Maya Pedal

Maya Pedal's website is down

2012-01-12T16:04:00.002-06:00

I'm sorry to say that i don't know what's going on with Maya Pedal's website. I'll try to find out, and as soon as i know i'll post it.

For the time being, you can contact Maya Pedal at:

mayapedal@hotmail.com

If you don't hear from them, try emailing me and i'll see what i can do.

mattfinnerty@gmail.com

changing websites

2009-05-01T10:22:00.004-06:00

Hi all,

many apologies for the slowdown in updates- i'm back in the states working full time and just haven't had the time to catch up, but more soon i promise.

This blog will be transitioning to the official Maya Pedal Volunteer blog, my personal blog will continue at this address:

http://bikeblender.blogspot.com

Please let anyone you know who reads this know that the site has changed.

Thanks for reading!

the unlikely zapatista

2009-04-15T11:36:00.000-06:00

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After 14 hours of sleep, or what felt like it, we awoke to a new day with a new character: Eric. Before i launch, i just... man, the whole time i was there i was blown away by the revolving cast of Characters. Characters with a capital C. The weirdest and most fascinating people i've ever met. Outside of art school.

Anyway, Eric was a Zapatista disguised as a gringo. A Texas native, he had the drawl and everything that came with it, including a refined sense of rebellion. If you've never been to texas, the place is covered with sayings like "Don't mess with Texas" (a clever anti-litter slogan that seems to have shed any of its former good intentions to become the unofficial state motto). I don't know if Libertarianism has a home state, but if i had to guess one it would be texas. Eric represented texas in a peculiar way, he was definitely a rough and tumble don't-F-with-me kind of guy, but with a strange liberal bent. He was all about standing in solidarity with the oppressed, alternative energy & appropriate technology and, of course, fighting the Man. When America's second civil war comes Eric will be our Che Guevara.

Eric was just passing through on his way back to the states from CACITA which is a center for appropriate technology in Oaxaca Mexico (apparently no website for them, but here's some photos on an Italian blog). CACITA is a lot like Maya Pedal but broader in its scope- they do solar ovens, composting toilets, natural building, etc. Supposedly the place is run by a guy named Dracula. A little high strung from what i've heard. Kind of creepy sometimes too.

This dracula character likes to claim that he came up with the bike machine designs he totes up in mexico. We showed Carlos and he immediately got on the phone to give dracula a stern talking to. Turns out dracula was one of Carlos' students years ago. Funny how that works.

Eric wasn't with us for long, but he was wildly entertaining and could talk up a storm. His stories were consistently fascinating and hilarious, though some of the girls didn't always agree. In his two or three days we managed to get him out to Carlos' farm, whacking away machete in hand. He was really into it- it was the highlight of his trip he said. Which includes dracula-time.

So on a sleepy tuesday morning, in which clouds took the title in "clouds vs. sun," we piled into Carlos' truck as per usual and made our rumbling ascent.

When we got there, for wahtever reason, Carlos' truck just couldn't make it up the hill. Maybe too many people? Though that didn't seem likely. He backed it all the way down and came all the way up. Twice.

His family and i got out to see if lighter was better. I guess it must have been.

We got right to it and cleared out a pretty big chunk of land right quick. Sarah and Eric were both pretty fast. Carlos, of course, is a machine.

I know its terrible, but i'm going to go ahead and say out loud that i'm sorry i missed the "burn" portion of farming with Carlos. I really like setting things on fire, and though jungle would certainly not be my first choice, what fire enthusiast could turn up being in the middle of one that big?

Somewhere in the morning some unknown, or perhaps arbitrary, quota of hacking had been accomplished and Carlos decided it was time for a tour. I think this was mostly in honor of Eric who would be leaving shortly.

So we snaked our way up the dusty mountain until we got to top. Turns out, Carlos owns the whole mountain top.

Along the way he just grabs this tree and whacks a chunk out of it, drink he says, and pours a surprising amount of water into Sarah's mouth. I was next. It tasted very much like tree.

The prize of the hike were the two water pumps. One was on Carlos' land, operable only by hand. The other was just next door on his neighbor's property- a bici bomba that Carlos had built and installed.

Eric and Sarah were shining with glee. I'd guess that neither one of them has ever been so excited about water before in their lives. Which might be part of what prompted Eric to drink some of it, that and his i-can-take-anything way of doing things. Given my poor history with the local water i wasn't going to touch it, but how could i get showed up in front of Carlos? I couldn't.

We wandered off the mountain a different way then we came up. We went by a series of huts in a sad state of dilapidation, cobbled together from branches and leaves. I was fascinated by them and wanted to know their story. Turns out Carlos hires several workers to tend to his farm, they live there in the huts.

While we were out there we also saw this little shed which got me missing the tent platform that i used to sleep in during the summers in upstate NY.

asleep on top of a volcanoe

2009-03-30T10:22:00.002-06:00

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As we lingered on the top of the volcano we heard another rumbling, this time mistaking it for the volcano. But it was an actual plane this time. And it flew so close overhead that some of the taller hikers might have been able to reach up and touch it.
Good thing it was just a dinky four seater.

I didn't time well the lapse between button pushing and picture taking on the camera i was using. Just a before and after.

As the sunrise waned from spectacularity so too did our interest. Will suggested we move down to a lower part of the volcano to watch the vent erupt.

And, of course, along the way more beautiful sights.

We found a nice spot on the lower side of the volcano to overlook the vent. And despite the end of sunrise the shadows on the other side of the volcano were no less amazing then they were 30 minutes prior.

While we waited for the vent to blow I glanced around and spotted some distant neighbors who looked as if they might just float off into the clouds. It was unreal how high up we were, what felt most unreal about it was that we could see everything. There were no trees or buildings to obstruct our view. There weren't even any mountains or volcanoes to get in the way- we were the tallest thing for miles. Part of what was so amazing about it was that we could see the horizon in 360 degrees, and from our vantage point you could easily spin around and see the horizon curving. I've never seen the roundness of the earth more clearly.

Pretty exhausted we all promptly fell asleep while waiting for plumes of ash and smoke. Minutes passed and, again, Will called us all to attention.

After the satisfying of our need for geological glory we all passed out for real. Even Will.

Three hours later, sunburned and exhausted, but deeply satisfied and excited we began to collect ourselves and move (slowly) toward leaving.
When i awoke on the top of the summit there was a pair of lacy hot pink underwear just chillin next to me. It was definitely not there when i fell asleep. My comrades claim innocence.
I'm just sorry i didn't have the presence of mind to photo document it. I think disgust clouded my snap-happy instincts.

It was interesting to head back down during the day and see our path illuminated. We could see now just exaclty how far it was that we had to go, whereas in the night it was always unclear, even during the last hour.

Ther were all kinds of people on the path, several times groups of rowdy teenage boys would whir past us whooping and calling names at each other. Being caught in their clouds of dust (from the incredibly worn down and bone dry dirt path) was less than fun. We all ended up feeling like we should have brought dust masks along. Seriously. Seriously Dusty. SD.

Even though it took significantly less time to get down than up- it was easier going with gravity, and easier heading toward more oxygen- it felt just as long. Maybe because we were ready to be done. Ready to be in bed.

On the way down we saw this funny little hut made out of trash. Perhaps it was a message in response to the nearby trashcan debacle- there was one trashcan on the entire trail, without a single piece of trash inside, but surrounded by 25 square feet of trash.

Several truck bed rides later we arrived at Will's apartment, sweaty, tired, and dropping in our tracks. Sleep never sounded so good.

And so concludes the most epic weekend of my life.

*I would like to note that my scavenger hunt for batteries proved futile and, therefore, my camera useless. As a result, all of the awesome pictures from the climb are the gracious gift of Erin K. Parsons. Given with her specific permission to be used here on this blog, not available for reprint or distribution without the express consent of said party. Fees may be paid in choco-bananas. All rights reserved.

