“I’m your ice cream man, stop me when I’m passing by… and if ya let me cool you one time, you’ll be my regular stop.”

-David Lee Roth

Here’s something new in the village: an ice cream truck. I don’t know if this guy got lost or what, but I heard his blaring carnival music about 10 minutes before I saw him. Am I in Guatemala? Then he announced over the loudspeaker that he also had cheeseburgers and tacos. Now that’s more like it.

It’s been a while since I did a post of miscellaneous craziness, so here goes. The greenhouse and garden are down for the season, ready to be replanted Feb 1. More on that in a future post, but here’s a picture of one of our last vegetables: the mandrake carrot. I had to cover my ears when I pulled it out of the ground, to avoid going insane. Emily just says it looks like a fat girl’s butt.  

Here is a solar panel we owned for two whole days. It charges a really neato LED desk lamp that runs for 8 hours on a single charge. So why do we not have it anymore? I brought it back as a present for Nico and Katal, our volunteer buddies that live in a nearby powerless village. It’s made by Barefoot Power, and is so cool that Emily fell in love with it and now we have to ask Gregorio, the Peace Corps Training head, to hook us up with another. At 150Q apiece [$20], they’re quite a steal.

Here I am hanging out with my buddy Pedro, at his roadside convenience store. We were just shooting the breeze when a wandering can recycler came by. He had a big sack, and asked Pedro if he had any cans. Of course he did (C-store, remember) so we poured the bag out on the ground so this guy could crush and count them. Why crush? He had to carry them all in a sack; he has no vehicle. Why count? Because he pays 3Q a pound for the scrap aluminum, and someone worked out that 18 cans makes a pound. It’s hard to imagine an economy where it’s so slow that it’s worthwhile to spend an hour crushing sixty cans to get a profit margin of a dollar or two. I’m just glad to see the cans going somewhere besides the milpa (cornfield).

Our three chickens are doing well, and we’re averaging about an egg a day from them (in total). They even have a little song they sing when they lay, so we always know when to go down to the chicken coop to check. Today we got two! I feel like we finally have success. I was a little nervous a few days ago when the neighbor’s rooster started hanging out with them, but it seems like he’s not going to try to steal them away. If anything, we’re stealing the rooster. He comes by to wake the hens (and us) up in the morning, escorts them all over the village all day long, then leaves when they go to bed for the night. Quite a gentleman.  

Construction still moves along on Ixtup’s house. While moving earth, the men came across a rock too heavy to budge. So, they threw a tire on it and light it on fire. I guess the idea is that the intense fire causes thermal stresses in the rock, making it easier to break apart manually with a sledgehammer. Um, wow. That is going to be a lot of work. I’d better make myself scarce the day they decide to do it.

We had our Health Center christmas party this week, too. There were a lot more people in attendance than last year, since the staff has increased with a few new government programs. I tried to imagine how our party would comare to, say, the christmas party for Belkar’s wife’s office (she’s a doctor). We hung out making cotton balls from bulk cotton (it’s cheaper than buying them premade) as we waited for the barbecue to get done. Then, we pulled together three grimy wooden tables and sat down to a HUGE plate of roasted meats: ribs, chicken adobada, grilled marinated steak, blood sausage, the works. Each plate was huge. Emily noted that none of these medical professionals washed their hands. Ha! After it was over, the banda music got cranked, and everyone danced a little salsa in the waiting room. Did I mention that the party was actually IN the health post? Luckily, it was after hours, so we only got interrupted by one patient, a pregnant lady with a fever who was brought in by her midwife. They did her consult in the next room, then shooed her on her way. Here’s me, dancing with one of the enfermera auxilliares (CNAs), wearing the cool shirt I got in the gift exchange.

I will leave you with a pretty picture of the miman ch’en, or “giant rock” that I talked about a few posts back. It’s a cool natural wonder about a 15 minute walk up the valley from us. We love hiking there; it’s scenic and peaceful and reminds us of how beautiful Guatemala can be. The image is big enough to be a computer desktop if you click it and download the larger version.