El Proyecto de Reforestacion (The reforestation project)

I know I said our school has a lot of projects and here is another one. Deforestation is a huge problem in Guatemala partly because most people outside the city still use firewood to cook and heat their homes. Most people in Xela have electricity and gas stoves. Pop Wuj started this project a few years ago and it works in conjunction with the stove project which builds more efficient stoves so families can use less firewood.

One of the best parts of the stove project is that it takes you to places that you would never visit otherwise. This location is near Llanos del Pinal, kind of. The picture below is trying to show the worst road I have ever seen, but it does not do it justice. We had to get out of the van that we were in because it got stuck. Not in mud or anything, just because water had put such huge ruts in the road that basically only pick-ups could pass and even then top speed is probably 5 mph. It was crazy.


So then we unload the trees and are carrying them to the site because the van could not get us there. We ended up putting them down by the river and we thought we would plant there and it would be fun and sunny and nice by the river.



However, when we asked where we needed to plant Carmencita pointed to this hill... across the river. And we kept asking her to clarify thinking that we had misheard or misunderstood the Spanish because there was no bridge or log or anything near by, but we had met up with some of the local villagers and this guy put a crate of trees on his shoulder and just walked across the river. It wasn't hard for him because the river was only about a foot deep at maximum, but he was wearing huge rainboots. The other students and I asked, "okay that's great that he can just walk, but how are we supposed to get across?". The answer was remove your socks and shoes, put them in the crate with the trees and carry it across.



You can see the in the far side of the picture the local man carrying the trees on his shoulder. He just took a box from one of the other students as Melanie waded in with her box of trees, which is pretty heavy.



We ended up forming a line and passing the crates of trees along. Melanie is smiling in the picture because she can still feel her toes. 5 crates of trees later we were all freezing because it gets really cold in the hills at night and the water was frigid. Luckily there were only 8 crates total. We found a bunch of "rocks", really pieces of cement blocks, on the other side of the river that we put in water to form a little path across for the way back.



After we got across we had to put our socks and shoes on over our wet, cold feet and we still had to carry 125 trees up the mountain and plant them. It was pretty chilly, but I was dripping with sweat because those tree crates are heavy and you have to spread them out so you end up carrying the huge crate all over the mountain (okay it was a hill, but it felt like a mountain).

Here is a picture of Melanie lovingly planting a little tree in the ground (I promise there is a tree behind that tall grass). I don't have a lot of pictures because my hands (and whole body) were covered with dirt and sweat all day.



At the end of the day a local woman who organizes the project in the local community fed us snacks of watermelon chunks and horchata which is a sweet drink made from arroz (rice). The watermelon was refreshing, but the horchata was served a little warm so it wasn't quite as refreshing as we were hoping, but it was good to talk to her about the history of the tree project. The other people we worked with did not speak Spanish so we really could not communicate well. There are many languages spoken throughout Guatemala and many of them sound similar so it is really hard for us to know what people are saying. I think these people spoke Kachiquel.

It was a tough day, but it actually felt really great after we were done planting. That night we sold a bunch of drinks to raise more money for the arbolitos and even went dancing after dinner. Yay trees!

La Guardia (the daycare

One of Pop Wuj's (my schools) longest running projects is the Guardaria. The Guardaria is a daycare and after school program in Llenos de Pinal (which roughly translates to full of pines) for kids that live in the area. The school says that the kids are the Guardaria are usually kids that are a little neglected in their homes either becuase their are so many kids or both the parents work or a combination of factors. The kids are so cute and many of them are starving for attention. My school provides scholarships for many of the kids. Every day the kids receive a snack and help with homework. A lot of students also volunteer just playing with the kids. It is a really fun place, but also a little sad.

This is the main Pop Wuj logo. The small symbols around the outside are symbols from the Mayan calendar.