Hansel and Gretel

2009-03-26T18:06:00.000-06:00

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Through the night we climbed a very dark, very ambigious path towards the top of a volcanoe that i was sure we would never reach (it looked sooooo far away). The walking didn´t feel like it should be that hard, but the lack of oxygen ensured that it was. We crept like turtles. One. Step. At. A. Time.

Erin and i continually were accused of "going to fast." We started the climb a little behind schedule and were determined not to miss the sunrise. Eventually we parted ways with the others, by the summit we were about 15-20 mins ahead.

All the way there were issues with the flashlights, at least in team speedy. Erin´s light kept going out and by about 3/4 of the way up it was driving her (and by association, me) bonkers. Granted it was like 4:30 in the morning.

There was a strange phenomenon that occurres while climbing worth noting. The path was varied, it split in many directions, there were many false paths as well. Unlike in the states, there are no path markers- these trails are not blazed. There were, however, some unexpected path markers that proved to be invaluable. Almost all of the way up the mountain the path is littered with trash. Mostly soda bottles. And some horse poop too. These ironic trail markers, for hours, showed us the correctness of our course and gave us the confidence to keep trekking. Having never appreciated litter even once in my life, i was strangely grateful for the plastic white pebbles that delivered us from the wood.

When the slight glow of day began to emerge i handed Erin my working light and pressed on alone through the dawning day. I was especially determined not to miss the sunrise. And as a spectacular orange glow began to grow on the horizon i hastened my step.

It was maybe only 15 more minutes to the top and i got there just in time. The whole horizon was simmering with a firey glow, like a gas stove set low. Not having seen or heard any other hikers on the whole of the climb, i was convinced we would have the volcanoe top to ourselves. Didn´t factor in the people who climbed it yesterday.

At the top it was tent city. The uniform shape and color of the tents on the bare rock gave the look of mussels clustered on the sea floor.

There were people everywhere, maybe 150 or more. There were loudly announcing the day, starting fires frying tortillas. It was an odd scene.

I was desperately hungry and thirsty and this point, but all that i could find was bare bread and the water, of course, was far too cold. (to give context if i had worn heavy winter wear i would have been comfortable). So i waited for the others, with my dry bread, until Erin arrived.

We were very excited.

We took turns getting each other´s "epic" shots, because, of course, we were feeling quite epic.

(That´s a volcano errupting four hours away in Antigua in the background)

Will made the really good point that our innermost layer would be sweaty and, therefore, in the cold of the summit excellent for channeling cold. We all brought fresh shirts, which had to be changed fast.

Literally, just in time for the actual appearance of the sun the rest of the crew arrived. Equally exhausted but very ver pleased to be at the top. We wrapped ourselves in blankets and perched high on a rock. The view was absolutely spectacular. It was, without a doubt, the most incredible thing i have ever seen.

Behind us we heard a sound like an airplane. In fact, we were so sure it was an airplane none of us turned around to see what it was. Will, however, knew better. It was the erupting of a vent further down on the side of the volcanoe. It was the same vent that we saw erupt on our way to the hot springs.

When turned around i noticed something else, equally spectacular,behind us.

It was as if we were standing on top of the pyramids.

It was as if we were on top of the world.

listos para subir

2009-03-24T11:20:00.000-06:00

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Later that night there was a terrific barbeque at the AIDG compound. I think just about every expatriate in Xela attended. Will made great burgers, Virgil baked home-made buns (which pleased Erin to no end) and Netta- an Israeli volunteer at AIDG- speared veggies and fruit onto kebobs. She asked me how the vegans would feel about eating human blood in their kebobs, actually she just asked me how they would feel about eating human blood in general. I didn`t get it until she showed me her sliced hand. And so the vegans ate some of Netta`s blood.

I had a great conversation with two Xela natives, interesting people who are somehow connected with AIDG indirectly (perhaps they rent to them?). We talked at some length about community dynamics, specifically the contrast between Guatemala and the states. To them, families should live together through several generations, its a more loving and connected way of being. Everyone can help each other, there is a great sharing of duties and resources, its a much more relationship-rich style of living. I spoke some to the perception in the states of a multi-generational home as being somewhat dysfunctional. Mostly in the sense that it is considered embarassing or shameful for children to live with their parents past a certain age. Our culture, i said, does not encourage togetherness (unless of course it is to facilitate some sort of financial transaction and "aid" the economy). No, we are all rugged individualists. Even if we only get dirty in virtual landscapes while blowing up aliens. It was a great conversation and a good testament to my improved spanish.

Being sold on hiking the volcanoe Santa Maria, we were further convinced to do so at 2 in the morning so that we could arrive just in time for sunrise. It sounded exhausting and exhilirating. Any doubts were quelled by two thoughts- when else are you going to get to do this, and the mantra that Palo left us with "you can be comfortable at home."

While the girls got some pre-hiking sleep, Will and i went off for a crazy and circuitous scavenger hunt through the city. It would have felt ridiculous if it hadn`t been so much fun. I don`t remember exactly how it went, but it was something like this:

we had to drop off materials at AIDG, grab a half eaten chicken and take it back to the compound.
pick up grocceries, take them back
get warm clothes from Will`s awesome friend Mazz
go half way back and then realize that i need to get batteries for my dead camera
not find any decent batteries and return home to make chicken sandwhiches for the trip

Mazz and her friends ahd the largest apartment i have ever seen in person, it was like a small dormitory with alot of shared space. Pretty good price from what i understand. The best part though was the awesome roof hang-out space. Their roof top get-togethers would be the envy of any 20 something, the view was immaculate and there were lots of tables and chairs.

After getting back to the apartment and getting all the food ready, Will and i were able to catch a couple hours of sleep before the hike.

Around 1:00 we all got up and began packing and dressing for the cold. Anneliese looked... spectacular.

A quick walk to the central park found us a taxi. There were also a surprising amount of young people making music in the main gazebo. It was really nice to see them out enjoying the night.

I didn`t catch our taxi driver`s name, but he was a nice enough guy and got us to where we were going. Though he did attempt to drive through pot holes and ravines that his car couldn`t have possibly handled, but it did. It was in getting out of the taxi that i somehow lost my international phone. Luckily no one made any calls on it.

And so at 2:30 in the morning we bagn our long slow ascent into the dark.

I`m a big fan of the hat that Mazz lent me.

las fuentes georginas

2009-03-23T13:30:00.000-06:00

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After we had a good look around Will`s work place we grabbed a bus out towards Las Fuentes Georginas- well known hot springs in the area. A chicken bus ride left us off about 20 mins short of our destination, from there we had to hire a truck to take us the rest of the way. Of course there were many trucks waiting.

Having ridden in several truck beds before i must say, this was a significant step up, it was awesome actually. The truck bed is lined with metal walls to lean on and has several bars to grab as well. It felt a lot like surfing on a car and a little like flying.

The view was fantastic. We got to see a huge amount of agricultural land in production. The farms were doing quite well compared to most that i`ve seen around the country. Will said they`ve had a fairly developed irrigation systyem for quite some time, and sure enough eveywhere we looked there were sprinklers keeping everything wet during the dry season. Though the malfunctioning ones were often augmented by a human, literally, turning slowly in place holding the semi-broken mechanism. I... can`t even imagine.

About half way through the trip we saw a volcanoe erupt in the distance. I think it was a first for all of us, except Will, and very (very) exciting.

Will said "you know, we can climb that volcanoe there and watch the eruption from above." We were sold.

The hot springs were stunning. Far up green covered mountainsides large swaths of exposed rock guided sulfur-heated water into a series of large pools. The pools were built up some with rocks walls, but not distastefully. The whole thing was quite enchanting. And, as in most of these situations its easy to fantasize about having the whole place entirely to your self. No cheesy pick lines being drunkenly delivered, no squealing kids, no men in speedos that really shouldn`t be wearing speedos- the one thing gringos don`t want from their travels is to run into other gringos. This seems pretty ubiquitous.

Though, i was very happy to make friends with these adorable little kids. I love how little kids are pretty much the same no matter where you go- they`re curious, they want to play, everything is super exciting- its a good reminder that we are not as dissimilar as we sometimes believe.

