The terrain in this part of Guatemala is very mountainous, and it rains a ton. Much of the trees are gone in some parts, because the people use firewood to cook and heat. As a result, we get the occasional derrumbe or deslave (landslide). We’ve had a LOT of rain this week, and some big slides happened inour valley. One took out someon’s cornfield- terrible deal, but life goes on. The other covered our only road into the region. We were coming back from an errand in town, and our bus stopped about halfway up the valley. We had to walk in the rest of the way from there. On the left, we have a picture of all the microbus drivers pitching in to fix the landslide old-school with hoes and shovels, so they can get back to earning money from passengers. They got lucky; when the landslide is above the road, it means you only have to dig it out. If the landslide is BELOW the road, it sucks the whole road and its supporting structure away into the valley below. Major reconstruction is then required.

Otherwise, things here have been slow this week. Our boss came to see how we are doing, and seemed pleased with the work we’ve done thus far. He also brought me my official issue Peace Corps tool kit, which includes useful things like a hammer, saw, bubble level, and machete. Sweet! I have a machete now! Hopefully no future posts will have to describe self-inflicted machete wounds. If it stops raining this weekend, I am going to make us a chicken coop. Using the machete.

Here’s the last item for the day. Some of the local kids came by and were excited to show me some baby birds they found. ARGH! I had no idea how to tell them that the momma bird would never come back once they played with the babies, and they would probably die. I lamented the accidental, innocent damage caused by ignorance. Then, later that day, i was talking with one of the other kids that I am closer with (Chaleo) and he told me that the first group of kids had collected the birds to use as a lure to draw the mother in so they could stone it to death and eat it. Hmm. So much for “innocent damage caused by ignorance.”

UPDATE: We heard some announcements in Q’anjob’al this morning over the loudspeaker at around 5:30am, but couldn’t quite make out what they were going on about. We slept in till 8, and arose to find most of the village deserted. Turns out, there was a big landslide & flashflood in a town two valleys over, and most of the able bodied people went over to help out. I guess several houses disappeared, they have 4 dead already, and many missing. I wish they would have asked us to go and help, but i am not really sure what we could have done that several dozen farmers with tools couldn’t do. I just feel kindof helpless and left out. Oh, and it’s STILL raining.