Stop and Wonder

I arrived in Houston yesterday around 11am. My trip was significantly less hassle filled than the time I brought my cat, Mr. Pink, back with me. However it still had its little quirks. For instance, I had my corkscrew wine opener confiscated passing through security in El Salvador. I could tell the El Salvadoran guys saw something unusual in my bags as it went through the x-ray machine. They all gathered around the monitor and were making jokes. I can only imagine what they thought it was.

On the flight I was seated next to an extremely old woman who was clearly very Salvadoran. She was even wearing the typical aprons that I rarely saw women over 25 not wearing. I had to help her put her seat belt on and put her tray table down etc. The people sitting across the aisle from me also decided that they needed to take two giant boxes of Pollo Campero fried chicken. It's Central America's answer to KFC, only nastier and more processed. So I got to enjoy the sickening smell of deep fried chicken on the entire flight.

The most interesting thing that happened was that at one point the stewardess got on the PA system and asked if anyone had any Benadryll. They asked a second time and then started asking if there was a doctor on-board. Everyone was looking around to see what was going on, but I happened to be at the first row of coach so I could see into first class. The person having the allergic reaction was our pilot.

This would have made me nervous but I knew there's always two pilots. Plus I could see that his reaction wasn't very bad. He was just red and his eyes were a little puffy. You'd think he'd know if he were allergic to the airplane food. I mean how big can that menu be. I was also surprised that they didn't have Benadryll in a medical kit somewhere.

I've actually felt more of a culture shock this time even though I was in the states only 6 months ago as compared with a year last time. I never knew I could walk around a quickie mart or a grocery store so engrossed in looking at the products. The packaging on certain things are different, there are new flavors of things. By the way, what is up with all the beers having a new "chelada" mix. I've seen it for Budweiser, Bud Light, and Miller so far. I think the Bud ones have some kind of tomato cocktail mixed in. Sounds gimmicky to me, but I always like to put lime or lemon in just about any kind of beer when it's around. It makes them all better, not just Corona.

I took my first hot shower in a long time yesterday and I thought I would just sit in there and soak it up but I found myself washing quickly and getting out. I think it's just a habit from trying to get in and out of so many cold showers. I was feeling the cleanest I'd felt in a long time, with no small thanks to having some Dr. Bronner's soap. If you don't know what it is, its magic soap. Get some, try it, and I guarantee you'll be a fan for life. Anyway, upon getting out of the shower I grabbed the towel my mom gave me and dried my face only to have it covered it animal hair, most likely dog hair. That put an abrupt end to my super clean feeling to say the least.

I spent all day packing and digging through all my boxes of crap in the garage here. I managed to either throw away, pack, or set aside for a garage sale just about all of my stuff. Everything I wanted to take also seemed to miraculously fit in my newly tuned Honda Civic. I had my doubts since I'll be taking both cats and my Mom got me an enormous carrier so I could take a litter box inside the car. Smelly.

So tomorrow I leave following my Mom and Gary to Mississippi and then on to Orange Beach, Florida for the Weill family gathering. I'm going to leave the cats at my lovingly generous Aunt Kathy's basement room for a couple days. Then I'll pick them up on the way to Jackson and then on to Baltimore.

I have one last sort of etymological (<- big fancy word) observation to make. It came to me while my friend Alejandro was driving me to the airport the other day. I never really studied grammar very hard in my English classes I had a pretty good sense of whether or not something sounded right or not. I just knew what proper English sounded like, from hearing people speak properly and from reading.

I realized that I've slowly developed an ear of sorts for Spanish. I don't always know the best way to say something but I can just feel when it's wrong and when it's right. A lot of times I don't even know why it should be said that way but it just sounds right. Of course I'm only guessing that it was right, because no one El Salvadoran ever correct my Spanish even though I asked them to, but my ear seemed to have developed mainly from listening to them speak.

I guess that's really just how people learn a language. They develop an ear for it by hearing it so much. I'm sure it's far easier for babies, but it's good to know that I can still develop it at my age.

Posted by Tao at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3920) | TrackBacks (0)

Christine is leaving tomorrow morning at 3am, her flight doesn't leave until 6. I'll ride with her to the airport but I don't leave for another 2 days. She's going to meet her parents in DC while they're there for a conference and find us an apartment. It's nice to know I won't be too involved in the stress of picking out our place. If I wasn't so confident in Christine's ability to pick out a good place I might be more concerned.

Our Peace Corps friends came a few days ago and we basically partied for 3 days with them. It was a good time and I'll remember it forever, assuming I dodge the Alzheimer's bullet but in that case someone please use a real one on me.

I suppose that somewhat gruesomely brings me to setting a place for me when I'm gone. On the 2nd night we had a good group at our house and talked and played card games until late. One of the said card games was Texas hold 'em which we played with chips tournament style where people were out once they ran out of chips. Leah went out at some point and was dealt in the next round at which point I related that to setting a place at a table for a loved one in the hopes that they might come home for dinner.

It was a pretty good joke, but Leah had to step in and top me. While giggling on the verge of hysterics she said "stop looking at me, swan". A sweeter non sequitur may never have been spoken. Apparently she was repeating an obscure Billy Madison quote, however I leave you to judge its relevance. To me its lack of relevance was what truly made it shine.

The next day Matt, Darren, and I hiked all the way from Berlin to the laguna in Alegria. I'd made it to the rim of the crater that holds the laguna before where the soldiers guarding the radio tower told me a path went down into it. This time we took the hike down to the laguna which was essentially a path all along the rim of the crater which made for fantastic views of each side of the ledge.

It wasn't a hike for the elderly or unathletic to be sure, but I think it could be a real draw for tourism in Berlin. It would give people a reason to stay in Berlin to see the laguna instead of in Santiago or Alegria. I'll definitely be writing about it on Berlin's web page that I'm making.

Today Christine and I made the rounds at the schools and with our friends in the city to say goodbye. It wasn't too sad until Christine broke down saying goodbye to our landlord's wife, one of the school teachers we're close with. I had a feeling it was coming, I've always been a pretty empathetic person even when I don't seem to be very emotional myself. A lot of them told us they'd always remember us. I don't know that they'll be setting a place for us when we're gone but there might be two empty chairs at the table.

Posted by Tao at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (0)

In 10 days I'll be leaving on a jet plane and boy am I ready. I could tell you all the things I would miss and things I won't miss, but really I won't be missing all that much. I'm tired of being frustrated and seeing so many things that could be better but not being able to do anything about them. I've come to understand that just about all of the problems here and no doubt in the rest of the third world could be solved from within but our discouraged from doing so from outside influences. The 1st and 2nd world don't want the competition and actively work to undermine the average working class. Sure, the 1st and 2nd world make a good show of how they're helping them, but how come all of these people are still poor and ignorant?

I'm just tired of living in it. I want to be somewhere where I can have some real influence. It's like how they talk about Earth avoiding an asteroid. If you can change the asteroid's course even the tiniest bit at the heart of the problem, the farther the better, that little change becomes a large change by the time it gets to Earth. So I'm looking at it that way. I'm going back to the states, but you better believe living in Baltimore I'm going to be demonstrating in D.C. every chance I get. If there's any rally that you want to go to and need a place to crash, you've got one. Just let me know.

One of the things I've come to recognize here is that people need a goal to strive for. Education gives them examples of goals they could achieve and a practical way to do it. I've often wondered how someone could be so content doing the same repetitive tasks every day until they die. I don't understand what they look forward to, but I think it has to do somewhat with the "ignorance is bliss" idea.

There's a guy in Darren's village named Tomas who is far more involved in just about everything in that village than I've ever seen anyone. His drive to be so involved started after one of the church groups brought him for a visit to the U.S. The trip made him believe that the churches should be giving more to them because of all the wealth he saw. It also gave him a goal, something to aim for. Unfortunately, he's turned that into a personal power struggle. He took his son out of school to work in the fields so he could go participate in more organizations and such. Clearly, he's missing the point and is more concerned with improving himself than his family, but if all of that zeal could be focused in a better way people here could really improve their situation a lot.

Basically it comes down to foreign aid from the 1st and 2nd world giving them enough to keep them placated, and the simple act of giving it to them without any effort on the people's part makes them believe that they shouldn't have to work for it. And so it is that paternalism and handout mentality set in.

In other news our friends threw us a going away party this evening and it put a few more things on the list of what I'll be missing. I love talking with educated people here, its really great comparing cultures and stories, etc. The problem is those people are few and far between. I'll miss them though and I'm sure I'll see them again.

We also climbed the hill of the cross today with a delegation from Iowa. It'll probably be our last time for a long while. Our neighbor and god-daughter climbed with us, all the god-daughter hitched more than a few rides on people's backs.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing long lost people in the U.S. Give me a call or an e-mail and I'll make an effort to stop by on my drive from Texas to Baltimore. I hope you don't mind a visit from two angry cats at the same time though.