After an hour or so of sitting in the springs, jumping out to take cold showers and jumping back in, we decided we were ready to move on. The springs were more enjoyable to look at then to be in, they were often pleasant hot tub temperature, but just as often not-so-pleasant hot tub x 2. One thing that was really interesting about the springs was that, without exerting any force at all, you would sweat a huge amount, but you`d never know it because you`re already wet. Coming out you feel relaxed but drained, and really really thirsty. It was an odd combination of feelings.

appropriate infrastructure development

2009-03-21T13:35:00.001-06:00

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Saturday morning we woke up and had a proper look around Will´s place, made some eggs (which i was told had too much salt- a recurring complaint) and then headed out for AIDG´s workshop.

There was a group of chickens hanging out in the back yard. Though i don´t think this is where our eggs came from, they very well could have. From what i gathered the chickens subsist entirely on compost, which seems like a good system.

Erin was very excited about this brick oven, she has been pining to do some baking ever since she got here. In fact, she decided we would build one on the roof.

Will gave us a great tour of his office and the connected workshops. Everyone there is totally engaged in awesome low-tech projects, a lot of them seemed connected to water in one way or another.

The first thing we got to see was a testing bench set up to monitor the optimal usage of a micro-hydro design that one guy, Sam, had invented. (Micro-hydro is for small scale, personal use, electrical generation) His design is pretty ingenius, it basically channels water through PVC pipes to a bucket with a generator inside. I don´t know exactly how it works, but somehow through physics alone the water is forced to a higher velocity than it would reach normally and then streamed through the bucket. Sam admits the design has some obvious inefficiencies, from a purely scientific standpoint, but its not designed to be the most efficient generator possible. More than efficiency it is going for effectiveness- its designed to be built by anyone, out of materials readily available and easy to use- two points which are at the heart of appropriate technology.

The bench Will is pointing to simulates the conditions under which the bucket would operate. The bench is designed to allow detailed monitoring of electrical output and tight control over water speeds and (i think) pressure. They are currently running tests to find the optimal operating scenario for the generator. I don´t know much about hydro, but this design is unlike anything i´ve ever heard of- it could be revolutionary for personal electricity generation. Sam said its really big with survivalists.

Inside there was another bench designed to do "dry runs" of the generator inside the bucket. I can't remember exactly how it functions, but i think there are a variety of voltages and amperages that the generator can be tested on. Also, i gather its easier to test it dry if you're wanting to tweak the machine's innards.

Next we got an explanation of a device that had counfounded us all the night before. It turns out this thing is a water pump built by some MIT students some time ago. You literally stand on the two planks and step up and down to pump water. The AIDG folks were impressed with how quickly the students had built it, a matter of hours if i remember correctly. Though they didn't entirely trust it, they said it was a little wobbly to work and none of us were allowed a go. Supposedly it pumps out enormous amounts of water, and very quickly. Maybe even too quickly.

Next we got to see the "safe stove." Its called a safe stove because it contains and channels smoke very well. One of the leading causes of death amongst children in developing nations is smoke inhalation from indoor cooking set ups. The safe stove dramatically reduces the amount of smoke that is emmittted indoors. This type of stove is also sometimes referred to as a rocket stove because of the way that it intakes air- when it really gets going it makes a whirring noise like a quiet rocket. There is a small opening in the front of the stove to put in twigs and other small wood pieces, the wood sits on top of a small shelf which allows air to flow strongly up from underneath it. The air and flames are then channeled up through the highly insulated stove, heat the top elements and then exit out of a pipe in the back. For whatever reason, constricting the air flow to a small channel increases the efficiency of burning substantially. And the heavy insulation retains a great amount of that heat to use for cooking instead of dissipating out into the atmosphere. I'm a big fan of rocket stoves, and this one was particularly impressive.

Will's co-worker Vergel did an awesome job of explaining the stove to us. I was blown away when he said that the flames can get so hot that the shelf glows red. They worry about it melting sometimes- talk about efficiency!

Our final stop on the tour was outside to the bio-digester. I think i had startled its creator, James, earlier that morning with a barrage of questions. I was really eager to learn all about it and he was as gracious as one could be at 8:00 in the morning while making eggs.

Basically the bio-digester is an anaerobic (lacking oxygen) processor of organic materials. It utilizes certain microbial life forms to break down plant material into methane. (If there were oxygen present it wouldn't make methane, or at least not at the smae levels). The device is made up of two tanks, the first is the digestor, which is essentially a cement lined hole in the ground with a big 55 gallon drum floating on top and an underground pipe connecting it to the second tank. The second tank, form what i gather, is really just there to be the place where the excess spills over, gets collected and then used as fertilizer. In the first tank the big blue drum is pushed all the way down, as the methane is created it rises to the surface and lifts the tank- a good visual indicator of how much you've got. A tube comes off of the top of the tank and, eventually, will be connected to a special gas stove that can burn uncompressed methane. For every week's worth of compost James guesses they'll be able to cook two to three meals. I was impressed but James said this was nothing to more complex systems that are better sighted (to optimize sun exposure) there are versions in Haiti, he said, that can cook two meals a day.

The gas is kept from escaping by pinching the the tube, as well as putting in a small amount of water to act as a gas trap.

Dory looking excited, as per ususal.

the most epic weekend of my life

2009-03-20T10:34:00.001-06:00

A few weekends ago we made a three day trip to Xela (pronounced shay-la or say-la) a large city that could be described as somewhere between Guate and Antigua. Really it seemed to have the best of both places, and not their worst. Xela has beautiful architecture, a gorgeous and well used central park with plenty of ammenities and not too many tourists. Antigua is a nice place to visit, but im sure the self-absorbed trust fund travelers would grate on my nerves after a while. If i had to pick a Guatemalan city to station myself it would be Xela.

We excitedly packed ourselves onto a bus, choco-coconuts in hand and chattered away for the rest of the ride. Erin and I played 20 questions. I stumped her with Elvis Presley, though she made a valiant three day effort.

Unfortunately when we switched buses in Chimaltenango we were swindeld into taking a specific bus. A "friendly" guy (who none of us suspected) told us that he had taken the bus a million times and that the ones passing by, reading Xela, were not the ones we wanted. They wouldn`t take us intot he town center, he claimed. So we waited while he suspiciously had money handed to him by a bus driver. The bus, his bus, finally came he got on with us and then mysteriously disappear a couple of stops later. Funny, that is probablly his entire job. Not only did the bus not take us to the center of Xela, it dropped us off 20 mins away where we had to get on another connecting bus that also claimed center-of-xela service. We were skeptical, and our skepticism proved correct. Though where we were eventually dropped off was much better than the bus terminal we thought we would be going to. I guess the universe was looking out for us after all.

The impetus for this weekend get away was to go visit our friend Will, a former volunteer. He is working now with a terrific group in Xela called AIDG (the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group). They do awesome appropriate technology experiments and installations, which i`ll get to in a later post.

With decent directions, but a deep sense of navigational mistrust we cautiously sought out AIDG`s headquarters. Just as dark was beginning to settle we found what we thouhgt was the place (all the landmarks seemed to say it was) but we knocked ont he wrong set of big doors, and of course, got no response. Thankfully there was a phone there to give Will a call. He promptly came out to retrieve us.

We got a brief tour of AIDG`s headquarters, though it was too dark to see much outside of the main office. They have quite a complex and are adding two volunteer houses to it. Everyone was feeling a little worn out after a long day of wacky bus rides, oh, and were were hauling three bikes around with us as well, Will had requested we bring them to sell.

We had passed some exciting festivites in the central park and were curious to go check them out. Plus we were all very hungry. (I even tried to convince the girls to stop at Dominoe`s- it was the first theing we saw off the bus, but they, emphatically, were not having it). We ate at a place called Mikes ( i think) which had pretty good food for a decent price, which is surprisingly hard to find here in guatemala. I made friends with an adorable playful, and perhaps wild, little kitten. It was so cute i was tempted to whisk it away. The girls petitioned heavily, but having grown up with many (many) cats i know how much work and money goes into taking care of them, i also know what a trap it can be adopting cute stray kittens.

