Climate Change in Guatemala

About one week ago, while starting their coverage of the Copenhagen climate talks, nytimes.com published a front page slideshow of seven photos showing the real effects of climate change (photo below). Among them were picture of some islands in the South Pacific threatened by rising sea levels, cracked soil in Africa, and - to my surprise - a picture of a failed corn harvest in Baja Verapaz, Guatemala (about three hours away from San Marcos as the crow flies, eleven hours away as the camioneta drives). I have always been cognizant of the potential problems posed by a warmer planet, but never saw the real-life consequences: less food, less water, and more irreparable infrastructure damage due to more intense weather patterns.

What I'm about to say works on many levels while comparing Guatemalan society to American society; life here runs much closer to the edge. People don't have health insurance, car insurance, property insurance, or any real savings to speak of. If you get injured, you go to the doctor and pay to get fixed. If you can't pay, you don't get fixed. If you crash your car, you pay to repair it or junk it. For these same reasons, the effects of climate change are much more salient here because there's less of a cushion separating the people from the consequences. When less rain falls, less crops grow, farmer's can't sell as many crops, and those with limited resources (= great majority) get hungrier and more desperate.

Guatemala saw one of the more severe droughts in recent history, hence the smaller crop yields and nytimes.com front page photo. So what does this mean at a real, tangible level? The production of staple foods in the Guatemalan diet, principally black beans and maize, has reduced by 50% this year due to the prolonged drought. This caused an increased in price due to diminishing supply. Higher prices on basic foods mean the poorest of society can't afford even the cheapest of foods. Alvaro Colom, President of Guatemala, declared a "state of calamity" in Guatemala due to the dire food supply situation. Enter more begging, more desperation, increased movement into industries with more profitability and an inelastic demand (read: drug trade), and more gang participation. It's no coincidence that as poverty has increased over the past ten years, gang-related violence has risen drastically and narco-trafficking has gone viral in Guatemala.

Another tangible consequence: less water. Even in the harshest of droughts in the USA, it's a rare occurrence when we turn the faucet at our sinks and nothing comes out. Here, now, it's not that uncommon. It has happened to me a few times and I'll say, it's pretty haunting when you turn the faucet and....nothing. You wait, wait, don't shower, sleep, wait, buy water jugs, wait, and hope that it will come on soon. Without enough resources to build huge reservoirs or other forms of storage, when water runs out, water runs out.

As far as more intense weather patterns, Guatemala has experienced two crippling storms in the last decade: Hurricane Stan and Tropical Storm Mitch. Stan (2005), the stronger of the two, took out the two main water treatment facilities on Lake Atitlan, and the government couldn't pay (or didn't want to pay) to replace them. Now, as a result, a new strand of cyanobacteria has flowered and taken over the lake, marking one of the biggest ecological disasters ever in the country. The lake usually generates about $200 million of tourism a year, but with its new brown tint and unswimmable waters, that number is expected to fall drastically this year.

Where once found around 3,000 feet above sea level, Dengue has moved to about 4,000 feet in Central America. San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta is around 3,600 feet above sea level.

The sum total of this strand of free association is that it is true, third world countries will feel climate change much more than first world countries because they can't afford the insurance against it that we can. I feel more anxious about climate change than I did before I came down here because we're already starting to see its early results down here. Its no longer a theory among scholars, its fewer crop yields, less water, and ecologic disasters.

Field of corn in Baja Verapaz stands ruined after prolonged drought

#1, #3, and #4 Down

On November 21st, a couple Peace Corps buddies and I climbed the highest volcano in Central America. Called Tajamulco, which translates to "the big pimple" (not true, I completely made that up), this tallest point in Central America measures almost 14,000 feet. Probably the most impressive part of the landscape is the fact that the volcano hovers right over the coastal region of San Marcos (where I live). Looking at it from the side, the skyline rips from the coast straight up 14,000 feet to the volcano.

We started our hike around 1pm on Saturday with a group called Corazon Verde ("Green Heart") that organized a garbage clean-up on the volcano. Before the hike, a group of locals, led by the mayor, held a ceremony to bless the occasion and to talk about the importance of keeping their sacred volcano clean. After the 25 minutes of speeches and prayers, we all started up. The local Guatemalans charged up the volcano with their burlap sacks, which would return full of garbage. We took a more leisurely pace, mainly because we couldn't take three steps without getting winded due to the lack of oxygen, but also because we planned to camp that night just below the summit.

