We got to Pana on Monday afternoon ... its a cool little hippie-town on the shore of Lake Atitlan(left), which is this huge volcanic crater-lake in the Solola region. Its definitely a more touristy town aimed almost exclusively at foreigners. We have 2 hotel rooms here, so its nice to have the private bathroom and shower of a hotel, but its basically a hostel situation in terms of beds. The lake is really beautiful, also its really dirty and contaminated and when you get up close you see it littered with garbage.
We've spent 2 days so far in a little village on the other side of the lake called San Antonio Palopo. Its a short pickup truck ride away (which are really fun, by the way!).
We've spent 2 days so far in a little village on the other side of the lake called San Antonio Palopo. Its a short pickup truck ride away (which are really fun, by the way!).
We're having our weekly campaign there on Saturday, so we went on Tuesday to do publicity for the campaign. SolCom has a good relationship with a weaving co-op in San Antonio (we're having the campaign at the weaving co-op, which is an integral part of the town, so its a good location), and this week we-re also doing some publicity work for the co-op. We made a brochure for them and we're working on a video about the weaving process. Yesterday while we were in San Antonio, my assignment )along with one of my friends, Amanda) was to go into the local elementary schools and talk to the directors about our campaign and then talk to groups of kids about the importance of clean water. Meeting with the directors went well ... he was excited about getting reading glasses and even was going to buy a water filter for the school, but talking to little kids was not so great! Little kids are pretty harsh! My Spanish is pretty decent, but to talk to little kids whose first language is Kakquichel about something thats pretty boring to them is hard! Amanda and I sort of ran out of there with our water filter when we were done. Haha.
Today we took a boat across the lake to San Juan, another little village. We visited another weaving co-op (there are a TON of weaving co-ops here, which makes it hard for one to stand out over another) to give them another brochure we had made as well as help them with a homestay program they're trying to start. We went around and looked at all the houses to make sure things were up to standard and correct things such as see-through shower curtains. Haha.
Oh, also on Wednesday we took the morning to go ziplining! It was pretty awesome .... there were 8 cables, and it took probably an hour to do all of them. We got really cool views of the lake as well as the jungley forest below us. There were also some spider monkeys ... the ziplining was in a Nature Reserve. To be honest, I kind of thought ziplining would be a bit more extreme than it was, but it was still really cool and definitely worth my $15. I'll put up pictures later once I get a better internet connection.
Today we took a boat across the lake to San Juan, another little village. We visited another weaving co-op (there are a TON of weaving co-ops here, which makes it hard for one to stand out over another) to give them another brochure we had made as well as help them with a homestay program they're trying to start. We went around and looked at all the houses to make sure things were up to standard and correct things such as see-through shower curtains. Haha.
Oh, also on Wednesday we took the morning to go ziplining! It was pretty awesome .... there were 8 cables, and it took probably an hour to do all of them. We got really cool views of the lake as well as the jungley forest below us. There were also some spider monkeys ... the ziplining was in a Nature Reserve. To be honest, I kind of thought ziplining would be a bit more extreme than it was, but it was still really cool and definitely worth my $15. I'll put up pictures later once I get a better internet connection.
That school experience sounds a little bit like Colonial Crafts Day...trying to make something as mundane as weaving sound exciting! At least we don't have to sell water filters to 4th graders at Bragg!
ReplyDeleteI like how you contrast American dollars to Guate. quetzals...it's really interesting.
With all the contaminated waters around there, it's a wonder you remain healthy. Keep that aura going through swine-flu ridden Argentina as well!
ReplyDeleteYour modes of transport are really funny. Too bad you haven't run into any Segways yet.