By the way, I'm also going to be launching a separate blog for more political and news type posts. So get ready for www.Taos2Cents.com. It's not all the way working just yet, it'll be ready before I leave though.

Posted by Tao at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

In just under 3 weeks I'll be back state side. I'm starting to feel the sense of excitement that I've come to associate with moving. Pulling up roots and moving is similar to riding a roller coaster. If you've never ridden one it might freak you out. Who knows if it's safe? How does everything work? After a few rides though those worries fall away and the thrill of something new and different is all you look for.

UPDATE: This was on the frontpage of CNN this morning: Girl's feet severed on ride at Six Flags. I hope that's not a bad omen for our move.

I figure I ought to update you on the different projects and things that have been going on here before I forget or I get caught up in moving. Christine is really the one still involved in the humanitarian work. I sit in the house all day working on web pages trying to save up for the move. Moving to a 3rd world country is easy, but going from a $75/rent to something 10 times that much takes some saving up.

One of the things Christine really wanted to do was get the schools we had been working at some sets of the same book. The kids here never practice reading and the only way to do it as a class is if everyone has their own copy. It's pretty sad when you see these kids that are 15 and 16 having to sound out each syllable before they recognize what word it is.

Using her new connections at the Casa Pastoral she was able to find people in the U.S. with the ways and means. I'm not sure how many sets are coming, but I know that there's going to be so many they're going to both the boys' and girls' schools as well as one of the villages. The kids aren't going to be allowed to take the books home, which is really for the best. I'd like to think they'd take care of them, but I've seen where they live and one good rainstorm or bad older brother and it's gone.

The girls' school is getting the first sets and Christine put the girls to work making pop-up thank you cards. Arts and crafts have really been the only way I've seen to truly get the kids involved and excited. Anything to stimulate their creativity and imagination is worth its weight in gold here. Sometimes its pretty hard to keep them from copying each others personalizing of stuff. If you show them an example and yours happens to have a blue circle on it, no matter how many times you tell them not to copy you, half of the projects will have blue circles if not more.

The Casa Pastoral also does this thing where they give out fertilizer to farmers. It's a very unsustainable form of aid and the farmers are now totally dependent on it. Nothing is happening so that these farmers won't not need more next season. The main reason they need the fertilizer is because all they grow is corn and beans and corn is one of the hardest crops there is on soil. They also don't compost or do any of the things that responsible sustainable farming involves. Darren tried to teach them how to compost but when the Casa Pastoral is just handing out bags of fertilizer no one cares to learn about composting or growing anything different.

Thats really just a microcosm of the whole problem of international aid. I'd like to believe that the IMF, World Bank, and WTO were really trying to help these people but nothing I've seen leads me to that conclusion. Aid is given but the poor are taught to rely on the aid and so their situation never improves. If anything they're hurt by this, just like animals in zoos never learn how to hunt or take care of themselves, if they're released into the wild without training they die. Its the training side thats completely lacking here. Give them fertilizer but show them how to do the other things and then only give them less and less each year.

I also wanted to include this video of a guy working a loom here in El Salvador. Weaving has always amazed me, i just don't understand how it works. It's hard to imagine coming up with such a crazy contraption. It almost seems like he's playing some weird instrument.

On a completely unrelated note we helped one of the people at the Casa Pastoral get a cheap plane ticket to the states. I think we saved him $300-400 on what he'd previously been told by the airlines. Anyway, he was so happy he invited us to his father's day celebration in one of the villages called Las Delicias. His father-in-law is one of the few farmers who actually grows all kinds of different things like yucca, tomatoes, some grains I'd never heard of, etc. He apparently got a lot of land after the war, apparently he was playing both sides.

It's difficult to ask people here about the war without feeling like intrusive. The main thing is that the U.S. was the main reason it drug on for so long and was so deadly. If they hadn't been supporting the military and its hold on the government they would have quickly fallen to the rebels. So especially if they were rebels they're wary telling a gringo about the part they played. Alejandro's father-in-law was pretty forthright though and even showed us his radio from the war. He was obviously a rebel but said he didn't use a gun, he was an "arbiter", which in my mind means he was playing both sides. That would also explain all the land he got after the war.

Also, I'm pleased to report that I'm up to $4.84 from the google ads on the site. Although I have to say it would probably be more if I talked more about plastic surgery, laser hair removal, and gold bricks. Ads for humanitarian organizations and causes only seem to be paying out the minimum. I don't really mind, plastic surgery ads would creep me out, better to advertise something I agree with. By the way, I only get money when you click on the ads, so find something nice and help me out ;-).

Posted by Tao at 06:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3421) | TrackBacks (0)

You may recall I left you hanging on the rest of Christine and I's Honduras/Costa Rica trip, specifically the Costa Rica half. Well, we lucked out in Tegucigalpa and caught a bus to San Jose, Costa Rica. Crossing the border was easy and I was excited to see what Nicaragua looked like. It's the poorest Central American country, but I was interested in possibly starting a hostel there at some point. To my dismay the vast majority of the country is dry and flat. It made me think of Arizona or New Mexico. There were cacti and only a few short trees.

Our bus had a layover in Managua, the capitol of Nicaragua. On the way into town we passed the presidential palaces and there were poor people digging through the garbage. I guess that sums up a lot right there. We spent the night a simple little hotel and left early the next morning.

Crossing borders isn't a very big deal unless the countries have a stark difference in wealth. The Costa Rica/Nicaragua border is by far the biggest pain in the ass to cross in Central America. The bus let us off and we stood in line of a hundred or more people for about an hour. Then we were supposed to take all of our luggage off the bus and stand in another enormous line, but one guy on our bus had done this before and took up a dollar from each person to bribe the official. I have no idea how much time it saved us, but it was definitely considerable.

When we got to San Jose we walked over to the hostel I'd stayed at in 2003. At the time it had been a small place run by a couple of identical twins about my age who I'd hung out with several times. When we got there it had been transformed. The people working the desks wore shirts with the hostel name, the walls had been repainted and it had the feel of something commercial and icky. Apparently the twins still own it, but have built another enormous hostel next door and opened 3 other locations around the country.

We only spent the one night at that hostel. I found a hostel not too far from there run by Quakers who had also started a Peace Center next door to it. Since my Dad and Charlotte were getting in the next day it sounded perfecto.

We met them the next day at the airport easy as could be and then took the bus back into town. We had to lug around the luggage a little, but it wasn't too bad with all 4 of us. When we got to the hostel Char and my Dad had a nice conversation with the people in Peace House and I'd obviously made the right choice.

The next day we left for Monteverde and the cloud forest. The bus ride wasn't nearly as bad as I'd read. Sure it was a lot of winding dirt road, but I figure that keeps the crowds down. The only bad thing was it was sweltering. Once the bus drops us of we decided to walk the mile and a half to our hotel. Besides one pretty steep part it was a nice walk with some great views. Along the way we dropped some clothes off to get washed at a local place, stopped at a quaker cheese factory, and had two stray dogs follow us just about the whole way.

The following morning we went for a canopy tour. Apart from scuba diving it was probably the most "eXtreme" thing we did, despite the prison jumpsuits and yellow hardhats. Some of the views were pretty spectacular, although most people were too focused on the landing pad at the other end to notice. At the end of the second series of zip lines there was an optional tarzan swing which we all did. They just clipped our same harness on and off we went.

Both the canopy tour forest in Santa Elena and the cloud forest up in Monteverde had humming bird areas where they had set out a bunch of feeders. There were really only two types, but there were tons of them. Apart from that and a few pizotes, which are some kind of cross between a raccoon and an anteater, there wasn't much wildlife. Our 2nd day we got up early and walked around the Monteverde cloud forest, and although we were first ones through the gate we hardly saw anything. We did manage to see one howler monkey which tried its best to urinate on us. We also came across a tour group that had found a Quetzal way up in a tree. Quetzals are rare birds whose tail feathers used to be used for money in Guatemala.

Anyway, our next stop was Arenal, an active volcano just north of Monteverde. Even though it was the dry season, for some reason clouds gather around the cone at night, which is terrible shame because the lava coming down the sides glows orange. When I was there in 2003 it was the wet season and it was quite a site.

Right when we found a place to stay we got offered a tour. I would normally have been against such a thing, but the tour ended at the hot springs which normally cost just about as much as the tour was. They took us out to the park at the base of the volcano. We hiked out to where there had been a pyroclastic flow, basically a landslide of lava rocks. It was nice to get out and walk and we did get to see a couple of wild toucans.

The real fun was the hot springs. When I was there 4 years ago it was only a couple of pools although they'd been building a few others. Now the park just seems to keep going and going with no end in sight. There are now two enormous swim up bars, and probably 15-20 pools of varying temperatures. It was so nice and relaxing, the only thing it was missing was the volcano slowly erupting in the distance.