What we wondered into after dinner was even more festive and colorful than the Virgin Mary celebration that had gone on in Itzapa several weeks earlier. Though we weren`t entirely sure the occasion, the park was packed full of loud vendors and sparkling displays. There were all sorts of odd foods and enticing candies. I picked up something red and semi-solid, i knew it from my grilfriend`s family, i can`t remember the name but it is basically a homemade fruit leather. Erin picked up a fried coconut ball and it was absolutely amazing! It was so tasty that we all got some that night, then more throughout the rest of the weekend.

I can`t remember who thought this one up, but clearly it was a good idea.

And there were these weird fried dough intestine things that were, for lack of a more apt description, pooped out of machine into a vat of boiling oil. We were so curious we had to try it. It was sugary and fried, and significantly less gross to eat then watch being made.

I was really intrigued by the carnival rides at this place. They were mostly ones that spun around in a circle and almost all of them were operated by guy pushing them by hand. There was even one that used those little kid cars (you know like barbie cars and the classic little tikes orange and yellow car) as the seats. Those little twinkie beans couldn´t have been happier.

Amongst the booths that lined the street were these really funny little dancing puppets, you`d pay a few Q get an air pistol and then shot the target at the top. If you got it they`d dance for you. They were ridiculous and hilarious. I want one.

As the craziness began to lose its luster we moved on to a club where several of Will`s friends were playing a live set. We had no idea we`d be walking into gringo land, it was a little unsettling at first. Actually it was unsettling all the way through. The musicians that night were all very talented, but they chose to play a lot of popular songs from the 90`s. It was a lot like listening to Q102`s top twenty in the summer of 97- chock full of counting crows, pearl jam, lifehouse and a lot of other unmissed pop culture. What made the whole thing strange was how much the crowd was into it, it wasn`t just a pleasant walk down memory lane, they were belting along and dancing by their chairs. Perhaps Brahva was to blame.

Its interesting to me the things that expatriates hold on to. Though reveling in the nostalgic glow of of America`s hey-day didn`t speak to me on this particular occassion, i can totally relate to what was going on in that club. Being far from home, far from ones native culture, can induce a deep desire do delve back into things that feel "normal." In fact, those normal things begin to feel a bit special, certainly more special than they ever did at home. One time in Antigua i was strangely comforted by window shopping. Literally just wandering through stores to look at nicely packaged beautiful things.

While everyone else was slamming down beers, Anneliese whipped out a jar of beets and unabashedly ate them in a very grand way. This was by far one of the highlights of the night. I almost peed my pants laughing.

We then walked back to Will`s place, we were lcuky that they had enough space for all of us. Really great space (Will lucked out hardcore) full of a beautiful kitchen and dining room, large spacious rooms upstairs, a nice back yard areea for barbeques- it was sweet.

At night the dogs are counted on to take care of the days trash. Ther was also a big trash fire nearby with a drunk guy who liked to smash bottles at the dogs.

no se que paso...

2009-03-17T12:26:00.003-06:00

So i went to take out money, and i should have had 600-800Q left, but i when i check it wasn`t there. Only 150- umm, what? Don`t know what happened, my card wasn`t stolen, obviously i`ll have to call the bank.

I`ll make it til the end, not a problem, but i won`t able to follow up with anymore posts til i`m back in the states. (internet= money)

Sorry for the lull.

(there are lots of exciting thinmgs coming, just hang on for a couple of weeks)

an epic adventure soon to come

2009-03-11T17:32:00.002-06:00

This past weekend was ripe with adventure and unbelievable sights.
More soon, in several parts.

slash and burn

2009-03-11T14:47:00.007-06:00

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Every once in a while Carlos asks that we come and help him out on his farm. As far as i know its almost always about clearing land. It never really sounded all that interesting, especially at 5-6 in the morning. But in the words of the legendary Palo "you can be comfortable at home" and he´s right, being here isn´t about being comfortable- its about growth.

So i decided to man up and go out with the rest of the crew one morning- it was so much more fun than i had imagined it would be. Like so many of my adventures here it began with a bumpy ride in the back of a truck.

Carlos´dog was with us in the bed and he was, well, eager to attack everything. He almost jumped out a few times, but we blocked him. Unfortunately for Dory that meant getting bit. No skin was broken or anything though.

From the mountain side we could see the town sleeping underneath heavy blankets of cloud.

We followed Carlos as he power walked to his plot. Along the way he stopped to show us things, to explain what the different plants were. His land was much bigger than i origianlly thought it was, he owns the whole mountain top- its been passed down through 9 generations. I can´t even fathom anything in the states going for 9 generations, let alone 3. Have we even been there that long?

With machettes in hand we scaled his steep plot to clear it out. It dawned on me only half way through that i was literally engaged in slash and burn farming. Just about everything i ever learned in liberal-ville USA told me that this was wrong. But it was Carlos´land and Carlos´ choice.

I later suggested to him that he look into permaculture, he seemed interested, but probablly not enough to go do get into it on his own. No, it will take some enthusiatic, perma-knowledgable volunteer to move him in that direction. I wish i knew more and had more time, i´d love to be that person ( i secretly want to stay here forever).

Christine giving it a good whack. She was really into it.

Dory in a characteristic laid back stance, perhaps checking out the awesome view. She peetered out on the whole slashing business pretty quickly. Sorry to blow your cover Dory.

And here is some of that view:

The team putting on their "tough face."

Looking up at Carlos´bean patch (this is where we had slept on our camping trip).

We were all really excited to see Carlos´personal bomba, though it lacked the bici we were expecting. It has the attachments for a bike, but can also be done by hand. Not sure what the advantage is. Maybe because its simpler- less parts, less to break, less to fix.

Carlos´corn, which actually goes on forever.

The ride back down was just as exciting as the way up. With no room to turn around Carlos just backs down the whole way, while we balance on top of corn and wood piles. Not to mention the crazy dog.

Carlos can make a machine, break it and fix it

2009-03-05T18:47:00.009-06:00

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Today we flew through more work around the shop, Erica continued sorting, Erin and Dory organizing the roof, myself fixing bikes, and Roca working on the rear mounted liquadora (which makes so much sense i can´t believe Carlos isn´t churning them out by the hundreds!)

I really like Roca´s design, what with the painted gear underneath and all. He also found a little duck figurine he said he´d superglue to it. He rode it down the hill some, it worked great. I can´t wait to make one myself- this is really the way to go, the rear mounted attachments, much less materials, much less time, plus you get to keep your existing bike- so smart!

The ladies and their massive overhaul:

I might not look that organized, but it really is.

We also had a new face show up, not a volunteer per se, more of a friend of a former volunteer. Her name is Christine. She´s just passing through on an amazingly long journey from Baltimore MD to southern Argentina. Holy crap.

You can read about her travels here, or click the link under "realted blogging" at the top right of this page. Also over there you can also find Dory´s blog for her year off from school. (Its really fascinating for me to read what someone else is writing about the... same... things... like being in the twilight zone or something).

Oh! Exciting news! Carlos had a call from the BBC this morning, they want to interview him for apiece that will get syndicated to all the major US networks! He is really stoked.

I asked Carlos after his call, about how he comes up with designs- he said he just sees them. Sometimes in dreams, but mostly he´s always building things in his head. He said he can build something, break it and then fix it in his head. The craziest part is that he says he can do all this while holding a conversation, and that he does all the time. Now, i don´t know that much about itelligence, but what he described to me sound like the brain functionings way beyond normal human capacity- these are the kinds of things that Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein claimed to be able to do. We´ve referred to him as a genius in the past, but i think now we can do so more assuredly.

And somehow organizing inner tubes turned into a giant ring toss with human-sized targets.

Which then devolved into lets-dump-the-bag-on-matthew

Getting walloped in the head felt a lot like this

how is this lemon the size of my face?