This is the main room with the kids sitting waiting for their snack and there is a volunteer (Carie) helping them wash their hands. As you can see there is a lot of stuff around some of which looks like junk, but it is hard to tell. There is a motorcycle in the back that is missing a motor I think. Maybe it is supposed to be a toy, but it just looks like it needs to be discarded. There is quite a bit of hoarding all over Guatemala, but I don't know who is doing the hoarding at the Guardaria and taking up much needed floor space.

You can also see laundry hanging. It rains almost every day in Xela this time of year, but it is especially bad in Llenos de Pinal so if you want anything to dry you have to hang it inside. As you can see they have electricity and they have running water and western-style toilets so it is not that rustic, but there are no real roads just kind of dirt paths that often have car-sized puddles of water or giant holes where the rain runs off. You really can not travel in Guatemala without having a bumpy ride.



This is one of the more uncomfortable areas to see. This little girl is holding the door for the toilet (there is no sink by the toilet, kids just use the water bucket inside, or probably more likely they do not wash their hands :/). As you can see the toilet is right next to the calf and the cows dirt and grime and flies and ...patties. Not exactly sanitary.



This is the area to the right of the toilet showing the chickens at the guardaria and another bathroom there on the left. Many families in Guatemala live very close to their animals which as you can imagine (or know) increases the spread of disease. Education is something on which we are constantly working, but it is hard to change the way that people live.



This is the Guardaria's back field. There is a small soccer field with goals which is very popular and some play ground equipment that was broken when we first visited, but was fixed during the summer. It is a nice place to play (when it is not raining).



This is Melanie playing "frisbee" with one of our favorite kids, Andres. All the kids are great, but he is a favorite becuase he will come up and hug you immediately. Since he is still too young to attend school he is seemingly always at the Guardaria. Such a cutie.

That structure behind Melanie was once covering a garden, but had not been used for a while. Last week a bunch of volunteers (not me) dug up all the ground and sifted the dirt to prepare it for planting. They were sore for days.



This is a picture of one of the other volunteers coloring with some of the younger kids. The older kids also do homework here in the afternoons. Aren't these kids adorable? One of the best parts of our school was getting to visit the Guardaria and hang out with the kids. We also did a lot of projects there, which I will discuss later (hopefully).

El programa de medicina (the medical program)

As you may or may not know the main reason that I came to Pop Wuj is their medical spanish program. There is a non-profit clinic under the school that serves the local community 2 days a week for very little money (because if its free people don't think its very good). I feel weird about having pictures of people in the clinic so I took pictures of the day that we cleaned the clinic.

This is the entrance to the clinic. This picture is taken from the sidewalk and there is a pretty busy street right outside so there is always smog in the clinic and most things are covered in black dust or film from the exhaust. A little different than in the US.


Usually this room is filled with chairs and patients check in at the desk and are given a number in the order they came (so people form a line before the clinic opens in the morning) and then you are seen in order of your number. It is not a walk-in clinic though so people make appointments, though probably there are walk-ins sometimes. I'm not totally clear on that.


This is the pharmacy where we spend most of our time when we are in the clinic. Yes we are pharmacists, but there are not very many serious drugs. We give out a lot of vitamins and antacids.


This is a lot of people cleaning the pharmacy. Usually there are about 4 people in here on a normal clinic day which is still pretty packed.


This is the part of the clinic with the rooms where people are seen by the doctors and we can shadow the doctors when they are seeing patients. The medical students also do "triage" of patients in two places. To the left behind that little wall and at that table in the picture below.


For triage the medical students find out why the patient is there that day and a little of their medical history. We also take their height, weight, blood pressure, temperature, pulse, and their blood sugar if they are diabetic. It is not really triage because we do not prioritize, but that is what we call it.


And that is about it for the clinic. It is just primary care so we see a lot of things over and over again. Like scabes. I'll try to talk more about the mobile clinic in a different post. This is a view from the clinic to the outside and you can see the shop across the street. Not a lot of distance from the clinic to the cars. Okay headed to Antigua with a friend today. More later.

