I just got home from Quixabaj. The trip back was hellish; there is only one truck a day to get back, and it leaves at 3am. So, i spent the time from 3am to 7am riding in the back of a truck bed in the pouring rain, in the dark, crammed in with 27 Guatemalans getting bounced over the roughest 4×4 trail I have ever seen. Babies were puking, people’s butts were in my face, it was four hours of Auschwitz freight train. In the dark.

But now I am home in my comfy clubhouse, I’ve had a chuj, and I am sitting in my hammock with my Mac. I can now recount the tale of our last few days at the remote Quixabaj outpost.

Our ride OUT to Quixabaj was a little better- it wasn’t raining, so we could watch the mountains and jungles of Guatemala roll by with the wind in our face. If it’s not raining, the pickups are better than the microbusses- you get to stand, a big bonus if you are a 6′-0″ giant like me (the micros have CLOSE seats that are painful after about 20 minutes). You have all the fresh air you want. The pickups are kindof crowded, but I shamelessly took advantage of my massive stature compared to the locals, and pushed and shoved as required anytime someone encroached on my personal space.

When we arrived at the Health Post, the very pleasant nurse Victorina fixed us a lunch (scrambled eggs, which I had to choke down. I hate eggs). Then we met with the 9-person Health Committee to decide our schedule for the coming few days. Towards the end of the meeting, Ruby brought up “where are we sleeping?” This caused quite a stir; apparently no one had thought of this. WTF? Maybe they assumed we don’t sleep, being Gringos and all. [side note: the nurse told us they showed up at the Health Center at 8am ready to meet us. They KNOW there is only one pickup a day, and it arrives between 2 and 3 pm.]

After some hushed, unintelligible debate in Q’anjob’al, we were taken to the house of Birbes’s daughter-in-law. She made us comfortable in the convenience-store in her basement by spreading a blanket on the concrete floor for us, between the shelves of food and the bed a local truck driver rents from them when he comes in at 10pm. Ruby was “less than thrilled,” a sentiment enhanced as the night wore on and two different groups of itinerant coffee pickers were housed on the floor next to us as well. They weren’t that bad, except for the loud talking and smoking while we were trying to enjoy our sleep on the concrete. We awoke the next morning to some customers buying provisions; luckily, we didn’t interrupt their shopping experience. But I shouldn’t complain; the daughter-in-law DID feed us…scrambled eggs for dinner, and hard boiled eggs for breakfast. 🙁

That afternoon, we transferred to the Health Center and slept in an exam room the rest of our visit, using the flimsy excuse that “we don’t want to inconvenience the family; they have a lot of guests already.” In comparison, the exam room was quite comfy, quiet, and private. Oh, and it had a scale in it, so I weighed myself. I have already wasted away to 154 pound.

Despite these inconveniences, we did get a lot of work done. Besides giving some health seminars, I did needs assesments for 13 houses. This is the part I like, and is way more up my alley. The people here have some pretty DIRE living conditions; what’s funny is, I’m actually getting USED to visiting people living in wood plank shacks with dirt floors, no running water, open fires in the middle of the room- it doesn’t even phase me when the piglets come running through the living room. I took a picture of this guy, because he was really enlightened, despite his condition. Somewhere, he got a chalkboard and put it up in his livingroom. I asked him why, and he told me that he gives reading lessons to the local kids in the afternoons, because they don’t teach enough Spanish in the schools. He has a Q’anjob’al/Spanish bible he gets his lessons from. What can you say to that? This guy has nothing, but he’s trying to help the next generation be educated enough that they can talk with their government and better themselves.

This last picture is of Ruby talking to some locals, encouraging them to come to our health seminars. They are getting water from their spring, one of two in the area. They are both about 20 meters below the town, on the mountainside, and during the dry months we are told that the lines to get water start at 3am. Note the vegetation in these pictures; Quixabaj is in the JUNGLE, baby. (we saw several mouse huge cockroaches in the Health Center)

That’s all for now.