2009-03-04T18:16:00.004-06:00

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Weeks ago while i was in Adelso´s shop i met Joel, a very friendly man who was actually the instegator behind the whole, high-end-fashion-in-guatemalan-textiles scheme. The other day, he approached me again with another idea: to turn his nearby urban farm plot into a place for Maya Pedal volunteers to stay. He didn´t mention it, but permaculture was my first thought.

From the way he described it, it seemed like he wanted to build several types of beds, indoor and out and have volunteers pay him to stay there. Something reasonable i´m sure. He impressed upon me to come visit his farm, that the others should come as well. We set a date and, knowing how guatemalan time works, i asked him to come find me at the shop at that time. He was the earliest i´ve seen a guatemalan yet.

Anneliese was the only other one willing to wander off to this mysterious farm, so she and i meandered out there together with Joel leading the way.

We took a path i had always been curious about, i was excited to see where it went (there are so many of those here!) The walk was short, and on the way there was a beautiful sky. The setting sun hit a big cloud and it cast a giant light streak, almost a full rainbow in a perfectly straight line across the sky.

When we first entered, i thought, boy this place will need a bit of work to be an attractive get away. But when we saw the back my mind was changed. In the first section we entered there were a variety of small farm animals, not what either one of us was expecting.

A turkey that made loud gobbles at us. (Anneliese was impressed by my return gobble).

A small but noisy pig. He was very cute, like a puppy.

We then passed through a small gate into the back section. Joel envisions a grand wooden gate at this entrance.

The rear was filled with fruti trees mostly, something a lot like lemons, small hard but sweet peaches, other berries and furits, sugar cane. It was really cool back there and i started getting excited about it. I envisioned little huts much like the ones i had built out in the woods in upstate NY, just posts with corrugated metal on top. Underneath could be cob beds/shelving structures that have a rocket stove built into them to heat up the cob and make a radiant heat bed. I´ve seen plans for them before and the look amazing. The lanscape of the inside could be restructured some to optimize water use, the trees could have smaller complimetary plants plated around them to encourage healtheir growing. The whole thing could get sheet mulched, and it would be long before he would see the benefits.

Ther was a bunny back there that made me think of my sister. (She loves bunnies).

Joel was very nice, he showed us all around and told us about his ideas. He even climbed up into a few trees to pull down fruit for us. A little exaggerated, but a kind gesture. We were very happy to receive the most gigantic lemons we had ever seen, one was seriously the size of a cantaloupe. We also got big sticks of sugar cane and Anneliese got flowers (how did he know I didn´t want flowers?) His pitch was that he wanted money. But both of us are smarter than to just throw money at this guy. Anneliese offered her labor while she´s here. And i offereed to brainstorm designs with him to come up with a plan that would be the first step toward applying for funds. The whole thing has me really excited and i would love to see it happen, i don´t have a good enough sense of Joel yet to see if thats really realistic (people can get pretty behind the ball here, there are some significant inefficiencies built into the culture, like never being on time).

Its a cool idea, we´ll see what comes of it.

Charles in Charge

2009-03-03T19:12:00.010-06:00

Carlos and Roca working on a rear-mounted bici-liquadora. This is really exciting to see happening finally.

For a while we, the volunteers, have wondered why somethings are as they are. Why, for instance, is there not a price list on parts? Why do the price tags that are on bikes for sale, not actually have a price on them? Why aren´t the volunteers allowed to complete sales?

It appears that there were a certain amount of inefficiencies built into the organization of Maya Pedal as the justification for an additional full time position. Its been a really good thing to be able to provide one more Guatemalan work, this is a very poor country and as many people as possible need work. And some pretty hefty innefficiencies in the organizational structure were what made that possible.

I hope that this doesn`t come across as anything against anyone at all. I completely understand why the organization would be run this way, the whole point of the place is to serve this country and the existence of one more job was doing that. However, i also understand the Board of Directors position on the matter. The changing of the world economic gaurd, from bull to ravenous bear, altered this efficiency equation. And so the position of Administrative Secretary no longer exists.

But don´t worry Johana had a new job well before her postion was termintated, and she´s doing quite well and seems pretty happy about the switch.

We had a very nice going away party for Johana, with a creamy cake (similar but much better than the previous one i´d tried) and a native food- meat and sauce boild inside of a corn meal wrapped in a corn husk- i know the name, but i cant think of it, its something really obvious... any way, everyone had very nice things to say, we all laughed and ate a lot, except for the vegan at the table who couldn´t eat any of it.

I had fun keeping Anjie, Johana´s little girl, and myself amused by playing silly games and giving each other presents like the bone she was chewing on, or Erins rose from valentines day. I´ll miss that little girl, shes a real character.

All of this put Carlos squarely in charge. And there was a strange bittersweetness to the change. We no longer had Johana`s smiling face and cute little munchkin, but suddenly a lot of things that needed to be streamlined could be. And so on day one we began a massive overhaul of everything.

Purely from an organizational standpoint, it was exciting and satisfying to see everything coming together. Carlos knows exactly what has to be done in order for the organization to run more smoothly and profitably, and he set us on that path straight away.

We all hustled about simultaneously, Erin and Dory reorganizing the bike graveyard on the roof, Roca and Erica sorting through and pricing every part in the part room. Anneliese and i getting bikes fixed up and ready for sale. Everyone was feeling really buzzed by all the good changes happening, especially the rapidity with which they were rolled out.

A much, much, better organized pile of bikes.

Things separated by type, and subtype and clearly labeled in english and spanish with their names and prices (all previously unavailable).

I pulled out this parts poster, previously hiding in the parts room behind a shelf where no once could see it, and hung it loud and clear. I didn´t ask Carlos, i didn´t need to- it just made sense to have it out where it could actually be used. And that´s the name of the game now. Its wonderful that the organization is able to pull things together and move in an exciting direction- its just too bad that it had to come at the expense of a career.

While we were working a horse somehow got stuck underneath this truck, it painfully forced its way out. I wish there was something we could have done.

We used the blender for lunch that day- spaghetti sauce, an other delicous concotion of Erin´s (she goes way out of her way to amke sure everyone knows that vegan food can taste amazingly good)

And randomly, a drawing that Johana asked me to do. Its a logo for her new job, if you cant see (sorry) its an open book in front of the world with a computer image on the page, there is a torch and dove centrally featured on top of it all. Not really sure what its all about, but supposedly the symbolism is pretty typical of the area- Catholic someone said.

adios Palo

2009-03-02T13:36:00.003-06:00

I had heard that there was another permanent gringo in Itzapa (other than the mormons), but never met said gringo. A few weeks later we ended up at her house for dinner.

Sarah is here with the peace corps, she is working with a women´s collective that makes shampoo- much like Mujeres en Acción but without the bici-liquadora. Maybe they can join forces?

She has a lime tree growing in her courtyard, which we used for the guacamole!

Her apartment was a step up from ours, though far less furnished. We had a nice meal of tostadas with guacamole, tea, fruit and a cake that tasted like queso fresco (not a good taste for a cake) (it was also disgustingly moist- you could squeeze it like a sponge and liquid would drip out).

Palo serenaded us, as always.

Anneliese showed off her crazy elbow tricks.

And we shared youtube videos- Sarah has... wireless

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tPd5-GtmZ0

This morning Palo left, which was really sad for everyone. He kept us all well stocked in laughter.
Ahhh, Palo...

kicking around during sleep-inducing skies

2009-03-01T15:07:00.008-06:00

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Not too terribly much from the weekend, pretty slow, pretty low-key.

Elizabeth left on friday, i felt really bad, i totally missed her leaving, the internet sucked me into a time warp and i fell out of it many hours into the future where Elizabeth was not. In her place, however, was Dori. Dori is a funny cookie. Also this weekend, two more showed up Erica and Roca, travelling together they are on their way to, or from, mexico, not sure which. They remind me of the kinds of squatters you used to see on south street in philly before the Baby Gap and Reebok moved in. Roca doesn´t speak much english, but he gesticulates energetically with fast sweeping gestures and lots of sound effects. Like Palo, we wonder what cartoon he ecaped from. And what cartoon villian is going to try to capture him and return him to a land of 2 dimensions.