Hopefully this works

So internet is very spotty here and usually kind of slow so I haven't been able to keep the blog thing going becuase it takes half a day to write a post and get it to upload. Plus, when the pictures did not work I got kind of dicouraged. However these are the pictures from the post about my bathroom so I'm hoping they work and I'm gonna try to finish another post today.

El Bano (my bathroom)

Don't worry this post is not gross unless you are grossed out by concrete. And I feel kind of weird posting it because I am so used to my Guatemalan bathroom now that I am not sure I will be able to adequately capture my initial my feelings, but I will try.

So this is the patio area outside the living room. Behind me as I'm taking this picture is a driveway that usually contains a large white jeep-y type vehicle.  (Can you tell I know nothing about cars?)  On the right is the sink that I use to brush my teeth and wash my hands. If you take a left at the garden the bathroom is around the corner.
 

This is my tooth brushing/hand washing sink.  Every place I have been in Guatemala has a sink like this.  It is usually outside, but the other day I saw one inside.  It is made of painted concrete and there are always 3 parts.  I have to be honest that I have never seen all 3 parts in action, but basically the middle part is really deep and I'm not sure that it has a drain and the sides are shallow and covered with ridges I assume for scrubbing cloths and things.
 

I basically get water from that tap on the right and then actually do the spitting of tooth paste or washing of hands in the left side with the drain.  The sink is not totally open to the outside.  The roof of the house actually covers the sink so you don't get wet if you are standing right in front of it but if you step a few feet back...
 

Then the roof ends and you are just brushing your teeth under the stars or the sun (well, clouds) or this beautiful plant that I was told was a hydrangea, but I may have misunderstood that.  It is nice scenery for teeth cleaning.
 

Taking a left at the garden brings us to the bathroom.  Yes you have to walk where there is no covering, which is not always fun in the rainy season (like now) especially if you are sick like I was the first weekend I was here.  Don't worry it wasn't that bad.  Everyone gets sick here for a few days, but then you get used to it.  Anyway, you can see the light switch is that little white button on the right near the top.  The brown paper is the daily cleaning schedule, which does not include me. :) When you look in the door of the bathroom the shower is on your left and the toilet is on the right behind the open door. The whole room is about 3.5ft X 8ft
 

This is the toilet.  It is pretty western except that it does not have a seat, you just sit on the bowl or squat and you can not throw paper in the toilet bowl anywhere in Guatemala (that I have been).  Instead you deposit it in that trash can on the left of the picture.  This can lead to some pretty smelly bathrooms especially at my school where the bathrooms have no ventilation and the students are often sick from the Guatemalan cuisine.  I guess that is the good thing about how open it is.  My bathroom is very well ventilated :). 
The other annoying thing is that the shower door does not close all the way so the floor of the bathroom is almost always wet which means you have to roll up your pants to use the toilet. However, it is often wet outside too so it serves dual purposes. Oh, and there is no toilet paper in the bathroom so you have to remember to bring it with you from inside the house or you are SOL.
 

This is my shower.  Isn't is lovely?  That brown box lightly encloses the very exposed wires for the electric water heater, but it is pretty high so I have faith that I won't be electrocuted.  The water gets hotter the slower it goes through the heater so you have to put it on a low level for it to be hot, but if you wait a minute it usually gets pretty hot (sometimes even too hot) and it really has nice water pressure.  I now think this shower is better than my mostly hot, but almost pressureless shower in med school.

Do you see the rack for the soap and shampoo under the nozzle?  Yeah, we are fancy.
 

This is the floor of my shower.  I am used to it now, but let's just say I am glad I brought flip flops with me.  The worst part is that the whole bathroom is not really sealed.  I mean it doesn't leak, but the roof and the walls have a gap so in the mornings when it is around 50 degrees Fahrenheit any part of your body that gets outside the stream of water is covered in goose bumps.  I do manage to shave my legs every once in a while though, but I sometimes wonder why I bother.
 

This is the sink outside the bathroom. Occasionally people will be washing their dishes or clothes here when I have to use the bathroom that is about 5 feet away and I feel a little uncomfortable, but I am mostly over it. Because everybody poops. But not everybody poops in an outdoor toilet next to a garden in Guatemala, so I am special.
 