After about 3 hours of hiking, we arrived at base camp. I was shocked when we arrived because the hike itself wasn't that tough and I thought it would take much longer than it did. But it was nice to get to our camp with plenty of daylight because it gave us time to get ready for the freezing cold that would come with the sunset. After collecting some firewood, a group of us summited the peak to catch the sunset over the Pacific. Even though it was cloudy, the view was incredible (photos below). We stayed there for about an hour, but like clock-work, once the sun went down, the temperature dropped to nearly freezing. We rushed down to our tents to get a fire going and eat some supper. After a hearty dinner of beans, bread, and - of course - campfire-roasted schmores, we all went to bed to try to rest before our early wake-up to catch the summit sunrise. I slept fine, but one of our buddies had a serious case of altitude sickness and was moaning and groaning all night with splitting headaches.

At 3:45am my alarm sounded...time to summit. Still freezing, we crawled out of our tents and started hiking again, but this time it felt much tougher due the to the cold and soar muscles. It was well worth it though because right around 6ish, the sun came out and we could make out the chain of volcanoes stretching from Antigua to Mexico (about 8 volcanoes in all). Definitely one of the highlights of Guatemala so far.

With Tajamulco down, I've now summited the highest volcano in Guatemala (Tajamulco), the third highest (Acatenango), and the fourth highest (Agua). Now I have the second highest in my sites, called Tacana (photo below), for January. #1, #3, and #4 highest down. Next up, #2.

#1, #3, and #4 Down Photos (click to enlarge)

Chris taking a photo with Summit in the distance

Base camp

Summit sunset. Volcano in the background is called Tacana; second tallest in Central America

Chris on the summit at sunset

6:03am. Summit sunrise over the entire chain of volcanoes in Guatemala.
I think you can make out about 8 different volcanoes.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are"

The quote above, by Teddy Roosevelt, should really be the Peace Corps motto. It also relates perfectly to the work we've done in the park over the last month.

Since I last posted, we finished construction of a bridge that crosses a small river at the entrance of our park that swells during the rainy season. Below are some "before and after" photos. We re-used wood from an old indoor soccer field that was torn down in July. The wood from the rafters served as the base of the bridge, and 3-foot slabs from the building's facade were laid across the walkway of the bridge. Our finishing touch was to fill in the sides of the bridge with bamboo donated by a nearby coffee farm.

Shortly after we finished the bridge, I invited two bird experts from a town called Coban to come for a second visit to our park to do a bird inventory. Knut Eisermann and Claudia Avedano, from Cayaya Birding (http://www.cayaya-birding.com), know Guatemala's birds possibly better than anyone else in Central America. Just standing at our look-out, they identified about twenty different species of birds through their calls/songs. Having visited our park four months ago, this visit was focused on the migratory population of birds that cross through Guatemala on their way to the States. I never would have thought in a million years they would have found a Baltimore Oriole in San Marcos, Guatemala. Crazy! Our list of birds now includes 55 different species of birds in an area that's about 250 acres.

Continuing the bird theme, we are about two months away from quetzal nesting season (February - May). One of the main reasons the quetzal is a threatened species is because of its fickle nesting habits. It only nests in dry dead trees, which, last time I checked, have a tendency to fall over in wind and heavy rain. Did I mention we get 4 meters of rain every year? In our park, we have tons of beautiful live trees, but these are way to dense/hard for the quetzal to burrow into. So we hung artificial nests last week; essentially dry trunks hung on live trees. Last year a pair of quetzals took to one of the nest we hung, and we're hoping they do again.

So there's the recap of the last month of work. Check out the pics below and check back soon to hear about the half marathon in Xela and my trip to the tallest volcano in Central America.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" (photos)

Bridge Before

Bridge After

Birdwatching with Knut, Claudia, and Marcelino

Hanging an artificial nest

Artificial nest (it's the trunk on the ride side of the living tree).
If I were a bird I'd definitely want to nest there.

Mormon? CIA? Nope, Peace Corps

Two days ago I ran in the annual San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta "Race of Friendship". The 11km race started in a town called Rodeo and finished in San Rafael. As I was warming up for the race, a very nondescript fellow runner came up to me and asked if I was a Peace Corps volunteer. Shocked, I asked him how he knew. "Well," he started, "Out here, we don't get too many gringos. So I figured you were either Mormon, but you don't have a backpack and name tag. Or you were with the C.I.A., but you're too young. So that left me with one option...you must be a Peace Corps volunteer." I laughed and introduced myself, stunned at both the fact that he was worldly and at his deductive reasoning abilities; both a rarity in rural Guatemala.