We took, Anneliese Palo Dori and I, a bike ride to Parramos. Palo wanted to givbe a skateboard to a kid there. We wanted to get out of the house. It was a good ride.

Somewhere along the way Dori and i got into trouble, almost simultaneously our bikes both fell apart. We were pretty much at Parramos at this point so we scootered our bikes to the closest bike shop.

My chain straight up broke.

Dori´s rear derailleur fell apart when she stopped to see what was wrong with me. She´d never seen that happen before.

We split with our comrades, Palo took my camera to get a picture with the kid, so unfortunately no hay fotos de the rest of the trip. Sorry. But i can tell you about it.

So we went to a bike shop where we asked to use their tools. It was nice that all either one of us needed was a chainbreaker to get us working again. Though my problem made for a much easier quick-fix return than Dori´s. The folks were really nice, they even brought us water to wash our hands with.

Dori and i figured that they (Anneliese and Palo) were going to take a while so we meandered further into town in search of papas fritas. Several roadside stands proved useless. Though one did tip us off to a restaurant around the corner. We went there and had, what turned out to be, the most expensive papas fritas we will ever have. The highlight of the meal, though, was discovering Tostaditas- a local brand of chip that are so good. We both are determined to find them now (supposedly they only exist in Chimaltenango).

It was nice to have a chance to chat with Dori, she goes to Oberlin and studies, uh, i forget. Something about English with comparative something or other. We commiserated about the confusing nature of gender identity amongst our peers, particularly the language- when i´m referring to former him as the gender neutral they do i use the plural or singular verb form to conjugate?

Our lunch makers were really nice and talked to us a bunch. They sponsor lots of Peace Corps volunteers and have dozens of pictures of them everywhere.

Back at the shop, i decided to shave, but apparently forgot how.

Though, my mustache is pretty sweet.

I look more like Borat than the American Gothic guy. (That´s what i was going for with my pitchfork and all)

Palo got sick-feelings again and Carlos promised to bring him something to drink. Having done this once before, and it being slightly terrifying, we thought we could play a prank on poor sleeping Palo.

Dori found a piece of rotten fruit in the kitchen and we thought it would be perfect to pose as an "herbal remedy" akin to the nastiness that Carlos made us drink the last time. So we stuck it in some boiling water and added tumeric for color.

Groggy Palo thought it was gross and didn´t take the bait. We tried to keep straight, but could help laughing. He believed us though, even through the laughter- it really was the kind of crazy thing Carlos would totally be like "yeah, drink this."

Hopefully all of the new blood will make for some more interesting stories throughout the week.
I´m thinking yes.

in sickness to disco

2009-02-27T13:09:00.011-06:00

Sometime over the weekend i made the decision to go see a travel doctor. The sickness i`d caught several weeks before just wouldn`t go away, i wasn`t getting re-infected as i thought. I became obsessive about disinfecting everything while my housemates ate food off the floor- yet they were fine and i was not.

A friend of a friend of a friend recommended a doctor in Antigua. He was able to see me right away, so we agreed on wednesday. The girls were going in for spanish lessons, i would go with them. Always nicer to have company.

But the night before a frequent patron and friend of Carlos` comes by, he`s excited to invite us all to a disco. A disco? Its for the dedication of a new school in town. It seems like he is somehow involved- and very proud i might add. He really wants us all to come, the volunteers in particular. Unfortunately i was there as the sole representative of the North America Brigade. I had to break the news to him that the girls had spanish lessons, and before i could even finish groans of displeasure erupted from both he and Johana- they can go another day, go thursday! Clearly one of us needed to represent, my appointment was later in the day, so i promised i would be there. The groans subsided.

The others were, to my surprise, really excited about the prospect of a disco party full of school children. When they explained how much fun it would be i could see where they were coming from, but i still really didn`t want to go. I wasn`t feeling well and the idea of being a dancing mascot to inquistive children for an hour or two just didn`t seem like fun. Anneliese thought she would skip spanish school, and Ivy was really excited about the prospect of disco. They were already planning what they would wear.

Come morning i felt even worse than i had for the last few days. My bowels erupted, and then i dry heaved for a few minutes right as we were about to leave- i knew i was in trouble, but social obligation held me tight. The walk there was bumpy and hot, i hiccupped the whole way (i really really don`t like hiccups). A couple of times i thought i might throw up, i asked Carlos if it was legit for me to barf in the street. He was grossed out by my even asking, but he said yes, do it to the side.

We wound our way through unfamiliar streets until we were in a part of town i had never been. We came upon some small gardens exploding with green, small children came up to greet us (they were very excited to see gringos). We could hear the echo of a PA system, someone was enthusiastically announcing something. We turned the corner and there were a couple hundred people seated facing us, a little uncomfortable for Carlos, apparently he had taken us the the wrong way. We found some seats and listened politely as they called out names and had people come up, sang each ones praises and handed out pieces of paper (awards?). It was pretty boring, like being at your younger siblings 4th grade graduation, except you can`t even understand all of the boring stuff they are saying. Maybe it was better that way, i got to play with Johana`s nephew Jamie, a super cute kid who rides an orange donkey around the shop.

Somewhere in there i got the rumble and i knew i didn`t have long. I made my way to the outdoor toilets and proceeded to lose everything i had eaten that morning. Usually this makes me feel worse, but i actually felt much better, like a burden had been lifted. Oddly relieved i found my way back to my seat in the sun. We listened for longer. I had a few more runs- false alarms. And after a while people started to move. What is happening now i asked? They are going to cut the ribbon, we will follow them.

So we walked up a small incline, following the crowd. For some reason Carlos asked us to hang back, not to go all the way to the ribbon. I suppose the ribbon cutting was for those who donated money or gave lots of time, our role, it seemed, was to line the streets in their honor. While there Carlos decided that it was Ivy`s fault that Palo was so worn out and that i was sick. He called her a hamburger.

Look at that face, it has hamburger written all over it.

We dawled a while longer while things dissipated, some fireworks were set off (by far the highlight of the morning) and while i was back in the stall school apparently resumed. Wait a minute. What happened to disco? At this point making a fool out of myself for little kids to laugh about didn`t seem so bad, and it sure seemed a lot better than the past hour`s activities. Nope all done. Was it a trick? Is that really what they thought would get us there? Disco? Well, it i guess it worked, we were there. Glitter and all.

We then walked back to market, passing some pretty foul trash sites on the way. Whether by design or gravity, all of the trash here seems to end up in the water sources. Bad idea. Its surprising that they wouldn`t know, or if they do that the social codes would allow it (because laws certainly don`t seem to mean much here). It even looked like there was a bus buried in the river of trash. Its part of the double edged sword of people having true freedom, just as they can build themselves homes appropriate to their means and the amount of space that they actually need (a concept foreign to the states) they can also pitch whatever they want into the river without any threat of legal action or social recourse. Its just the most convenient method.

At the market we split ways, Jamie and his mother went back to the shop, Ivy stayed in the market and i made my way to Antigua.

Although having had a rough morning i knew that the 90% downhill bike ride to Antigua would be fine for me. Along the way i ran into Anneliese, we stopped our bikes in the middle of the road and talked for a bit. She had had a fun lesson with her teacher, the highlight of which was when the teacher accidentally said poop when trying to say potatoes.

The bike ride to Antigua is really beautiful. I love doing it, its my favorite bike ride of all time, it even trumps riding through our nations capital on a warm fall night (sorry Sammie). The climax is in passing a series of mountains, visible from Maya Pedal. A deep ravine opens up and you almost feel like you are going to fly off into it. The mountains tower overhead and when the light is just right it pulls you to a complete awe-filled stop.

There are interesting smaller towns along the way with lively town centers and interesting hand painted signs.

There are also churches and markets, forest that almost looks like jungle (i don`t think it is) and a variety of homes, both rich and poor (Antiuga is a great center of wealth in the country).

