Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
category: Jims Guatemala
So, here’s a few weeks of randomness I’ve collected for your amusement.
 |
The first is a picture of Alberto, one of our buddies that visits our house all the time. He’s demonstrating his ghetto Guatemala squirtgun. It is a syringe (sans needle) that he found lying in the field somewhere. At the time i took this picture, there was a full-on waterfight underway, as the other kids had them too. There are a lot of syringes lying around here, because there is this belief that if you get sick, directly injecting vitamins is the most effective way to get healthy again. They have a lot of misinformation like that. And since there is no trash system and they don’t biodegrade, the syringes turn up everywhere. Last week I came around the corner to see Michelle, the 2-year-old, with a mile-wide smile on her face, playing with a HUGE dirty syringe with the needle still attached. I tried to grab it from her, and she thought it was a game of “keep the rusty needle away”, yanking and slashing it everywhere. I calmed my hysteria, talked soothingly, and eventually got it away from her- and pitched it down the latrine. I am SUCH a party-pooper. |
 |
Here we have a transport coming into Santa Eulalia from one of the aldeas- thankfully, one we don’t live in. We get to use microbusses. When this thing arrived, a few young guys guys hopped out and walked off to do their business. All the old ladies waited patiently until the driver could put the cattle ramp out so they could get down. The sheep and goats (not visible in this photo) were brought off last, after the people. |
 |
It’s been awhile since i posted a cool bug. Emily noticed this one behind me as I was typing a few nights ago. We think it’s a luna moth. It’s WAY bigger than my hand. Also, it’s eyes reflected the flash from the camera. I tried to get it to, but if flew away through a hole in our ceiling. Maybe that tells you something about the size of the holes in our ceiling. |
 |
Here’s me in our new bathtub. It cose 41q (about $6) and is a GREAT way to get clean on days they haven’t fired the chuj. I got the idea from my buddy Ryan; we made a similar bath from half a wine barrel at Pennsic one summer. A wine barrel we scavenged from Brian and Mel’s wedding, I might add. The difference: at Pennsic, we needed cold water to survive. Here, it’s as hot as we can stand it. |
 |
And, finally, I got to go pastoreando (herding sheep) with the neighbors. It was pretty relaxing… you just watch the most calm, timid animals in the world EAT for several hours. It is communing with nature. Then, you head towards home and they all stampede back to their little jail. Bizarre. The two girls are our neighbors, Lina and Lucia. They are always friendly with us, and were pretty amused that I wanted to go stand around in a field with them for hours watching sheep. |
Posted by: jfanjoy