After that it was time to get to the beach. You don't go to Costa Rica and not see the beach. We decided on Manuel Antonio since I'm familiar with it and it's a great one. We did mis-step here, because we failed to consider that Costa Ricans like to go to the beach and it was a Friday when we hopped on the bus. When we got into town basically everything was sold out. We spent one grungy night in a real run-down dump of a place. The next night though we got a place with air-conditioning and all the basic amenities.

The park itself hadn't changed much and we spent several hours just lounging on the beach. I did have different animal experiences this time. I saw not 1 but 2 sloths, one of them at night and he was moving around. I also a close encounter with a band of capuchin monkeys. I'd seen several the last time, but this time they were right down by the beach fighting over a hamburger bun. This one guy was being chased by several others until he finally dropped most of it. I went over and picked it up, and although its against the rules to feed them I figured they were going to eat it anyway. I threw it up to them and they caught hunks of it. Charlotte got some really great pictures I'll have to get from her.

The last day we were there we went scuba diving off the coast of Manuel Antonio. We were really interested to see the differences between the Caribbean and the Pacific. Where we were it was more rocky and there a lot of puffer fish. The parrot fish enormous and I caught a brief glimpse of a sailfish. In the Caribbean we'd only seen a few tiny strange little starfish, but we saw a bunch of different kinds on the Pacific side. While we went diving my Dad and Charlotte went snorkeling and had such a good time they went snorkeling in Belize on their way back. Charlotte bought a couple of disposable underwater cameras so we got to play around with that. Christine has since bought an underwater case for her camera so you can look forward to more neat pictures like this.

The rest of our trip was pretty uneventful. We ate some sushi for the first time in a long time and took my parents to the airport. We had an extra day because the bus was full so we walked around the San Jose zoo, which isn't that great. They've got a lot of animals in tiny cages. A terrible idea with all of the tourists that come through their country.

Anyway, I think I'll leave you with the last Mr. Pink picture you'll get for awhile. He has now immigrated to the U.S. and I don't think he's missing us the least bit. He's basically taken over my Mom's house although there are some other animals that would like to think otherwise. It's a lonely house down here without him, but we don't have to worry about possums coming in and eating the cat food or him running out the front door and getting flattened.

Posted by Tao at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been getting a lot of questions about how it feels to be back in the U.S. and what I miss about El Salvador so I figured I'd just go ahead and post it. I think a lot of people expect that I would come back and be amazed by the excess and plain shininess of the U.S., but to be honest it's exactly how I remember it. I could still vividly imagine every gas guzzling, suit wearing, fast food eating detail of what life was like here and not much has changed. I guess I'd intially would have described it as just coming home from vacation and missing where you'd just been visiting, namely the tropical climate. As the days have gone on more and more differences have come to my attention.

The first thing started in the airport in Atlanta where my flight was delayed 6 hours due to nothing. I was sitting with some people from Jackson, the majority of them being obese, and they just went on and on about different BBQ places. I just thought how eating was just a hobby for these people. My only addition to their conversation was when they started praising big d's bbq whom I recently finished a website for. They couldn't believe they had a webpage.

I was starving after the first 4 hours sitting around the airport, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy fast food. I've eaten from time to time in El Salvador, but it felt dirty and wrong to me now. Before we left Christine and I also decided to go back to our non-meat low-dairy diet. I say diet, not in terms of losing weight, but as in we eat a diet of this or that for purely healthy reasons. Animal protein is the source of cancer, for those of you who missed my review of "The China Study". Anyway, we figured if we could make it while we were here, then we can make it anywhere.

One thing I've come to feel more strongly about is how small communities like mine in El Salvador get sapped dry of their money. I think it would make a big impact if they'd only spend as much as they could within their own economy and less at coporate retailers that just ship the profits out of the country. I guess it boils down to disliking corporations before I went down and now I just plain despise them. It wasn't just living in El Salvador that made my feelings more intense, it was watching documentaries like "The Corporation" and "The Money Masters" and then just reading articles on-line about communities using their own money to stimulate the local economy.

Yesterday I had an experience that brought me several new realizations. I'm currently filing paperwork to start my own business: "Stop and Wonder Web Development"...you may have noticed. Christine and I have had several run-ins with Central American bureaucracy which I would describe as a form of blunt force trauma. I'd done some research on what I'd actually need to do while here and it all seemed rather easy. So my dad dropped me off at the secretary of state's office, which apparently files business licenses for every type of business except my lowly sole proprietor one. My fault, bad research, so I walked across downtown Jackson to City Hall, and then I was directed to another building, where I filled out the single page application and then waited for the woman to finish her conversation about Jerome's new haircut. I was then sent upstairs to zoning, where they looked through some big maps and produced stamp for my application. Then it was back down to the first desk. Sure, now we're just going to send the fire department out to inspect your office(which is the back storage closet in the Computer Co-op). Then I can come back and finish the remaining hoop jumps. The realization is, all governments are bureaucracies. If I had to guess I'd say it was intentionally set up that way to make jobs for the elected officials' friends.

After that little fiasco I walked around trying to find a bank to exchange my foreign money. I knew there was a big trustmark downtown somewhere that I'd heard would do it but couldn't remember where it was exactly. In El Salvador I have no shame in asking for directions, but having to ask them for somewhere in my hometown made me cringe. I'm not sure if it has to do with the language barrier in El Salvador acting as a sort of security blanket making it feel less real, or if it's just the fact that I look like a gringo who should have absolutely no idea where he is so it's not hard to play the part. It feels like it's a little of both. Long story short, the bank wouldn't change my money because I don't have an account. Gee thanks.

I didn't have a ride home from downtown so I had planned on taking the Jackson public bus system which runs straight from there to the Co-op. I've never ridden the buses here, but I'd seen them out and they seemed like new quality ones. I decided that rather than sit at the bus stop, I'd walk until one caught up with me. I probably walked over 2 miles before one caught up with me 200 yards from the Co-op door. If I had been in El Salvador I wouldn't have made it more than a block or two without one passing me, especially considering I was on the main thoroughfare through the city. Maybe there's a plus to people not being able to afford cars. I read somewhere that if you factored in the cost of the pollution, a gallon of gas would cost over $11.

Overall, it's been nice to see my friends and it'll be nice to see even more of them in Austin, but I probably could have done without this trip. After the vacation to Honduras and Costa Rica I was ready to settle in and start up our projects again, but now I have to wait. I'm certainly doing some useful stuff with the new business setup, bringing the cat back to get neutered, and helping my dad get caught up after the vacation. It still just feels like I'm running errands and not getting down to brass tacks.

PS - If you're looking for a good fight I guarantee you can win, try flying your cat into the U.S. without innoculation papers. The U.S. doesn't require them although every single customs agent on both sides of whatever border will think you do have to have them. It'll turn into a long battle with you eventually being proved correct, but don't expect any "oh, wow, sorrys", it'll be more like an "ok, move along".

Posted by Tao at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)

We caught the bus to San Pedro Sula from San Salvador at 5 in the morning. The bus station's poorly laid out website told us that it would take 13 hours to get there, which we thought was believable since we have to cross a mountain range. It ended up only taking 6, happy day.

The national tree of Honduras is the pine tree, which covers the upper areas of the mountain range dividing El Salvador from Honduras. Christine said it reminded her of the Pacific Northwest, to me it seemed dryer and less densely forested than I remember that area.

It was easy to see that Honduras was significantly less populated than El Salvador. The houses also had a wider variety of styles and smaller or invisible piles of garbage surrounding them. I don't know if this is because it's simply harder for them to afford and find plastic packaged junk, or if they simply choose to live simpler. It's probably the former.

San Pedro Sula, known only as "San Pedro" by everyone that's not a tourist, looks a lot like most central american cities. The people in general had much lighter skin and a more spanish look to them. The park in the center of town was nicer than most with statues and a small stream running through it. We watched tv for several hours, probably the most tv we've watched down here apart from the occasional show in a bar, then went to sleep early.

Getting out to the airport was harder than we'd thought. No one in the city seemed to have any idea if buses went out the airport, probably because if you live in the city, you don't go anywhere but your home city. We finally met a military person who walked us down to the bus station and showed us the right bus. There wasn't really any reason to walk us down to the station, but I think it makes them feel important to lead gringos around. Along the way he said he'd only been to the U.S. once, to Georgia, for a "cultural exchange". Georgia is where the School of the Americas is located. In case you're not familiar it's where the U.S. trains foreign armies to do their bidding, how to disappear people, stage a coupe, all of that lovely stuff. What fantastic culture it is that we're exchanging.

The bus only passed by the turn-off to the airport, just like in Belize. This time we caught a ride in the back of a pick-up for the half-mil to the airport. We got to the airport right as my Mom and Gary's plane got in, but it takes 30-45 minutes to go through customs. It was really great to see some family after 11 months of no one. We bought bus tickets out to La Ceiba where we could catch a ferry the next day out to our final destination, Utila, one of the bay islands. Roatan is the big island with the majority of the tourism, but it's also more expensive and more touristy, so we've heard.

