Around San Marcos & San Pedro 9.30.13

La Lancha, town to town boat transport around Lake Atitlan

 Scorpion, found by Hannah in her rain jacket in our cabana.

Yoga Forest & San Marcos 9.25.13

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________

Seven of us went out for dinner in the pueblo last night to celebrate two birthdays.  We ate well and had a good time then hiked back up to the Yoga Forest single file along the narrow path.  

We found out at breakfast this morning that four of the chickens, half the full count, had been killed in the night by a mystery animal.  Cat thought it was some kind of big cat, but the locals thought it was some kind of racoon-like rodent.  One bird had most of its body eaten out and went straight to the compost.  The other three had just been strangled and otherwise mangled about the neck. 

I was part of the group of volunteers to prepare the chicken for consumption.  When Cat handed me the dead rooster by its feet, I was taken aback.  Several minutes later I pulled that same chicken from a bucket of warm water and began to pluck the feathers.  Ive never done this before.  Chickens have many festhers, but when you pull most of them out, the farm-pecking chicken begins to look more like a Big Y chicken, except the bird still has head, feet, and guts. 

The head and feet can go with a sharp machete.  After I chopped the chickens head off, I shook out the crop.  This is a bunch of undgested food, in this case it was mostly corn, which Blake suggested we could reuse by heating it up and eating it.  Gutting the chicken was the worst part.  After cutting off the chickens ass, you reach your fist in and grab everything and pull it out.  You junk it all except for the liver and the heart.  The liver was delicious, but we will eat the rest of the chicken later.  The discarded parts of the chicken, get inserted into a compost pile to add nitrogen and speed up the breakdown. 

With another volunteer and friend Hannah, it was also my job to turn that compost pile adding the chicken parts along with some rabbit poo.  It was a large pile and when we were done it seemed like it chould be lunch time.  I was crossing the little bridge back toward where both the tools are kept and lunch is served.  Gaspar, a local worker and friend of mine, addressed me with some urgency from the greenhouse and pointed toward the kitchen.  My Spanish comprehension, which has been coming along nicely along with my speech, always suffers in ambient noise.  The creek that runs through the property makes a good rumble so it was hard for me to understand Gaspar.  I decided to set down the shovel and pitchfork I was holding then approach Gaspar from the kitchen.  As I crossed path the kitchen, I looked in to see Cat wearing a beekeepers hat and finally understood there was some kind of bee attack going on about which Gaspar was trying to warn me. 

At that moment, I felt a bee land on my face, find its footing, and sting me unprovoked on my cheek.  Some years back, I got stung by something on the back of my arm and had a strong allergic reaction that prompted the triage staff at the ER to wheel me in without waiting.  I was telling this to Hannah when a couple more bees came around.  I fled back across the little brdge toward the cabanas and sat down, closer to my Epipen.  The sting hurt a bit but not too bad and I had no abnormal reaction.  15 minutes later, I returned to the kitchen, thanked Gaspar for his good intentions and sat down to a delicious vegetarian lunch. 

We had a nice, sunny morning though we are just in the middle of Guatemalas rainy season.  Sunshine held up long enough for Laura and me to show the newer volunteers, Blake and Hannah, the Trampolin.  This misnomer is really a platform for jumping into Lake Atitlan from 7m, or 23 feet, above the surface.  We all made the jump.  I scampered down to dive from about 15 feet, but I couldnt muster up the courage to dive from the trampolin.  Im commited to doing it before I leave town.  Like every other day in the afternoon, its raining, and Im caught in the village with no raincoat.  Ill cross the little plaza to the library where the 19 year-old staffer there, Max, and I will have another informal Spanish-English lesson.  When I sense an abatement in the downpour, Ill hike back up the hill. 

La Laguna San Marcos

Greetings from San Marcos La Laguna.  Everything is lovely.  Slow to no internet here in town.  Hope everyone is well.

The money here is Quetzales.  About 7.7 Guatemalan Quetzales to the US Dollar.

People are extremely nice, emissions are horrible but that isn´t problem here in the pùeblo.

More to come in time.

