Gripe

That’s funny that the word for the cold sickness in castellano (spanish) is gripe – the English meaning of this word is what I am about to do. It is not fun having a cold I think I had the worst congestion I have ever had. Luckily, my girlfriend, Jessica Heim and her mom Laura made sure I took a small, personal pharmacy with me. After taking a few decongestant pills (not simultaneously) and some vitamins, I am feeling better and on the road to recovery I had to take a few days off from work to recover, but I didn’t waste time. I read more of Tom Melville’s book, “Through a Glass Darkly” – a must read for volunteers in Guatemala.

Here is a picture of one of our favorite views on our way to work in the aldeas near Cubilguitz.
The view is best early in the morning when the sun is coming up and the fog is still rising up out of the valley.

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Another beautiful place on the way to Cubilguitz is known as Las Cataratas – you’ll recognize this photo.

My parents and my cousin are coming at the end of March – close to the time of Semana Santa – so I had to book a hotel in Antigua early for their arrival. I called the hotel via skype last week, and luckily got the last two double rooms. I am trying to think of an itinerary for their one week stay. My wish list follows: Go straight to Antigua upon arrival, and check out the city a little before eating dinner – and venturing out a little but not too much after dinner (would not even think about venturing out in Guatemala City after dinner). Check out a museum in Antigua a bit the next morning – then head back across Guatemala City the next day to check out the volcano, Pacaya. After hiking the volcano – head up to Coban and stay with the monks. Visit the aldeas with my family where I have been working and hopefully attend a Mass there; then explore one of the rainforest tours between Coban and Cubilguitz. Then make a day trip down to Baja Verapaz to view Central America’s largest waterfall (Chilasco) and some cultural things there. Take a hike into the cloud forest to attempt a glimpse of a Quetzal. We’ll see how things work out…

Here is a picture of the sorghum we planted in front of the new buildings at the monastery. I am hoping that some of the people in the villages might be interested in trying out a small crop of sorghum to add to their crop biodiversity. Sorghum has its strengths and weaknesses like any other crop – I think it would have its place in the villages sometime around the dry season, because it is a hardy crop that does not need much water. We have been thinking about the possiblity of cultivating sorghum to supply the chicken feed with the new chicken coops we have been helping prepare. This picture was taken in December (and we planted in October) when sorghum is still relatively young, it looks a lot like corn. However, I’ll have to go out and take a more recent picture – because the grain heads have popped out on all of the stalks – and it looks like an oversized wheat plant without the little hair-like structure on the grains. This is one of the projects I was thinking about when I mused in the last post about how can people ask for a project they have never heard of. Another such project I have been musing on is that of canning food. I know I took for granted being able to purchase canning supplies when I was in the US – but I have been trying to purchase mason jars etc here for over a month. I thought I had a bit of a lead when I brought a picture of a mason jar to a store that sells glass drinking cups to see if they could order mason jars with the metal lids. They said I could come back the following week to see if they were able to order them. It would be easy enough for my parents to bring some mason lids (I really need the lids, there are jars here, but no lids) – but I would not want a food preservation/farm-added-value-products project to be dependent on such type of imports. I will keep up my quest of finding a retailer who can find mason jar lids… My motivation for this is that many of the people in the villages are poor farmers, and the prices of food are so low here that they often can not make good earnings on selling simply their products, or farm commodities. If they were able to process the food they grow themselves a little before selling it, they would be able to get a better price for their products and hopefully make a step out of poverty. It’s one development idea among many – we’ll see how it pans out…

That’s all for now folks.

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