residential camp, a small room with two computers with Windows 95, three dilapidated couches, and an old television that doesn’t have a DTV box and wont get reception. I was sitting there on my “short night off”, a two hour period when half of the counselors at a time can hang out in the staff lounge or do laundry, and I got in a rather heated discussion with some of the other counselors. I overheard some of the pool lifeguards complaining about one of my campers, an eleven year old who lives in Caracas, Venezuela and came to camp speaking no English what-so-ever. For the purposes of my story I will call him Antonio.

Read more…