The race itself was grueling and awesome. Grueling in the truest sense: the 11km (6.87 miles) were all straight uphill, literally. My body yelled at me to stop, but I knew I couldn't and wouldn't, especially because this was my race in my town; I couldn't be seen walking at any point because people in town would start talking about how the gringo couldn't handle the San Rafael race and I would lose all street credibility as an athlete. Awesome in the truest sense because the entire race climbed up the bocacosta (refers to altitude range in between the coast and highlands) to San Rafael, which provided for incredible views of the two largest volcanoes in Central America: Tajamulco and Tacana.

When I entered San Rafael for the final 300M stretch, the rafaelenses (as they're known) erupted and started hollering and cheering me on. It was great. Of course this got my adrenaline going, so I kicked it into third gear (having been in second for pretty much the whole race) and passed three people in the final stretch, which also caused more erupting and cheering. It was one of the most rewarding sports events of my life. It also showed me that the community had embraced me to a much larger extent than I had previously thought, another real spirit booster.

This whole week is our town fair. It started with the race and will finish on Saturday, October 24th: the day of the town's patron saint, San Rafael. So far we've had the election of the Reina de la Feria, which is more or less a beauty pageant to crown a local girl as the symbolic "queen" of the fair. These elections are a surprisingly big part of Guatemalan culture and for almost every major holiday (Holy Week, Christmas, Independence Day, etc) the town elects a queen.

Right now there is music thumping outside in the park in anticipation of our big parade. So far, it's running an hour and half behind schedule...

Sign making

Last week I started making signs for the Refugio del Quetzal. As always, we have to be creative because our budget demands it. But it works out for the better because instead of being tempted to buy big colorful metal/plastic signs, we are making natural wooden signs from trees that had already fallen in the park. To do so, we use a machine called a 'router' to carve out the letters. After carving the letters, we'll finish the signs with a layer of varnish to weather-protect them. The final product will blend in better with the park and have a more subtle presence, as opposed to big intrusive metal/plastic signs. Plus, hand-made signs are just way cooler.

Here's a tutorial on how to make park signs a la Peace Corps.

Step 1: Draw outline of sign. Letters should be the height and width of a hand.


Step 2: Carve out letters. Remember the golden rule from kindergarten: stay inside the lines.


Step 3: Revise and add any finishing touches.


Step 4: Varnish and admire


One handicapped parking sign. You can click on the photo to make it bigger and get a better look at it.

Merceditas Coffe Farm Party

Two weeks ago, a local coffee farm called Las Merceditas celebrated its annual party dedicated to their patron saint St Mercedes. I have formed a great relationship with the family who owns the farm, the DeLeons, and teach English to them and their kids about once a week. The party included marimbistas (above), a beef stew of sorts, a mass, a little dancing, and a lot of hanging out chatting about life in Guatemala and the latest jokes people had heard.

The marimba, shown above, is the national instrument of Guatemala and is included in just about every formal celebration. You'll notice in the video that one of the marimbistas (marimba player...if that wasn't obvious) holds two sticks in one hand to play various notes at once. That's very advanced level marimba. Enjoy!

El Presidente

About a month ago (see: "Casa de Grapas" post) I mentioned that I had entered the Presidential race for the Volunteer Advocacy Council. Well, I'm thrilled to announce that I won and swore-in last Friday to serve the volunteer community until September of 2010.

The Volunteer Advocacy Council, or 'VAC', represents the 180 Peace Corps Volunteers in Guatemala in new policy decisions at the country level and helps boost morale by organizing events like the annual 4th of July party and regional welcome parties for new volunteers. It consists of eight volunteers: one representative from each of the seven regions where volunteers serve in Guatemala, plus the president. In the 90s, VAC had a reputation of being just the party-throwing committee and didn't garner a lot of respect from the Peace Corps administration, but has really changed its image and function in the last ten years for the better. The Council is tapped every time volunteer input is needed at the administrative level and is the voice of the volunteer community for issues ranging from Living Allowances to relationships between volunteers and Project Directors. For example, the Asst Director of Peace Corps Guatemala will be making revisions to the Volunteer Handbook, (our manual on codes of conduct etc.) before the new year and has asked the VAC to be an instrumental part of the process in which the revisions that will be made. So it's a considerable responsibility as President to lead the VAC, but I'm really excited and it should be fun.