Max

Ciudad Vieja y Cerro de la Cruz 9.11.13

My new buddy Rick on the steps down from the cross.  

Here I am overlooking Antigua from Cerro de la Cruz, a very large cross not shown.  

Antigua, Guatemala 9.10.13

Greetings from Antigua, Guatemala where everything is lovely.  I got a decent amount of sleep on the midnight flight and on the floor of Mexico City's Airport.

I took a walk alone after a shower.  I went through the local market where I felt pretty invisible and had some nice local food.

Any nervousness I had has evaporated so yours should, too, Mom.  It feels great to be back out into the realm of the new.  

Farewell from NYC 9.9.13

re·prieve 

[ri-preev] noun
2.   To relieve temporarily from any evil. 

1501 Broadway, home of my former employer, Hardesty & Hanover

     I've had this flip phone for many years. It always worked fine and the battery life remained strong through the years. This was my phone well into the years of smartphone ubiquity and the shock and dismay people expressed when seeing my phone for the first time long ago became tiresome and depressing. Girls at the bar would ask why I didn't upgrade and I told them with this phone I could call them, text them and, most importantly, send dick pics. I never wanted internet or email in my pocket; in fact, at the times, here and there, when I lost my phone or forgot to take it somewhere, I always enjoyed not having it. Through the years, I've joked, on the rare days when I got too many calls or text messages, that I would end up throwing my phone in the river.

     Once, during my year of teaching high school Physics, I proposed to a group of four or five boys in my senior, non-AP class that they do a round of rock, paper, scissors and the loser would have to throw his phone in the Quahog River. Just after a young man named Andrew lost, he said he wasn't gonna throw his phone in the river. As a generally trusting person, I had overestimated these high school kids and was shocked at his flagrant dishonor to the game. I told him if he chose not to follow through with the agreed upon consequences, he would have to suffer something woree. Moments later, his classmate Ryan hit him in the nuts. The connection was solid and Andrew doubled over in pain. Judging this as an adequate substitute for a waterlogged and lost phone, I was inwardly pleased and allowed the act to pass unpunished. Class continued.

     Four nights ago, there was a gathering held in honor of my departure. During a conversation with my father and his once coworker and longtime family friend Faye, she inquired about The Yoga Forest, my first extended stay destination in Guatemala. As I began to tell her about the place, my father sugeested we look at their website on his phone. I suggested we skip that hoping we could carry on the conversation without a technological interjection. Getting away from iPhone nation full of iPhone zombies is high on my list of reasons for leaving.

     A couple months ago, my trusted LG flipphone developed a small crack on the outside of the bearing where the screen pivots away from the keypad. Through contunued use, the crack propagated and eventually a small piece of plastic fell of the phone. The phone now, while held by the screen, could dangle, only attached at the other half of the bearing. It worked for a while, but eventually, the two essential halves of the phone became completely separated and though calls could be placed, I couldn't hear anything and the detached screen showed black. For the time it still worked, the phone was held together by what my mother described as "a small piece of tobacco."

     I coupled someone's old Verizon cellphone with my account so I could have a phone until my departure. Leaving from New York City seemed the perfect opportunity to finally throw that old phone in a river. My plan was to go the crest of the Manhattan Bridge, say a few (recorded) words and casually toss the phone into the mouth of the East River below. I write these words on the eve of my departure from the Park Slope apartment of my longtime friend and ex-roommate Aaron Morse and his new roommate, my longtime friend and Hebrew School classmate, Lee Weiss. The top of the Manhattan Bridge is nearly three miles from here, and with no bicycle to use, I won't end up going. I'm not walking and I'm not taking a Subway closer to the bridge to hike up and add litter to water beneath. Instead, I'll head to Prospect Park and continue reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography as the man himself nears his final days.

     I don't need a symbolic ceremony for this. Canceling the plan and giving up the personal phone number I've had for 11 years is the meaningful part. The time I get back will be for me, this trip is for me and even these words are for me. I appreciate immensely the support I've received from loved ones, both emotional and financial, and I wish everyone the courage needed to move forward with your own dreams and journies, whatever they may be. Anywhere on Earth people are surviving, you can survive, too.

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