We spent the night at a nice hotel in La Ceiba and sat around the pool drinking Honduran beers before calling it a night. The main beers of Honduras are Salva Vida(which is a brand of water in El Salvador), Imperial(which looks a lot like the Imperial of Costa Rica with a slightly different logo), and Port Royal which was my favorite although they were all fairly similar.

The next morning we took a taxi out to the ferry dock and ate some traditional Honduras baleadas. Basically tortillas with eggs, cheese, and beans. The ferry was packed and the mildly rough seas got to Gary at one point so he took a trip to the "head". Christine went up on the front and from there we could occasionally see flying fish "fly" out of the path of the boat. I saw a fairly large one make it 100 feet or more.

A woman from our hotel met us at the dock and gave us a ride to the hotel where we had reservations. This particular hotel was at the far end of the island, at the very edge of the bay the city was situated in. The island only had a few small beaches, but they were all white sand, and one of the public beaches in particular had a lot of charm.

Because our hotel was at the edge of the bay it had easy access to the reef and you could literally snorkel and scuba dive right off the end of their dock. They also had an attached dive shop behind the hotel where Christine and I signed up to get our Advanced Diver certifications. Utila is one of the cheapest places in the world to get certified and go diving. It only costs $15/tank to rent the equipment and dive off the end of the dock.

Christine and I spent the next few days diving in the mornings while my Mom and Gary walked around the island and relaxed. We tried to get them to go snorkeling, but it seemed that one group of us was always gone. They did say they tried it once while we were gone, I'm not sure I believe it. We did manage to drag Mom out on the last day, but Christine lost a flipper after a few minutes and we had to come back. I'm not sure how we could have lost it, but it just disappeared.

Each night we'd go out to eat somewhere different and then sit around at the hotel telling family stories, a lot of which I'd heard before, but some new ones thrown in. I'm sure most of them were new for Christine, althought I've told her quite a few.

As for scuba diving, the reef was a lot like the one in Belize. We did see a few new and interesting creatures like trumpet fish, porcupine puffers, and the very odd looking spotted drums. We also did our first night dive right off the end of the dock. I thought it would be intimidating at night, but it wasn't nearly as much as I had thought. At night the lobsters and shrimp come out, as well as the octopuses. We saw 2 of them, both were hunting, which you can tell because they glow blue when they're doing that. One of them almost caught a little maiden fish while we were watching it.

Another very cool thing about night diving is the effervesence. If you turn your lights off and move your hands through the water you'll brush tiny bacteria that spark a bright blue color. It's like sparks or magic dust coming off of your hands. Your bubbles also sparkle as they set them off.

We also explored the island. Christine and I rented a sea kayak and took the small channel through the island to the other side. When I say small, I mean small. Most of the time I could hit both sides of the mangroves with the paddle and the bottom was probably only an inch or two away from our kayak. The channel opens up into a small bay on the other side witch a tiny rocky island in the center. We paddled out and tied up there and then snorkeled around the reef. We saw a lot more fan coral and several large groups of angelfish, but nothing too spectacular. Apparently farther out, the reef suddenly drops away and goes straight down for 2,000 feet. This is where people see the giant whale sharks, but didn't venture that far out. Coming back was quite a task, because the tide had gone out even farther and the inch or two clearance was gone. We basically dragged the kayak through the channel with pure muscle power.

One of the more expensive places we'd looked at staying was a place called the Jade Seahorse. It's an attraction in its own right. This german guy came over years ago and built this wonderland of seashells and plastered trinkets and beads. There's also a boat/bar in a tree called the "Treetanic". It must have taken the guy years and years to finish, but it's quite the thing to see.

On what we thought was our last day on the island, Christine and I walked down to another dive shop on the other side of the island. Our instructors told us that they got their divemaster certification there and had a blast doing it. A divemaster is the first level of professional certification for divers. With it you can work at dive shops leading groups of divers and just helping out. This particular shop gives you liftetime free diving with them if you get certified there. All in all it would end up costing us about $1,000 a piece to do it, plus $2/night to stay in their diver hostel. Not too bad really. We've also been told you can basically tax deduct any travel expenses if you say you went looking for a job wherever you go. A pretty nice perk. We're seriously looking at doing it during this coming June and July before we head back to the states for the long stay.

The next day when we were supposed to leave we found out that the ferry wasn't running. Apparently they had not renewed their license despite repeated warnings that they had to. It wasn't absolutely necessary that we get back to the mainland that day, so we "decided" to stay another night. Luckily the next day they were running and we got my Mom and Gary to the airport right on time.

Christine and I went into San Pedro and caught a bus to Teguchigalpa, or simply "Tay-goose" as the locals call it. We spent the night at a cheap hotel and had some of the best and largest proportions of chinese food I've had down here. The next day we went to the bus station to catch a bus to San Jose, Costa Rica to meet up with my Dad and Charlotte only to find that the one bus that day was sold out as well as the next day. Well, we lucked out and were the first people on the waiting list and did actually make it on the one that day. So it was on to Costa Rica and another blog entry...

All in all it was a very relaxing time on the island. It was also one of the most laid back new year's eves I can remember, but that may not be saying much. Everyone else went to sleep after some rum and coke before the ball even dropped, but I stayed up and took some pictures of the fireworks from the dock. A couple turned out pretty nice.

Posted by Tao at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

   The only road from Guatemala to Belize isn’t even paved. A three hour bumpy ride gets you to small wooden bridge and customs awaits on the other side. Then its a couple kilometers walk, if you choose to avoid the taxi hoard, to the bus terminal. We stopped there and ate some great home-style burritos at an old woman’s stand. They were so good I even got a couple for the road.

   Now I had thought Guatemala was different from El Salvador, but Belize was another planet. The racial demographics were all over the map, Asians, Blacks, and Latinos all speaking one language or another. English is the national language, but you wouldn’t really know it. The Latinos spoke Spanish, but if you spoke Spanish to a black person they’d look at you like you were crazy. Besides English the black people spoke Creole, which is just sort of like Caribbean Ebonics, as well as something called Garunfo which had no resemblance to anything I knew of.

   All of these different ethnicities seemed to be living together rather harmoniously in such close proximity, at least as far as I could tell they were harmonious. I saw several mixed couples and I didn’t sense any tension between anyone, but that may be due to the entire Belizean relaxed attitude. The Anglos are even represented by a rather large population of Mennonites and Amish that produce 99% of all the agriculture and dairy products for the country. Someone told me what language they spoke, but I can’t remember it now. The gringos stick mostly to the beaches and the keys.

   We got to Belize City with a couple hours to spare before Christine’s parents arrived so we went walking around looking for some new swim trunks for me. I’ve lost so much weight that the ones that used to be too tight for me now just fall off. Belize City is nothing impressive, lots of garbage, and canals filled with sewage flow throughout the city. We managed to find some shorts, not exactly what I would have picked out if there’d been a decent selection, but ones that would at least stay on. Then it was off to the airport.

   Just as we got on the bus to the airport a major cold-front blew through and it started raining buckets. The wind was whipping so hard I saw several people with umbrellas turned inside-out. It would remain relatively cold and overcast for the remainder of our week, but it wouldn’t be able to dampen our spirits. Christine’s parents managed to just miss the end of the initial front and their plane arrived on time. While we waited in the airport I marveled at the ridiculous tourist shirts, one of them read “Unbelizeable” which is where I got the title of this post.

   We grabbed a couple of Belikins, the Belizean national beer, at the airport restaurant and then hopped on an island hopper to Ambergris Key, one of the two large keys off the Belizean coast. We were greeted at the landing strip by Pat, a lawyer friend of a lawyer friend of “Uncle Dougie”, Christine’s step-dad. Pat has an amazing house right on the beach next to his brother’s house, which we were going to be staying in. It was above and beyond anything I’d expected. White sand, palm trees, and a gorgeous house 50 feet from the shore.

   The first night we just relaxed, sat around, drank a little wine, and talked to Pat. He does criminal law in Washington State, with a specialty in marijuana cases. You can see his webpage here if you are in need of his servies: www.legaljoint.net. His business card even comes on a pack of rolling papers. I think has the right idea, working from a tropical island in the Caribbean. I hope to follow that example soon enough.

   The next day we went down to sign-up for scuba lessons so we could get open-water certified. We ran some other errands like grocery shopping and renting a golf cart. There aren’t too many actual cars on the island, mostly just golf carts. Ambergris is the more upscale Belizean Key, the other is Key Caulker which is more of the backpacker’s island. Honestly I think I would have felt more comfortable there instead. It makes me uncomfortable having people wait on me hand and foot, even if it is my vacation. I’m sure they get paid well for what they do relative to the rest of Belize but I don’t like being part or even seen as part of the upper-class. I’m just a populist at heart.