A couple of the things that we have discussed initially as a group are establishing a peer review board to hear cases that could result in the expulsion of a volunteer, improving volunteer/staff relations, making it better known which volunteers are where and what their strengths are, continuing the campaign to increase the volunteer living allowance, and keeping the tradition of throwing a rockin' 4th of July party.

Our first meeting is this Friday. We will establish our goals and objectives for the year as well as assign people to the various services that VAC provides (such as merchandise, cook book, survival guide, and calendar to name a few).

A few new pics from the park

Milpa!

Remember how I mentioned a few posts back that I had planted corn by my house? Well here it is! About a month and a half old and 8 inches tall!

Will's Wedding

Apologies for the lack of posts, but September has been crazy busy.

In late August I went home for the first time in eight months for my brother’s wedding. I expected more of a culture shock when I arrived in San Francisco after being in rural Guatemala for the majority of the year. But to be honest, it was just like I left it. My friends were still there, the good places to eat hadn’t changed, and we wound up going out to the same bars that we had always gone to. The only thing that changed was that the Giants were winning. Maybe I should stay down here for a little longer…for the good of the franchise.

I did notice that everything was cleaner in the U.S. than in Guatemala: less trash strewn everywhere, less burning plastic, less gritty. Also, it felt nice to be surrounded by English speakers and people who didn’t make me feel like Andre the Giant.

I spent the following week on the Monterey Peninsula for my brother’s wedding. Will, my brother, did an amazing job planning and threw a great party. We sampled local wines one night, had a beachfront sunset cocktail party the next, and shared the wedding ceremony on the third day in the gardens of an old Monterey adobe that also serves as the Monterey Museum of Art. Truly an amazing week.

Coming back to Guatemala was not as tough as I though it would be. On the contrary actually, I looked forward to getting back. However, no sooner did I get to site did I get sick again. We think it’s some kind of virus (maybe related to mononucleosis) and really didn’t make it easier to settle back in for the next year and a half. Getting sick down here is probably the worst thing in the world because it totally blows up your perspective on everything and really gets you down. But oh well, I always know to expect it when I get sick, so now it’s just a matter of getting better, which I’ve already started to do.

Casa de Grapas (House of Staples)

Casa de Grapas. I planted some corn in my yard to the right of the house. It has already sprouted and this view should look a lot different in about one month when the stalks are higher.

Kitchen area

Four planks of wood: $8
Eight cinderblocks: $3
One piece of rope: $0.35
Homemade closet: Priceless

Bathroom, complete with hot-shower and pink shower curtain.
Yeah, that's right, pink shower curtain.

"Pila", or "sink that you use to wash everything that's too dirty to be washed inside".
Notice the compost container to the left; never thought worms could be so interesting.

Casa de Grapas

Casa de Grapas (House of Staples) has debuted in San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta. This was a huge personal upgrade for yours truly and has completely changed my experience. I feel much more integrated into the community now that I have my own place. I have neighbors I greet every morning and afternoon as I go to and return from work, I grocery shop for myself, and - in general - I have a much larger ownership over my life. This is not to say that living with my host family wasn't enjoyable, they are really solid people, but I constantly had this nagging feeling that I was a visitor in the town.

I've started to cook for myself a bit. I make my breakfasts and dinners, and eat lunch (the biggest meal in Guatemala) with my old host family to keep that relationship going. The standard breakfast has been either cereal with banana or the occasional four-egg omelet packed with veggies. Thanks to Mac for bringing down my French coffee press because now I can start the day with a freshly brewed cup of coffee, instead of a mixture of watered-down Nescafe and three table spoons of water. Dinners usually consist of some kind of starch and some black beans. I'll mix it up every now-and-then with a pack of mac & cheese from the market in San Marcos, but that's a rarity.

Another development is that I submitted my application yesterday for the President position of the Volunteer Advocacy Committee. The VAC, as it is known, is the elected group of eight volunteers (of 178) that represents the greater group of volunteers in any administrative context and serves as a support structure for all volunteers. Election results should be released in a couple weeks.

That's the latest. I'm heading home a week from Friday for my brother's wedding. Can't wait! More than the wedding itself, I can't wait to see family and friends; especially my sister's children who - I'm sure - have grown a ton since I've been gone.

Oh, and we beat "The Machine" in last Sunday's soccer game. That puts us in third place out of twelve teams. Playoffs bound!

August Action (pics below)

'Slow and steady' should be the mantra for August, which is fine with me.