It took me a while of asking around to finally find Higher Grounds Cafe, where Erin and i had agreed to meet. I was several hours late at this point, the not-disco went on far longer than expected (and also started later than scheduled). Fortunately she was so enveloped in downloading music and movies that she refused to leave- it might also be that shes really kind and patient, but she claimed movies.

Its funny, things here can be so... imprecise. And its just expected. Like the disco not actually being a disco and starting hours after we were told it would. Or how when i asked for directions to higher grounds several people assured me they knew where it was and gave me totally false information. Others just pointed in a general direction and said its that way. Half the time people don`t seem to know the street names in their own town- taxi drivers even, you say i want to go to this place, they dont know it, okay, its on this street, don`t know it- so you just kind of drive around and guess where you`re supposed to be.

And along with ruins, no tourist trap would be complete without...
a McDonald´s

Erin was kind enough to show me around her favorite haunts- the high end food store (which actually sold trader joes stuff for twice the price) the chocolate shop (where the doting store owner gave her, more than the ususal amount, of free samples) and the DVD vendor who was supposedly holding titles for her.

After waiting behind some indecisive gringos for what felt like a half an hour, we finally got to talk to the kid behind the DVD stand. He didn`t know what we were talking about, the boss would be back later. The timing was perfect, i needed to get to my appointment.

Erin was kind enough to stick with me through the evening, i sensed she had been ready to leave hours earlier but waited it out to be polite. What is it about Canada? Or really, what is it about us?

Fortunately, the directions to the doctors were more accurate than to the coffee shop and i made it in time. My doctor was a friendly man, he listened patiently while i tried to describe to him in the best detail that i could (using lots of hand gesutres and funny sounds from my mouth) all of the things that had been happening over the last month. He called it puje y tempeso, or something like that. The name seemed to make him laugh, i didn`t get it.

He checked my blood pressure and hearbeat, said they were perfect, weighed me and announced that i was 134 pounds. Before i came i weighed around 160, and there was no way that 26 pounds slipped away unnoticed. I politely suggested that perhaps his metric scale was off (i said nothing of his calculations). He insisted in its accuracy. Arguing the point seemed useless.

He felt around my stomach and found some gurgles- here he said, here is where the diarrhea is. Good to know, there was still some fun left. He said it wasn`t worht doing bloodwork, or a stool sample. He gave medicine to take care of the most likely suspects, basic amoebas and worms. Take it for a week, if you dont get better come back. After a day and a half i definitely feel better.

Luckily the visit didn`t take that long, and Erin had a book she was engrossed in anyway- Bill McKibbens Deep Economy. Next were the meds. They were by far the most expensive part of the whole shebang. Sometimes its easy to forget that the Quetzals we trade in every day aren`t dollars, they are worth much less. I guess i`ve gotten used to living on 50Q a week, making 500 feel like a lot. (For perspective though, the total for me was a little less than 75 dollars for the visit and the medicine combined- in the states it would be several hundred dollars, uninsured).

In one of the pharmacies i went to, i was amused to see the local beer stocked on the shelves, right between Pepto-Bismol and Ensure.

Having completed the health mission for the day, we returned to the DVD guy, the boss was back but the titles still hadn`t come in. Erin was disappointed, i picked up two films Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionare, both of which i had heard were really good. The thought of Brad Pitt cheered Erin up some.

I suggested we get some dinner, excited to have some food closer to the quality of that at home. Erin wanted to eat at a local joint, i resisted, but she refused to eat elsewhere. I lucked out- no vegan options. Aha, why don`t we eat at the vegan/vegetarian cafe where we presented last week? The thought of delicious vegan food won Erin over, and we wandered to Rainbow Cafe. Interestingly, this time the first person to give us directions seemed totally confused, but claimed it was "that way." We didn`t believe her, but she was right.

Dinner was awesome, i had chicken fajitas that were absolutely delicious. Erin ordered Israeli falafel, and in typical matthew fashion i helped her finish it. Mmmm, i miss really good food. Especially food that doesn`t require me to bleach it first.

Enjoying the atmosphere and live music we took our time, sharing stories from home. (According to Erin, street hockey is a very important part of thanksgiving). I talked a lot about my sweetheart whom i am very excited to see come April, Erin was kind enough to humor me. Our leisurely meal left us busless, which was just as well, buses are targets after dark. We considered a hostel, but she reasoned it`d be cheaper for us to hire a taxi back. She was right (she usually is).

Last bus of the night, definitely not going our way. I love the bling on these things, they get really into decorating their buses and tuk-tuks

It took a little bargaining but we were finally able to secure a ride that didn`t mind the bike coming along. He was a really friendly guy, we talked most of the way in spanish, though he was pretty excited to use his english. *side note, the most common thing people have said to me in english, just random strangers on the street, is "very good," which they pronounce more like "berry guuuhhh," no idea why*

The ride was uneventful, as i`m sure my mother will be relieved to hear, and we arrived back at 9:00. Erin had the foresight to get our drivers number for future use. Our housemates were a little concerned, there was no way to call, in either direction. But we made it up to them with Erin`s chocolate and Benjamin Button- interesting movie, subtle but impressive special effects.

Thats all for now. The medicine is going fine, though i did spend yesterday sleeping. Good chance to catch up on my reading. And Batman.

the flatest piece of dirt we could find

2009-02-24T19:14:00.002-06:00

When camping fell through for the weekend we decided it was monday night or bust, Palo was determined that we not push it off and push it off and then not do it (which easily could have happened). So we exictedly planned our meals, collected and prepared our food.

Anneliese made an awesome camp stove, it is a series of stainless steel chain rings wired, not welded, together with four kickstands bolted on as legs. The kickstands are particularly ingenious because they fold down flat against the chain rings, drastically increasing the portability of the stove. The Guatemalan way is rubbing off on all of us.

Erin and i didn´t realize it, but the others left in a rush to beat the dark leaving us behind to collect all the things still left. We grabbed all of the remaining items, stuffed them into bags not-quite-big-enough and sauntered up the hill.

My camera decided to shut down just as we started up, thankfully Erin had her (much nicer) camera to fill the gap. Here´s some of what we saw along the way.

On the way up to Carlos´ farm (where we´d be camping) we passed a series of these strange swaths chiseled out of the mountain side. Most of them looked as if they were designed for a truck to back into and they had unfamiliar pipes and tubing systems exposed. We weren´t sure if it was some sort of agricultural something-or-other or what. (We found out on the way back down that they were supposed to be house lots of a failed fancy housing project called Bella Vista).

After about 25 minutes Erin and i came upon Carlos´ finca (farm). I should have realized, but somehow dind´t put together that his farm would be one of the steeply sloped, seemingly impossible, mountainside plots. Everyone here uses slash and burn and plants row after row of the same crop. Who knows if they use pesticides, i´m guessing most can´t afford it. The dirt looks like it is going to blow away, it looks like the dust on the beaten roads or the trampled soccer fields. Permaculture could do wonders here.

Eventually we came across our comrades, they had scoped out the flatest possible spot on the whole mountain. I was impressed by their sleuthing. Technically this was not Carlos´land, but the neighbors are friendly and didn´t seem to mind.

The camera can´t do justice to the breathtaking view that we enjoyed for 16 hours, the cloudy skies also don´t help.

Below is Itzapa, at night we could also see Chimaltenango, Paramos and the light pollution from Antigua behind a neighboring mountain.

We didn´t waste any time getting a fire started, as it would be dark soon and we were eager to get some good coals going for dinner. Anneliese´s camping stove folded out beautifully and impressed us all for the whole evening.

Three of us went scavenging for wood while the other two got the fire started. It was slim pickings, but we managed to scrounge enough for the evening. We even found a nice log to sit on.

We enjoyed the fire for a few minutes while we waited for the tortilla pan (just a flat sheet of metal) to heat up. All of our food was laid out on a cloth, Ivy handed me a random piece of plywood and i rigged up a table to start the food prep.