   Apart from that I thoroughly enjoyed myself for the week on the island. We went snorkeling that first full day since we weren’t going to start our scuba classes until the following day. It was actually my first time to really snorkel before, maybe because I’d never been anywhere worth doing it. Just in the shallow side of the reef there were all kinds of brain coral and little brightly colored fish. Darlene, Christine’s mom, even saw a manta ray, and Christine claims to have seen a 4’ lobster.

   It was a good intro to the scuba classes because I’d been a little nervous about swimming in open-water, in the Caribbean especially. I remember watching Jaws for the first time when I was very little and being completely freaked out. For years after that I had to walk all the way around a swimming pool before I’d get in, just to make sure. Even swimming in a fresh water lake I could just picture what my feet looked like dangling like chicken tenders from down below. I eventually got over the fresh water and pool phobias but the ocean was still a real fear.

   It was something that had bothered me about my whole dream of sailing. Sure most sailors in antiquity couldn’t even swim, but I didn’t want to have this fear with me if I did decide to go for a swim. So to get on with the story, the first day we simply did drills in the swimming pool and it was a breeze. The next day we went out to the marine reserve and did our first real dive to 30 feet. It was incredible. It was like being on safari on another planet with almost zero gravity. There were all kinds of colored fish and coral. We saw big green eels, small polka-dotted eels, baracuda, parrot fish, lobsters, and innumerable other types of fish. On the 2nd dive of the day we ran into a group of 3 large Spotted-eagle rays flying along gracefully.

   That really got me jazzed and on our 2nd day of diving we dove down into a group of 7-10 nurse sharks. Christine took to swimming after them immediately, and although I knew they wouldn’t attack us I was still wary. Then I turned to look at one of the dive instructors and he had a nurse sharked tucked under each arm to show us how harmless they were. They didn’t seem to mind at all, in fact they seemed to like it when he flipped them over and rubbed their bellies. That did it for me and in no time I was petting them and trying to get them to pull me around. When we saw a much bigger lemon shark off in the deeper waters I was right there trying to chase it down for a better look. Then something happened, when I imagined myself swimming on the surface, it was no longer a shark looking up at me, but me looking up at me.

   The rest of the dives were great, we saw a sea turtle and poked and prodded all kinds of sea life. Some of the color combinations and patterns on the fish even inspired some web design ideas. It got me psyched up enough that when Christine and I go to Honduras to meet my Mom and Gary in a few months we’re going to get our advanced diving certification so that we can dive shipwrecks and caves.

   Apart from the scuba diving we took a boat trip up into Belize to visit some Mayan ruins at a site called Lamanai. The trip took us up through the mangroves to a small village where locals made wood carvings out of a type of heavy iron wood called Ziricote. From there we took a van to another boat that took us to the ruins. The weather wasn’t too great for the trip so we didn’t see as much wildlife as normal, only one small crocodile and the sounds of howler monkeys off in the distance. The ruins themselves were pretty cool, especially this face carved into one of the temples. At the very least we got to see a bigger chunk of Belize.

   The weather didn’t really cooperate the entire time we were there, but it wasn’t so bad that it could stop us from enjoying ourselves. Once while we were fishing just off the beach, a white squall came in and just before it got to us it made two complete rainbows one on top of the other. Then the squall hit us with sideways rain and was gone again within minutes. It was a pretty spectacular thing.

   We went fishing a couple times and didn’t have a whole lot of luck until the last time. Eric, the son of one of Pat’s helpers, really had it down to art. Basically they just use line and a hook and no rod. They use a net to catch sardines that you then immediately cut up for bait unless Romeo, one of Pat’s dogs, doesn’t steal them out of your bucket first.

   There’s a certain guilt that comes with fishing on a coral reef, something like fishing in an exotic fish aquarium. We caught mainly different kinds of snapper, which were very pretty, and very delicious. We ended up with around 15 or so and I helped Eric clean them down by the shore. While we were there standing in about 6 inches of water I turned around and saw a big green eel, maybe 2 ½ - 3’ long writhing just a few feet from MY feet. I basically flew out of the water yelling “EEL!” and Eric was right behind me. Having seen those mean looking bastards with their rows of jagged teeth under water I knew I didn’t want one, obviously hungry and attracted by the fish guts, squirming around by my ankles. Eric simply said “oh man, that’s a big one!”, he then proceeded to whack at it with a large piece of driftwood and it took off in a hurry. The next day Pellon, Pat’s helper guy, cooked up some kick-ass ceviche with the fish that just rocked.

   Considering our normal menu of beans, rice, and pasta we were eating like kings. I’m not usually a big fan of fish, but this trip also started to sway my stance on that. I think I was dissuaded from fish because of all the little bones like tiny invisible slivers that karmically hooked me back. That wasn’t the case with the snapper and grouper, they were bone-free fillets that soaked up the flavor.

   One night we took a trip away from town to eat dinner at Captain Morgan’s resort. We hadn’t been up that way and the roads were water-logged and pot-holed but we rolled on. It was a nice dinner, good wine, and company. It was also the last place that I know I had my camera case with my driver’s license and debit card inside. I know this because you can see the little blue thing on the table there. Obviously I didn’t loose the camera itself, and calls to the restaurant produced nothing, but there’s a good chance I lost it on the drive home.

   By the time we left it was dark, the raincoats that had been left on the seat of the golf cart were gone and it was starting to rain. As we started down the road the battery began to die on the cart and we all ended up pushing. Not only did the motor stop working, but so did the headlights, and although I hadn’t noticed any turns in the road, there apparently were. Christine was the first to pick up on the fact that we weren’t on the right track and by the time we got to any really recognizable landmark we were already half a mile past the house. After turning around we ran over and crushed a poor turtle we didn’t see in the road.

   So you can see how through all of that my camera case might have ended up in the mud somewhere. Luckily no one had been using it, so I canceled it and we’re still holding our breath for the replacement to arrive. It’s hard enough getting money out down here as is, but we’ll make it.

   We said goodbye to Pat and everyone and took our hopper plane back to Belize City where we said goodbye to Darlene and Doug. It took us most of the rest of day but we finally got to Flores in Guatemala. It’s this little island in the middle of a lake that was one of the last Mayan hold-outs to the Spanish. It’s a really nice little island with tiny little streets that I imagine are remnants from the Mayans.

   We spent the night at this really cool little hostel that was only $7/night for a private room. They had a real cool set-up with loft-rooms, ping-pong table, parrots, and a nice restaurant with good vegetarian plates. It was called “Los Amigos” if anyone is interested.

   The next day was my 26th birthday, and I have to say I’ve already gotten to the point where I wouldn’t even know it was my birthday if I didn’t have people remind me. That’s probably a side effect of not having a real schedule, half the time I don’t even know what day of the week it is. Anyway, we took a microbus out to this little beach place on the other side of the lake that has really nice views and pristine water. In that one day we probably got more sun than the entire week in Belize. It sucks that we had to leave the beach to find the sun, but I’m not that surprised.

   When we got back to the hostel we signed up to go to Tikal at 5:00 the next morning. We were hoping to catch the sunrise over the temples. We missed the sunrise, but we also got there before the vast majority of the tourists did. It was really cool being in such a well-preserved forest. You could still see a lot of mounds that you knew had to have ruins under them. The ruins themselves were the most beautiful I’ve seen. Teotihuacan in Mexico is very impressive, but something about the jungle surrounding the temples at Tikal makes it feel more mystical and easier to imagine them as they once were. Unfortunately we forgot to charge up our camera so we only have a few pictures.

   Apart from the ruins, the wildlife is incredible. When we first got to the grand plaza we came across a group of about 17 coatimundis, they look like a cross between a raccoon and an ant eater. I’d also never seen wild toucans before, and we saw several along with a number of wild parrots and other beautiful birds. The sheer number of spider monkeys was amazing, they were all over the place. I have yet to see a howler monkey, but once again we heard them off in the distance.

   One of the funniest things I have seen in a long time happened while we were walking down a back trail trying to see some wildlife away from the tourist crowds. A spider monkey crossing over the path in the trees took a dump on Christine’s shoulder. I was laughing so hard I nearly cried. Ever since one tried to pee on me in El Salvador I’d been wary of standing directly underneath them. I imagine Christine will have the same caution in the future.

   That’s pretty much it for our vacation. We left that evening and were on buses home for about the next 20 straight hours. The house was just as we’d left it and Mr. Pink was more than glad to see us. Although, at this moment he’s got a bad case of worms and we’re pretty worried about him. We’ve given him some medicine and if he doesn’t improve we’ll take him to the vet in the next city over tomorrow. We don't like to see him in pain.