The boys from the water projects had to return to their primary duties of meter reading and fixing the city's water tanks, which left Marcelino, Saul, and I to continue with the trails and fencing in the park. We lost a bit of momentum, but for our numbers we are advancing considerably. Marcelino and I worked out a system where he would go ahead of me, digging holes where our fence posts would go. I then follow, inserting the posts into the holes he dug and filling-in the space around them to secure the posts in their place. We're focusing on the posting first and are getting pretty efficient at it, having covered about 1km of our 1.5km trail.

The unexpected parts of working in the park have been both the most trying and entertaining. For example, we ran out of posting two weeks ago and had to bring in some more from a nearby coffee plantation. After the load was dropped off, we had to somehow get it from the entrance of the park to the point where we had left off with our work...about 1km away. With the very few resources that we have in the park, both economic and human, Marcelino and I had to haul 80lb loads of wood on our backs down into the park, using a what's called a 'nekapal' (pic below). The first three loads were fine, but after the 4th and 5th, supporting that kind of weight with essentially just neck and upper back muscles started to take its toll. But this is Peace Corps right? This should be expected, and it was actually pretty fun.

Another highlight of August (so far) has been the start of a new soccer league (pic of field below). I pried and searched all over to get myself on a team, and found myself one in '12:30'. 12:30, the team's name, is a San Rafael team made up of a bunch of young guys who I had met in town. Yours truly debuted at goalie, but after realizing how boring that position actually is I asked to be moved to forward. We have a big game on Sunday against 'The Machine', the team currently in first place.

In signing off, the best part of the past two weeks has been moving into my new house, but that is a whole other post in and of itself. More to come.

August Action Pics

The Refugio del Quetzal Team

Carrying one of many loads of wood using a nekapal

One of our trails, mid-construction

Breakfast in the park

Sunday soccer

Back in Action (pics below)

Rockin' and rollin' again in good old San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta. After a relaxing couple of weeks and a successful site visit to two other Peace Corps sites with my mayor and team, we had a great week of work in the park.

Having been inspired by Brittany's site at Corazon del Bosque (about 3 hours from San Rafael) Marcelino and I started building a fence on our main trail that heads down to some of the best quetzal-viewing parts of the park. It serves both as a protective boundary at some points and a visitor corraller at others. But given that Marcelino and I are a team of two, sometimes three with Saul, the work went slow and steady. All the materials we're using for the fence (wood and bamboo) have been recycled back in to use after having been leftover from various projects at nearby coffee farms.

We're probably about halfway on the fencing with our main trail and have at least another two weeks to finish up the other half. After that, I'm looking to start building some signs using a router and a little paint. Updates to come.

Back in Action Pics

Marcelino and Lisandro after a long day of work

Working with Marcelino to tie-off a piece of fencing

Section of finished fence

Don Carlos (mayor) helping out with fence construction. Campaign 2012 anyone?

On the Road (Pics below)

After a couple weeks out of site due to meetings and a little vacation, I'm back at it in ol' San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta.

The last couple weeks in a nut shell:

I took my first couple days of vacation at the end of June to check out the rest of this incredible country. Stop one, Pacaya Volcano to visit another volunteer and good buddy, Jesse Festa. Pacaya is one of the more advanced Peace Corps sites and ranks as the second largest tourist attraction in Guatemala behind Tikal due to its proximity to Antigua and volcanic activity (see pic below). Taking advantage of the natural fire pit, we carried up a bag of marshmallows and roast them over the open lava to make schmores. Really tasty, but it came at the expense of almost roastring our faces off because the heat from the lava was so intense. Also, with the constantly changing and shifting lava fields one has to be wary of tumbling lava rocks as pieces break loose.

From Pacaya I headed up to Coban, about 5 hours northeast of Antigua. About three months ago I signed up for the Coban half marathon, which is a huge event in Guatemala and one of the premier races in the world. The problem with signing up for a race that early in a Third World country is that you never know how your health will be three months from the sign-up date. Sure enough, I was bed-ridden for about 6 days before I started my travels and ran all of 0 times in teh 10 days before the half marathon. That said, the nerves were pumping the morning of the race. But all went well and I wound up finishing with an average of about 8 minute miles and finished second of all the Peace Corps volunteers who ran.

Since I was in Coban, I wanted to check out my buddy Oliver's site who's working with a rafting association on the Cahabon River...did I mention he has no running water or electricity? He took us down a 22km stretch of river that took about 4 hours and did not dissappoint. We hit this one part of the river called the Devil's Throat that almost bucked us out of the raft, but managed to hold on. After visiting Oliver, I shot over to Semuc Champey (pics below) to see one of Guatemala's best natural wonders. Semuc is basically a limestone table above the Cahabon River and is fed by surrounding springs, making its waters crystal clear and the perfect temperature to swim in. We hopped from pool to pool, jumping off of little cliffs or trying to turn smoother ledges into slides. Definitely one of the highlights of Guatemala thus far.