Okay no more bathroom posts...for now. :) After two weeks my Spanish is almost understandable, but my verb conjugations are all over the place. I start the medical Spanish program tomorrow. The first week we have a really interesting cultural competency class that involves learning about the cultural, political, and religious history of Guatemala and how it impacts the people and their health today. The class is given in Spanish so I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for reading!

El Proyecto de Estufas (Stove Project)

Sorry if you got a notice about this post. Some of the pics broke and being new to this blogging thing I could not figure out how to fix them without uploading the whole post again. Sorry for the repeat.

One of the best parts of our school, Pop Wuj, is that they have a lot of community service projects in the communities surrounding Xela which are not very far away, but people have much less than in Xela. Melanie and I will be doing mobile clinics in these communities as well as helping with the after school program and the nutrition program while we are here. Our first week we started with one of the longest running projects called the Stove Project.

The stove project was developed in order to combat the serious issues facing households who rely on an indoor open fire for their cooking needs;these problems include deforestation due to increased consumption of firewood, the severe respiratory problems attributable to heavy smoke and poor ventilation in one-room homes, and frequent burn accidents which occur when young children play around the open flame. An amazing statistic I learned is that illnesses contracted from smoke inhalation are the second leading cause of death among children in Guatemala, as well as being a serious problem for adults. The stove project aims to relieve these problems, as well as foster community development, through the construction of simple yet more efficient, safer stoves for the families of Pacaxjoj.

All of the projects at Pop Wuj are funded by donations. They have a nonprofit foundation in the US that you can donate to called Todos Juntos. I can tell you that from what I have seen the money is not wasted here, so if you have some extra bucks here is the foundation's website:
http://www.todos-juntos.org/index.html

This picture gives a little context for the community though I forgot to take a picture of the actual house. It was a very poor community and many families had little more than shacks. It was mostly farmland with scattered houses (and animals).


This is the beautiful background scenery we had that day (it was luckily not raining and only partly cloudy). It was absolutely beautiful.


This is what the stove looked like when we started. It takes 3 weeks to build a stove and we were lucky that our first week in Xela was the 3rd week for this stove so we got to see the finished product.


This is Melanie cutting a brick with a machete. Sometimes it seems like machetes are the only tool you need here. I am seriously considering getting one because you never know when you need to reshape a brick, dig a hole for a tree, or cut your hair.


This is my teacher hammering in a brick with very dramatic lighting.
After we line the main part of the stove with bricks we use clay to keep them in place. A metal cooking surface is added to the top of the stove and a metal chimney is put in the groove at the back. Then everything is sealed with concrete. It really is an amazing process. It uses very simple materials (except for the metal) and can be done by lay people (though there was this amazing woman, Dona Leti, who oversaw the project and did everything while carrying her two year old child on her back).




This a picture of what their old stove looked like. It was a big metal bin with a grate on top. It was outside because the weather was nice and we were working on the new stove, but when it rains (which is often) it has to be pulled inside and becomes much more of a health and safety hazard.


This is the little girl who lived at the house where we built the stove. She is standing in her backyard which is a field of corn and other crops I could not readily identify.


This is Melanie and her housemate at her home stay, Priya, mixing cement for the finishing touches of the stove.


This is the group of students (minus me) with the finished stove. From left: Melanie, Lucia, Joe, and Priya. You can see the chimney on the left side and the cement top finish on top of the bricks.


The woman on the right is Dona Leti with her sleeping child on her back and the woman on the right is the owner of the house where we built the stove and that is her son peaking into the camera. She is pouring us shots of aquadiente (a locally made liquor) to celebrate the completion of the stove. :)


All in all it was a great day and we were absolutely disgustingly dirty and tired when we were finished. It was an amazing experience to be a part of changing the lives of these people in a concrete (no pun intended) way. Hopefully we will have many more days like that while we are here.