   I’ve also just finished up another website and I’m looking for more work at the moment. I’ve got a few small side programming jobs and I’m working on a renovation of this page. It’s actually more than a renovation, it’s my greatest creation, but it’s not yet ready to be revealed. Anyway, if you know anyone that needs a page design, updated, overhauled, or optimized for search engines, let me know. Here’s a couple of my most recent works: Mississippi Natural Products, JPS Bond Campaign(which passed with 80% of the vote), Big D’s Tepee BBQ, and The Conscious Living Project. Oh, and as always the big versions of the pictures from this post plus some others from the vacation are in the photo gallery and I added a video to my last entry so scroll down and check it out.

   Now that I’ve shamelessly plugged myself and those websites, I’m going to make some dinner. Eggplant pasta sound good to anyone?

Posted by Tao at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

   It had begun to seem like something did not want us to go on our vacation. We had tried desperately to finish our World Map before we left so that it could be protected by a layer of varnish, but we settled for just putting the varnish on the parts we’d done. The varnish the woman at the hardware store sold us also had a brown tint to it even though she had sworn up and down that it didn’t. What did it matter to her anyway? It was a sale and the only way we’d know it wasn’t true was once we’d started using it, that’s if she’d known either way. I think I’m going to start asking for the opposite of what I’m looking for because then I know if they tell me no, then it’s actually what I’m looking for.

   Anyway, long story short our world map looks somewhat aged now, but it didn’t matter to us as we scrambled aboard the bus down the volcano with our backpacks. The 2nd bus to San Salvador was late and over-crowded and when we caught the 3rd bus to the international bus terminal I questioned whether that terminal would accept credit cards or have an ATM. It turned out they didn’t accept credit cards and their ATM wouldn’t take my debit card. To top it off the last bus to Guatemala City left in 10 minutes and the nearest ATM was half a mile away. So, I left my backpack with Christine and ran like the wind. I got back just in time and apparently had outrun whatever was trying to keep us there.

   We stayed in a very simple room in a hotel in downtown Guatemala City for about $6 for the both of us. The next morning we found a bus heading to Xela(Shay-la), in the western Guatemalan highlands. We were heading for a hot springs up in the mountains known as Fuentes Georgianas. I was stunned at how different the landscape was from El Salvador. Women were wearing intricately hand-woven clothes while selling all kinds of hand-made goods along the roadside, while beautiful still-vegetated mountains rolled off as far as I could see. The variety of plants and trees made it seem as if we were somewhere between Japan and the American Northwest and the variety of planted crops had me guessing the entire trip. I even heard other people on the bus trying to figure out all the different things being grown. If you take a trip through El Salvador you’ll probably only notice 1 crop, corn. I don’t know if they think they can’t grow anything else, or if they’re simply too scared to try something different, but relying on one crop too much has always hurt civilizations eventually.

   It took us longer than we’d hoped to get to the springs, but it also took us through some breathtaking places; through a lush green river valley with sheer cliffs on either side and past a small indigenous town with cobbled streets and beautiful church where we found a ride up into the mountains to the springs. We rode in the back of the truck and stood up to soak up the feeling of life that was floating in the misty green valley. As we went higher the temperature fell as did the valley floor.

   The hot springs were nestled back in a deep cut in the mountain, which was really another volcano. As you walked back along the path there were half a dozen small cabins and at the very rear were the actual hot springs. There was one large pool which was directly fed by the springs and therefore the hottest, and two smaller cooler pools a little ways down. The main pool had several large boulders in it and a stone floor. The water had a greenish tint, no doubt from the sulfur, and it also tasted like someone had dumped lemon concentrate in it.

   We soaked up our share the first night and retired to one of the cabins which we found stocked with firewood which we didn’t hesitate to put to use. It took some doing to finally get the fire going because although the wood had no doubt been cut and dead for some time the generally high level of moisture in the air had eventually soaked into the wood, but after a big pile of kindling and several Newsweeks it was roaring. It was a good thing too because it sure got cold up there.

   The next morning we decided to climb up a small trail to find the source of the hot springs. It took us about 20 minutes including the time it took us to backtrack a wrong turn but it was well worth the trouble. It shared a lot of the characteristics of the “infernillos” that I visited during my Peace Corps training, but significantly more pristine. There weren’t old men scraping the sulfur off of the rocks for whatever mystical health benefits they claimed, so that there were large tufts of yellow crystals growing out of the many steaming vents.

   The view from the top was incredible as well. We could see the valley floor and a large distant volcano, looking perfectly conical it the rising sunlight. After exploring for awhile I thought I’d found a small spewing geyser, but it turned out to simply be a hose with a hole in it.

   We soaked again, starting at the cooler pools and working our way up until we were pruned through and through. There were a wide variety of people enjoying it along with us, I heard French, German, and some English with Australian accents. There were also a good amount of local people who brought their own bowls to bathe with. Some of the older people prayed at the base of the springs while others filled their bowls from the rock and drank their fill. One little girl got her first bath and was outraged when her parents dunked her head. Can you imagine being 5 years old before you’ve ever had your head fully submerged in water?

   Instead of taking a truck down the side of mountain we decided to walk. It was 8 kilometers, but down all the way. The fog blocked our views of the valley but we could still see the farmers working away in the mist. Although I see a lot of corn fields in El Salvador I rarely see anyone working in them, it’s completely different in Guatemala. There were people everywhere manicuring their various crops to perfection. They seemed to take a lot more pride in what they were doing; however, I was pretty disappointed to see them using pesticides.

   In the small town at the base of road up to the springs we stopped to wait for the bus. Our tour book mentioned a patron saint of sorts called Saint Simon or Maximon by the locals. Apparently he was a cowboy of sorts and his spirit now lives on in a life-sized dummy that gets passed around between 3 families every few days and gets dressed up in different outfits. When we found him he was dressed in a cowboy hat, glasses, bandana, mittens, and a number of scarves and other clothes. He was seated in a throne of sorts behind dozens of lit candles with so much melted wax on the floor it could have been a piece of art. Among the candles were also entire packs of cigarettes left burning and on a table in front of him were 5-8 full bottles of liquor. While we watched, a shaman wrapped in the American flag waved branches of some kind of plant around the bodies of several people while they prayed. After they were done they tilted Maximon’s chair back and poured liquor into his open mouth. Now I have no idea where the liquor goes, but I imagine there’s a chamber in the dummy that the families have to clean out. For some reason I doubt they just toss out the liquor so I bet that makes for an interesting cocktail.

   We got back into Xela and then trucked it half-way back to Guatemala City to a town called Chichicastenango to check out their big market day. The town wasn’t anything amazing, but the market was quite something. There was an outer market meant for all the tourists, and there were plenty, but if you went more into the core you could find the market meant for the locals. It was a pretty stark difference, but really what do locals need with wooden sculptures and purses they themselves probably made.

   The most interesting part of the whole thing was a church in the center of all the action. The steps were covered in flowers, burning incense, and women in traditional garb selling all of the above or simply just being. Our tour book said that the church was built on top of a holy Mayan site so Mayans still came there to worship in their own way. Quite the sign of the lack of respect the Spaniards had for the native religions. It’s about as literal as they could get to replacing the Mayan religion with Catholicism.

   Later that day we headed out to Antigua, which is right by Guatemala City just to check it out. I’d heard of the great architecture and all of that, but I was actually kind of disgusted by what we found. There were easily more tourists roaming the streets than locals, and every street was littered with travel agencies, McDonalds, and Spanish schools for all the semester abroad kids. It was hard to say if it was just too scary for most people to actually go out to a small town to see the real culture in action, or if they simply didn’t realize they had essentially invaded this town to the extent that it no longer had any legitimate culture. We stayed the night and got the hell out as fast as we could the next day and headed towards Belize.

Stay tuned for Part 2 coming soon.

Posted by Tao at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

   Sometimes my phone doesn’t ring here, we’ve got terrible reception inside the house and only decent coverage in the back yard. I’ve begun leaving my phone outside under the overhang, but it still doesn’t ring sometimes. That was the case last week when two upset voice mails from Christine suddenly appeared on my phone after I’d been washing clothes outside for an hour. She was clearly upset and said that both her and Tony’s passports had been stolen and they were at the embassy in Guatemala. She wanted me to bring her the other passport she has so that she wouldn’t have to buy a $100 emergency one.

   It took me almost half an hour of getting wrong numbers from the El Salvadoran embassy, then getting transferred to wrong places and such until I was finally able to hear Christine shout from the other side of a glass clerk window that she wanted me to meet her at a certain border crossing. I won’t go into specifics but it was an ordeal getting the situation even partially resolved. Apparently no one really knows the immigration laws in either country or at either embassy, and it didn’t help that they just changed within the last few months. You would think that they would have a pretty routine procedure for stolen passports seeing as I’m sure they weren’t the first, but you would never have guessed it.