From Coban I hopped on a bus back down to Guatemala City to pick-up Mac from the airport, one of my best buddies from the States. After a fun-filled weekend in Antigua, including the annual and infamous Peace Corps 4th of July party, we headed up to Lake Atitlan for a couple days of R & R.; much needed after a stressful and tough couple first months in-site. We stayed at Casa del Mundo, an unreal hotel built into the cliffs surrounding the lake with views of San Pedro and Santiago volcanoes. Those couple days really helped recharge my batteries and get me excited to go back to my site and get some good work done.

On the Road Pics

Pacaya volcano (Jesse's site). Very active and very hot....schmores anyone?

Another day at the office for Jesse

Semuc Champey from above

Travis, me, and Tony at Semuc

Mac and I on our hotel's private dock on Lake Atitlan at the end of his trip.

Settling-in

Taking GPS coordinates. Now we know what the park looks like and can make a map.

Hopped in the back of this pick-up to hitch a ride down from the park and found I was in good company.

One of the first completed sections of trail we finished late May

View of the neighborhood where my new house will be

What a difference a month makes. After the introductions and ice-breakers of April, May proved to be filled with much more momentum and an increasing sense of direction on the work front. Don’t get me wrong, it is still only month two in a brand new Peace Corps site, but I feel like we’re making leaps and bounds.

A lot of the work we focused on was in the park. With the rainy season approaching, Marcelino, Saul, and I installed drainage lanes on the sides of our most frequented trails and leveled out a few sharp edges to preempt what would have been guaranteed erosion. We also took measurements of the park for the first time and got a sense of the length of our main trail and how we want to change it. Right now it’s about 2km as I said in the photo below, but we’re thinking about extending so that the exit puts our visitor into the meadow as oppose to coming back the way he or she entered. One of the more exciting accomplishments was taking GPS points of the entire park to have a real visual of what it looks like with altitude change. The main advantage with the GPS points is that now we have the data we need to make a map of the park.

Looking forward there’s still tons to do, and we still need much more focus and direction. One of the main things will be registering it as a protected area at a local level through what’s called an Acuerdo Municipal, or Municipal Act. That will allow us to assure that the next mayor will not be able to come in and sell the trees as firewood at the most fundamental level, and at the highest level will help us register it with CONAP, the Guatemalan national parks agency.

Until next time.

Early work in the park

Saul putting in some basic drainage lanes

Marcelino and I measuring the length of our most traveled trail for the first time. Turned out to be about 2KM.

Recording our results

Don Carlos, mayor of San Rafael, in his truck as we check out the upper limits of the park

1 down, 23 to go

What a whirlwind of a first month. April in San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta proved to be a taste test of all the unexpected challenges, new experiences, and emotions that I was expecting from my two-year service. I had plenty of ups-and-downs with work and getting settled-in, but overall I really like my site and the work that I'll be doing here.

The park to which I've been assigned is called the Refugio del Quetzal, a terrain of about 8,000 square kilometers, that the current mayor bought during his first term. It serves as one of the few remaining habitats for the national bird of Guatemala, the quetzal (pictures below). The bird itself has been on the brink of extinction for a number of years due to deforestation and habitat destruction, an unfortunate common theme in Guatemala. Our goal is to preserve their environment, improve their numbers, and hopefully open the park to tourists in the future to generate revenue for the community of San Rafael.

In my first month we've already made some good progress. During Semana Santa we started a log book of all the visitors, giving us good marketing information on the profile our average visitor. We also asked for voluntary donations from our visitors, which generated about Q600/$85 in four days, enough to pay for a few tools and wood to continue building-up the basic infrastructure. As far as the infrastructure of the park, we basically have none. The trails need attention, we don't have letrines, and there's no place to throw away garbage. So we started small this month and are really focusing on improving the entry to our park with better stairs and drainage. I've also put together a budget for our most basic needs (tools, manual labor, and materials) to develop the first part of our trail. The total is about Q14,800/$2000. Now we just need an outside organization to help with the financial support, which is definitely the part that will stall our process the most.

Early pics from San Rafael

San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta

Refugio del Quetzal

Quetzal, national bird of Guatemala

Saul swinging from a vine