Farewell Chiva!

Before we left our village, Chivarreto, we had a farewell party in our host family's home. We invited all our friends and neighbors and made tons of banana bread for everyone and then only half of the invitees showed up. We had our party on Sunday and were planning on leaving early Wednesday morning, which we told all of our friends. Tuesday night I awoke in the middle of the night to thunder and heavy rain and by Wednesday morning the roads were impassable. We made reservations with a bus and went out to the highway to wait for it and bus after bus kept leaving and then coming right back. Apparently there had been a massive landslide just down the road from our village and then there were multiple landslides on the main highway that were blocking all lanes leaving us stuck in our village. We were very distraught since we had a lot of work to do in the Peace Corps offices before we could leave. That day the usual Wednesday morning market didn't happen due to the impassable roads, so this meant that we wouldn't have access to fruits or vegetables that week. The rains continued and we literally felt trapped. On Friday two of our friends made it through to Guatemala City from very near us, but they said that they had to get out of their bus and hike up a huge mountain carrying their luggage and using guide ropes to help them up. They could see the landslides and there were still rescue crews working to find people and get cars out of the debris (that's basically what you told me right Megan and Dirk?). Friday morning my sister and brother-in-law and my 3 nephews arrived in the capital so we were especially anxious to get out of town and pick them up but it just wasn't in the cards. By Saturday we were going nuts and had talked to our friend Ballardo in town and he offered to drive us in his truck. He had heard that there was a way to get through on some back road through other mountain passes and that all the buses were going this way. We loaded all of our belongings in his truck unsure if we would ever be able to make it back to our village again. As we were nearing our turn off to go through this sketchy mountain pass we were able to call the road hotline and they had just opened up one of the four lanes on the highway and we would be able to go that way. Finally we were able to get out and meet up with our family. Unfortunately we were never able to go back to our town to show our family where we lived and worked and have them meet our new Guatemalan family. The day after we left more rains came and more landslides slid and by Monday the President had declared a state of calamity and closed the major highways and we wouldn't have been able to leave our village until the following Friday. We counted ourselves very lucky to have gotten out when we did. The storm was one of the worst to hit Guatemala in 15 years and did untold damage to infrastructure, crops on the verge of being harvested, homes and lives. We feel fortunate that none of our close friends were severely affected and will miss all of the people in our towns and at our jobs. It was a wild ride and we are very grateful for the experience that we had. Adios Chivarreto.

Brian at the farewell party. He was pretty sugared up at this point.

Liz with her Director in Rancho de Teja.

Saying goodbye to all the teachers in Chivarreto.

Our neighbor Francisca and her younger sister. This is one of the blouses that they will wear  when they finally finish it. Francisca runs the only place to eat in town that isn't fried chicken. She has always been very friendly to us.

Goodbye to Adela, Julia and their cousin. Adela and her family run the internet cafe in town as well as a preschool. Very good friends of ours.

One of our favorite families in town. The woman on the end cooked with Lizzy in her women's group. Her husband drives the mototaxi in town and their family founded a private middle school in town to help provide a better educational option for students.

Lis with Esperanza (yellow top) and her daughter and mother. Esperanza had more personality than almost our entire town combined.

My friends Lorenzo and Antonio. They were my soccer buddies.

One of our other favorite families. We will miss each and everyone of you Landon, Ashley, Andy, Marta, Miriam, Micaela, Jason, Marlon, Celida and Marta.

Their parents. They are hoping to have an even dozen kids one day. 

Brian and Lidia in a calmer moment.

Me and Jose. His family owned the bus line in town. He was one of my favorite people to play soccer with.

Lizzy and Odie, the director of the private school.

More of the cute little kids.

Odie, Lizzy, Mercedes and Sonya. All participated in Lizzy's women's group.

Goodbye PC Friends ;(

Liz and I recently finished our service with the Peace Corps and had to say goodbye to our wonderful friends in Guatemala. Below are a few of our goodbyes and the friends who will always hold a very special place in our hearts. We weren't able to see everyone due to the mud and landslides but we were very thankful for all those who made the effort to say goodbye. 

Dirk and Callie in Aguacatan

Megan came and made farewell pizzas

This was her first time making homemade pizza, what will she do without us?

Our son Tony.

Hannah and the authentic Campur blouse she got for Liz.

Our Neighbor Megan. Seen here above our town.

Farewell Lunch at San Martin in Xela. Thanks for coming Callie, Mich, Anne, Tony, Pete, Megan, Dirk and Travis, we will miss you!

Lizzy with her new Cajola style baby carrier.

The crew with Chef Pete. Already a little sad just looking at this photo. 

Kyle's Eco-ladrillo Project

Chonimacorral is the name of one of the communities that I work in and in the past year they had a swiss organization come and fund their new school. The students were very happy to move out of the old adobe house that they had been in that had no light or power and had only dirt floors. Since then, the community has remained very engaged in projects and other development efforts and this year paired up with a local NGO, CDRO which has been providing the school with environmental education and as of very recently, funds to build their own school garden. The teachers and students were very excited about the prospect of building a garden and the director approached me with their ideas and wondered what I thought they should do. The funds that had been given were to purchase cement, so I suggested that we start a project wherein we make eco-bricks (plastic bottles packed tight with plastic trash until they are as hard as a brick) to use in the walls so that the cement would go a lot farther and they could then have a bigger school garden. Ines, the director of the school, was excited about the idea and asked me to come and do a presentation for the students about the environmental benefits of the project as well as the proper way to stuff the bottles. It was a rewarding day and I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

This is the garden in our town that the school is hoping to model their garden after.

Friends Visit Guatemala

Our friends, Jeff & Erin, Scottie & Katie and Scottie's sister and niece came to visit in the beginning of October.  We had a great time staying up in the mountains of Antigua at Earth Lodge, going zip lining  and hanging out at Lake Atitlan and making the long trek up to Semuc Champey...

View from the hostel at the lake. 

Friends hike to the top of the canyon where they zip lined.

This is a typical community pila (large sink).  The local women from the village come to do their laundry here.  When a family has enough money to have their own pila, of a much smaller size, they also do any other kind of cleaning in it, dishes, cleaning a freshly killed chicken, brush one's teeth...everything.

The gang at the tree top view of the green pools at Semuc Champey. 

At Semuc the river falls into a huge hole, pictured here, and comes out just down the river.  It's amazing to see something so powerful just disappear.  In the river in between where it drops off and reappears are beautiful green pools that are perfect for swimming in. 

Hiking Volcano Pacaya

At Semuc we also swam and played in a cave.  Here we are with our  candles about to enter...

about 3/4 of the way into the cave you could climb up the side walls and jump off into a pool, in complete darkness!

Leaving the cave we jumped into some tubes and rode down the river back to our hostel.

View from the lake hike.

Tuk Tuk rides!

Eating pupusas at the lake, cheese filled tortillas, yum!

Erin and I decided to have a girls lunch out instead of going up the volcano.  Besides being delicious, we had some great bonding time while we enjoyed the garden and the puppies running around.

Thanks for the visit everyone, we had a great time with all of you!