   In the end Tony was able to leave the country but unable to visit Honduras like he had planned. Christine and I will have to fill out some paper work every three months to stay here instead of just crossing the border and coming back. They’ve changed the laws so that there is now a region that extends from the Guatemalan/Mexican border to the Nicaraguan/Costa Rican border and so we’d have to cross one of those borders for another 90 days in the region, which is more hassle than just filling out the paperwork.

   Enough of that, we had our first clean-up with our ecology group the Sunday before last and only 6 of the 25 kids showed up. Apparently they thought I wasn’t serious when I told them they had to come if they wanted to go on the field trip. One of the kids casually told me that one of the boys wasn’t coming because he was “busy playing Nintendo”. We did the clean-up anyway and picked up around 20-25 pounds of plastic bottles worth roughly $2. I imagine it would have been about 4 times as much if the other kids had showed up.

   So at the next general meeting Christine gave a lesson about icebergs and then I dropped the hammer on them. I let them know how disappointed we were in them and then I told them that if they didn’t feel like doing the clean-ups then we didn’t feel like taking them on any field trips. Then I told them that their city was ugly, which got some shocked some faces. I said that we were doing the clean-ups so that they could change that, take pride in their city, maybe get others to do the same and quit littering, earn a little money for field trips, and get them seen as youth leaders. I’m not sure if it got through, but we’ll see this Wednesday because I cancelled the field trip and replaced it with a make-up clean-up.

   After the meeting we talked with a couple of the more mature girls in the class and they basically told us some things they thought we were doing wrong and things that had been going on that we weren’t aware of. Apparently we’re far too lax on them although my talk was in the right direction. It had crossed my mind that we were, but it’s hard to be authoritative in broken Spanish. You come off sounding ridiculous if you don’t get it just right. Then we heard about one of the boys drawing naked pictures in one of the girl’s notebooks while she was out of the room, and girls from different grades spreading vicious rumors about other girls, etc.

   It looks like we’ve got more life lesson talks coming our way, but all in all it just makes us stronger and better able to deal in unfamiliar situations. At the very least it makes a few situations more familiar. I certainly never thought I’d be doing what I’m doing, or have it in me to do it, but it’s challenging and rewarding at the same time and I feel like I’m growing in a new way.

   Speaking of which, I’ve been recently toying with the idea of going to grad school. Since I graduated I’d been convinced that was it for me. If I wanted to learn something I could do more easily on my own. While it’s true I can learn a lot from books, they’re not responsive and they don’t always tell you the next step to take or differentiate between what’s really useful and why. Anyway, I’m looking at going to school to develop my web design and development skills. I’ve started looking at schools and specifically schools that lie near the ocean with sailing classes available.

   There really aren’t that many schools that specialize in web design or that have exactly the classes I want. I’m looking for some basic digital art classes with internet in mind, and also for web programming and development classes. It’s looking like an art institute is going to be the best bet although I really don’t consider myself much of an artist. Hopefully I can change that, because I feel like there’s one in me somewhere I just have to find a way to him out. It seems that it’s all a matter of putting my logical mind to sleep and letting a different part take over.

   I guess the end goal is to be a professional web developer and maybe be able to teach at some point later in life. It’s certainly a way to earn a living, but it also opens the possibility for change. I’ve always felt like there are ideas out there that could fix a lot of the problems we have in the world, really just “the idea”. When I imagine the idea, I think of those martial artists that can immobilize an opponent simply by hitting a pressure point or two in just the right way. The idea in that case is the knowledge of where to strike and how, and the media is the tool to reach out and deliver it. The opponent would, in a very general sense, be selfishness and the root of suffering in the world. Now I don’t presume to have the idea, and it’s unlikely I’ll be the one to come up with it, but I believe it’s out there. I just want to be ready to provide the means of spreading it and hopefully be in the right place at right time to recognize it when I hear it.

   Of course, there are tons of other worthwhile positive projects and causes that I can help with web design even if they aren’t the complete answer I’m looking for. And at the very least I just enjoy the act of creating something and web design gives me the opportunity to do that. Ok, I’m done talking about what I imagine most believe is naive, but if I didn’t think I had a chance to do something great it would put a serious damper on my drive to do anything.

Posted by Tao at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

   Two weeks ago we took our ecology club on its first field trip to the top of a large hill by the city. They were all extremely excited about it, and just about everyone in the group went. Even one older kid that I told couldn’t come because he had only attended the meeting immediately before the field and we’d had 5 meetings already. I told him he could go on the next field trip as long as he kept coming to the meetings, but he just decided he’d wait until we left and follow us anyway. I pulled him aside and talked to him after that and hopefully and I’m hoping he’s going to fly right from now on.

   I was fairly surprised to find out that a lot of them had never been to the hill. If I were a kid in this town you better believe I’d know the hills and mountains like the back of my hand. The thing is that parents and people in general tell you that everything is dangerous. Far more dangerous than it really is, and I’m almost positive this is because of the civil war when it actually was dangerous.

   The hill is a pretty decent two or three mile hike on a pretty steep grade. We chilled out for an hour after we got to the top and enjoyed the view. It had rained every day for the past two weeks, but the day we went was magnificent and the view was great.

   After we rested we started on some teamwork/leadership activities. We split them into two groups and I did an activity where the kids had to work together to get everyone from one side of this spider-web I’d made of string. They could only use on of the holes in the web once, couldn’t touch the string, and had to get everyone across. The idea is that they should form a plan ahead of time and then work together to accomplish it. Ideally they figure out that one or two of the bigger people should use the easier holes, while conserving the easier holes for a couple of bigger people who will help pass the smaller people through the harder holes to the other big people who crossed first. Then once they’d gotten all the small people across, they cross through the easy holes they reserved for themselves. They seemed to enjoy it and I hope they got a little of the thinking ahead/working together idea.

   While I was working with half the group on the spider-web, Christine was doing an activity with the other half called the human knot. The idea is that the kids hold hands with two different people in a circle at random and then have to unknot themselves without letting go of their hands. This is more of a leadership activity because if one person directs the others it goes much smoother. She said it went pretty well also.

   We ate lunch and afterwards made them form teams of two and then gave me then a nature scavenger hunt. It was stuff like; find something living under a rock, etc. My personal favorite was ‘find a tree you can put your arms around’. Yes friends, we had our ecology club hugging trees. The last thing on the list was worth the most points and that was picking up 20 pieces of garbage. We took the two winning teams out for ice cream after the next group meeting for the prize.

   All in all in went better than I thought it would. I was actually starting to get a little disillusioned with them. We’d spent 4 of our meetings talking about food chains and webs, so in the fifth meeting we gave them a list of things and had them each come up and put one of the plants or animals into it’s level. i.e. producer, 1st level consumer(herbivore), and 2nd level consumer(carnivore). It was pretty disappointing to see that just about all of them had no idea. When was the last time you saw a coffee plant eat a person? It just made me question whether or not they were really getting anything out of all of this. Remember too, that these are supposedly the best and brightest from the two schools. When we’d start talking about ecology stuff you could see the lights just turn off in their eyes. I don’t expect them to want to sit through an extra class in their free time, but we spend 2/3 of the time playing games, the least they could do is pay attention to us for 20 minutes.

   Anyway, that was how I was feeling before the field trip and the subsequent meetings. We’ve recently voted on a new name rather than the Comité Ecologico, we are now Jovenes Unidos del Medio Ambiente(United Youth for the Environment) or J.U.M.A.(who-ma) as I like to call it. We’ve also voted on a board of directors, president, v.p., secretary, treasurer, etc. That went pretty well and I was happy with their president and v.p. picks, but it went a little downhill after that, but maybe they’ll do better than I think they will. The kids in general seem to be behaving better and I think they’re starting to feel like this group is more their own.

   In other news, Christine and I took a little mini-vacation last weekend. We had planned to go up to Perquin, which is a city in the heart of where the worst fighting took place during the civil war and they now have a museum dedicated to it. It’s also apparently really beautiful in that area in the mountains, but it just so happened that Peace Corps decided to have a conference in the town that week so we decided to pass and go somewhere else. We decided to go to the Gulf of Fonseca near the border with Honduras. The first day we went down to a beach called Las Tunas, which was so-so. The next day we took a boat out to one of the islands in the gulf called Manguerra. It’s the biggest El Salvadorian island in the gulf, there are a couple bigger Honduran ones. We spent a couple nights there, hiked around the island went swimming. It was nice to get away from Berlin for awhile and just chill out. On the opposite side of the island there are these practically hidden beaches. We were basically the only people on the entire 400 yards of beach, there was an old man fishing for a little while catching some little sand sharks and then braining them with his braining stick.

   Each night we were there, right around dusk, these thunderstorms would move in from out at sea. The kinds of storms that bring those gusts of wind that make everything seem alive and charged with energy. It was beautiful to sit on our hotel balcony and watch them roll in. I have to say that although El Salvador is a fairly expensive country relative to Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua we spent all of a $100 on our 3 day trip.

Posted by Tao at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)

   We had a lot of doubts as to whether or not we’d actually be able to pull this off when we first decided to do it. We both managed to keep each other positive and I get more and more optimistic as time goes on. I imagine all of the situations and possible conflicts and know that they could easily turn sour, but then when I actually go and talk with the person or put myself in the situation it constantly turns out better than I could have hoped.

   All of our plans seem to be working out too, however we did hit a mild snag with our passport situation, but that was taken care of with an overnight trip to Guatemala. It turns out we just have to leave the country once every 90 days and pay a $10 fee for a new 90 day tourist visa. No big deal really, plus it gives a reason to take some trips so hopefully next time we’ll spend longer than a night in a crummy border town. Another plus is that our visas are going to be pretty by the time we get done here.

   Also I feel like we’ve been meeting and befriending all of the right people in town and are really getting linked into the network of respected community leaders here. The only institution that we haven’t tapped yet is the mayor’s office, simply because there’s a new mayor who just took office at the beginning of May and who we’ve heard he’s ridiculously busy. He inherited a $200,000 debt from the previous mayor who disappeared for 6 months and then had the gall to show up and run for re-election. The guy did manage to come in 2nd, which I think is due to the fact that people who had government jobs were worried about losing them if the mayor changed. It might also have had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t been collecting taxes from the richest people in town and thus probably supported him, but see above debt for the problem associated with that. It’s also interesting to note that he hadn’t even paid the power bill for city hall for months, so they’d reverted back to typewriters. He also didn’t pay the power bill for all the street lights in town and people were getting nervous about the rising crime because of it. The new mayor got right on top of these things and slowly the street lights are coming back on, including one of the ones in front of our house.

   We’ve also managed to take on about as many responsibilities as I’m willing to take at this point. As of now we’re going to the all boys’ school every Tuesday and Thursday in the morning and while Christine teaches English to the 2 English teachers, I give a talk to one of their classes which they just leave to their own devices. The talks I’m giving are basically just following this book that Peace Corps. gave us called “How to plan your life?”, and so I’m starting out on communication skills and going up through self-esteem, leadership, thinking about your future, parenthood, AIDS, and then how to make resumes and find jobs. The kids seem to like it, mainly the games and activities I do with them, but I think at least some of the lessons are getting through to them…I hope. It’s also made me fairly popular around town since pretty much every kid in every school here knows my name. I can’t walk through the town without 2 or 3 kids yelling hey to me.

   Also, we’ve just sent out invitations for our ecology club that we’re starting which will have about 30 kids and meet every Wednesday afternoon to discuss different themes and to do related activities. Christine also signed up to give two talks every month to the mother’s of disabled children at the children’s hospital around the corner while their children receive physical therapy. She’s starting off with nutrition and I’ll probably be helping her prepare and/or give those talks. I also talked with the director at the Instituto(high school) where I was originally assigned. We had been on somewhat strained terms since the board of advisors said that I shouldn’t work there since they were going to be receiving another Peace Corps volunteer from the next cycle in the 4 months. However, when I went over to talk to him about letting us put up a flyer for our English classes he asked me if I’d be willing to give classes to the computer teacher and about 15 students on using Macromedia Flash. I jumped on it, since I’ve really felt like my computer knowledge was being underutilized. I also wanted to repay them for letting us use their computer lab all the time. He also told me that his son would be taking our English classes and then showed me the best places to put up the flyers around the school.

   Here’s a copy of the flyer if you’re interested. We’re going to give classes for an hour and a half every Tuesday and Thursday from 3 to 4:30 to 15 students for $12/month. It’ll be a good way for us to fund our projects and not have to scrape by every month. We’ll probably be able to save enough money to take some actual trips around Central America as well. We’ve also had a bunch of interested older people who want to take classes from us even though we’d really like to start with students so they’re at least remotely on the same page. We’re telling the adults that we’re using the kids as an experiment and that we’ll offer adult classes at a later time when they’re not working. I’ve also been telling teachers that we’ll let them attend for half-price. If we end up teaching two classes like that then we’ll be doing fine for ourselves. In the meantime I plan on doing some web work for my dad and that $300 Peace Corps readjustment money should be coming any day now.

   So we’re keeping busy. There are a couple other projects that may or may not happen, but I’d like to wait until all of these projects get started to see where we are on free time. Just for kicks I planted some beans in the little garden area in the backyard. I figure since it’s a staple food here, it’s an appropriate thing to have grown here. I’ve also painted the sign out front that said we were a Remesa business. I’m thinking about stenciling “Rancho Gringo” on the sign instead. We’re really not offended by the gringo thing. They don’t use it in a negative way like some people do in Mexico and it’s just easier for them to say than Norte Americano or Estadounidense, which I can’t even pronounce myself. Some people thought we’d be offended by it since when the infamous Barbara was here, whenever anyone would call her a gringa she’d turn around and bark “guanaco!” at them, which is a slang word for Salvadorians that they consider insulting. That’s some cultural sensitivity that definitely was worth promoting to upper eschelons of Peace Corps bureaucracy.

   I’ve realized that I’m actually more offended when people call me “chele”, which means light-skinned or in my lexicon means “whitey”. I guess it’s more offensive to me because it’s identifying me by the color of my skin, rather than gringo which could be the way I dress, walk, talk, etc… In reality I’m sure they’re using the color of my skin as well, but at least they’re not identifying me solely by that. Christine brought up and interesting point about racial tensions between blacks and Hispanics in L.A. The latin culture doesn’t seem to care about identifying people by the color of their skin and the color black happens to be “negro”, so can’t you just see some gang fights erupting over something that was actually never meant to offend in the first place.

   Which I guess brings me to another topic that’s been bugging me. Everything isn’t sunshine and roses. One thing that I find annoying is that we’re constantly being asked if we can help people get funds for all sorts of different things. No matter how many times we say we don’t have any money for that, they don’t seem to believe us, as if every American has Bill Gates on their speed dial. The way they do it is really what makes it annoying. It’s like we’ll be invited to dinner or they’ll help us do something very simple and then they try to use that to make us feel like we should help them by finding funds for whatever thing they’ve got going. A simplistic form of bribery, and I don’t like it.

   Another thing that bugs me and has since Peace Corps training is the religion aspect. Two of three of the Peace Corps goals are about the volunteers learning about the host country’s culture and volunteers sharing their culture with the host country people, but then on like the first day they tell you not to tell anyone if you don’t believe in God, which means tell them you do. It made me feel like we weren’t exactly sharing our culture with them and it also made me feel like I was betraying my own beliefs. I hadn’t been too pressured on the religion aspect until last night after dinner at a ladies house they started questioning me on it. I told them that I believed in God, although it’s by no means their idea of God, by they can’t even comprehend that other people believe in different Gods besides their Catholic version. Then they decided to pray out of the blue, it actually felt more like they were testing us to make sure we were true believers, like if we bent our head and prayed and didn’t believe we’d burst into flames or be smote right in front of them. Afterwards I felt dirty, like I’d been molested or something. I just wish they weren’t so close-minded about things.

   Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ve got my new phone number here if anyone is interested in calling. From the states you dial 01150372196823 and hold your breath. Also, we’ve figured out our mailing address here, and since I just painted a 5 by our door hopefully it’ll start actually making it here. The address is:

Casa No.5
Calle 14 de Diciembre
Barrio Parroquial
Berlin, Departamento de Usulutan
El Salvador, Centro America

Quite the mouthful, no?

Posted by Tao at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

When my mom checked out a video camera from the school and dropped it at my feet for this trip without even asking me, I was a little upset. I just wanted to come and take some pictures and soak up the experience, but now I'm so glad she did. You would not believe this place. It's been 6 months since Katrina and the people we were talking to earlier tonight got power back 2 weeks ago. Driving around we saw all of 3 houses out of 100's that looked like people had been repairing them. It's just unbelievable that nothing is being done and they're only 4 months away from another hurricane season.

Anyway, there are so many stories here it's overwhelming. I remember taking my documentary classes and scrounging for something interesting to film and now just about everywhere I can point my camera here there's something. I really think that the failure to rebuild here and Bush's trying to sweep it away under the state of the union is going to end up being a big story down the road. I'll post more later...

Posted by Tao at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (0)

   I've started sorting out all of my stuff to pack. I made a list and I posted it but its not longer available, I'm not sure if it's all going to make it. I can only take 80lbs and I think I'm pushing the limit.

   I called Sprint today to cancel my service expecting to be reamed to the tune of $150 for breaking my contract. Which was about to happen until I asked the guy when my contract was going to run out, and he said, "oh, this is your last month", I guess he wasn't going to even check. On top of saving all that money he also said I'm getting a $120 deposit back. Pretty sweet.

   We're waking up early tomorrow to drive over to New Orleans to tour the devastation. I've got my digital camera and the video camera batteries all charged up. If I don't get it up before I leave it might be awhile until I get to it.

Posted by Tao at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)