I spent the next 45 miuntes scooping out beans and cheese and smuchsing them between tortillas (tortillas here are tiny compared to what we´re used to in the states, i´d guess because its all done between small palms). Anneliese had the prescience to stick a tin foil covered pepper into the coals- it was the perfect addition to our quesadillas. They were... so... gooood...

Next on the menu were the much anticpated angelitas (literally little angels, but we´d called them marshmallows). These little angels were far from small, in fact, they were the hugest marshmallows any of us had ever seen (a big part of the excitement).

I realize the picture isn´t the best, but if Palo´s excitement doesn´t convince you of the montsrous glory of our air inflated sugar pillows, perhaps this will- cut in half they were still larger than the normal US marshmallow.

Palo was excited to stick his marshmallow between two Chikys, a native brand of cookie that is already half covered in chocolate. He claimed it was exactly like a smore, but even more convenient. This inspired Erin to stick her giantic sugar cloud between two pieces of hannukah gelt (not actually gelt, but close enough).

Oops, camera strap.

But by far the highlight of the dessert menu, the pièce de résistance, were the banana boats. For those unfamiliar with a banana boat it´s a banana stuffed full of marshmallow and chocolate wrapped in tin foil and left in the coals to melt into one giant pile of deliciousness.
I was first introduced to banana boats at Church of the Brethren camp in 8th grade. I had since forgotten about them, but was very happy to be re-introduced.

Ohhh so good!

Ivy and Palo took turns serenading us. They are both really talented musicians and play in a ton of bands back in the states.

When it came time to crash we all sardined together on a salvaged tarp Chris had laid out. It was cold and we were happy to cram together to share body heat. Hopped up on sugar we giggled our way to sleep like a bunch of 4th graders at a slumber party. We were pretty punchy and everything was really funny.

Out of the necessity of the cold i cocooned inside my sleeping bag, head covered and all. It turned out to be a good move because it sprinkled throughout the night and i stayed warm and dry. My sleeping bag was not so lucky.

We woke up to the rising sun, doing its best to light the sky for us despite competition from some grumpy clouds.

Some of us had trouble getting out of bed. (Oh soooo classy).

Palo made a fire from the remains of the previous night´s, using some fairly wet wood, which is not easy. I thought it best not to trouble him with the precise knowledge of how i put it out the night before.

We ate the leftover fruit for breakfast. Roasted pineapple was a big hit.

Past the sunsrise the morning view was pretty murky.

And just like i learned in boy scouts my bag was a whole foot and a half off the ground. You know, for the bears.

(I was never in boy scouts)

Our walk back was really nice, all down hill, and we brought the blue skies with us. If we´d have been going uphill i would have had to take off my sweatshirt, but we weren´t and it was just right. We passed plenty of curious Itzapans on their way to work. We wondered what they thought of the groggy, dirty gringos.

Unfortunately we returned to a padlocked door, something none of us other than Palo had experienced. I was flabbergasted. Mostly becuase i really, really, needed to use the facilities.

Waiting was not an option.

I didn´t realze how much i looked like spiderman until i saw these photos. Ah, childhood dream fulfilled.

20 bikes for monday. Yoga, smoothies and (almost) camping.

2009-02-23T12:56:00.008-06:00

As the buzz from Antigua was beginning to fade, and we started to settle back into the relaxed Guatemalan pace of life, Carlos threw us another big project- 10 bikes, ready to go monday morning. Okay, 2 bikes per person with the whole weekend to do it, not too bad.

But by friday afternoon 10 became 20. Fortunately a bunch were already done. Also fortunate was Carlos´disposition on the whole affair- almost good enough was good enough. So we spent the weekend churning out bikes almost good enough to sell.

Anneliese is checking out one of her manuals (it has a pretty cheesy looking ugy on the front we all like to laugh about). She definitely came in with a solid knowledge of bikes but has been steadily improving by leaps and bounds. I feel like she could answer just about any bike question i have at this point.

She and Elizabeth (Ivy) made a great team. They cranked out more bikes than the rest of us, they were definitely the powerhouse of the weekend.

Below is the bike i got to wrestle with. I picked up where a very sick Erin left off, with one wheel off and the rest still intact.

The first thing that i needed to do was to true (make straight) the wheel that had been popped off. It was a little wonky but not too bad. Carlos gave me a quick demo with his awesome home-made truing stand. Truing generally involves a lot of patient fine tuning, but not with Carlos, not today. He got it servicable and called it done. Next!

With my lesson in mind i went after the rear wheel. I put it up in the stand and began like Carlos showed me by tightening all of the spokes first, then going back to loosen them to true. I must have gotten a little too into the tightening because half way through my wheel was making a pretty S curve. Mmmm, not good. I asked Carlos to have a look and he gasped in amazement. What did you do? I turned it like you said, no, not like i said- this is garbage!

So i went back and took way too much time to correct my mistake (a good chance to learn). Slowly and surely i worked out the huge kinks i´d put in the wheel, then once i got those out i went after the ones that i wanted out in the first place.

The way the machine works is that you put the wheels axle into two retractable bolts. They hold it in place while you adjust the lower arm to line up with the edge of the wheel´s rim. On the lower arm are two smaller retractable bolts that you move back and forth to catch where the wheel is spinning off center. When the rim touches one side you tighten the opposite (and/or loosen that same side). The idea is to even out the tension on the wheel so that its perfectly, or almost good enoughly, centered and spinning true.

Sometimes though, you´ll have to loosen up one side too far to get it true, basura (trash) according to Carlos. Palo had a good way to fix this without affecting the true-ness too much. All the spokes, on this particular wheel, are paired up into crossing sets. If one of the pair is really loose and the other not then you can tighten the loose one and loosen the tight one the commensurately. It seemed to work out pretty well.

After an hour and a trip to the chaos of the parts room, the wheel was finito. Onto the rest.

The next part to work on was the front derailleur, which is the piece that changes gears on the chain rings attached to the pedals. It seemed to be shifting fine, not too loose or too tight, however the chain was rubbing on the derailleur. I raised it up some, which helped for shifting to the higher gear, but it still rubbed some when shifted to the lower gear. So i moved it slightly to one side, problem solved.

I noticed the bike was missing a rear derailleur though. Would it be almost good enough to leave it off? Or did that sucessfully fall short of our already lowered standards. Palo thought so.

He and Anneliese were kind enough to help me find a good one, Palo really had the eye for it- he knows bikes inside and out.

I got it hooked on, which invloved widening the bolt hole on the frame for the derailleur, and then fit the wheel on next. With those two in place i could get the chain on. Palo helped me figure out the proper length for the chain, it involved some eye balling i won´t go into. But with that on i could now adjust the shifting cable. With the chain on the highest rear gear (the smallest ring on the set) and the highest in the front (the biggest gear in the set) i set the rear shifter all the way down to the highest setting (the loosest it would possibly go). I then clamped the cable and shifted through the gears. All set there.

Next was to check the brakes, front was fine, back not so much. The thing kept sticking on one side and popping way off on the other. After a lot of fiddling it was clear that it would have to be replaced in order to function well, but instead i loosened the tension on the brake so that it wouldn´t rub on the right side. The left was way off, but it functioned. Done.

All of this doesn´t take too long to read, but for a novice it took a while to do. Especially all the mishaps. I´m really lucky to be surrounded by people who know a lot and like sharing their knowledge. Its a really good set up for learning.

You can´t tell, but Palo is doing a pretty sweet dance here. And below are all the bikes piled up and ready to go.

Despite the concerns that we would be too stressed out to make it all come together, we got everything done in a timely fashion and still had some time for morning yoga and two rounds of awesome, bike-blended, fruit smoothies. (Though we did have to cancel our planned trip to a macadamia nut farm and an overnight of campfires and songs at Carlos´ farm).

Its been a while since i´ve had to hide my nose ring

2009-02-19T13:03:00.001-06:00

Bienvenidos al parte final,
This is the last segment of my epic mini-series on our run up to Rainbow Cafe.
I hope you´ve enjoyed the ride, thank you for choosing bike blender blog, and please remain seated until the aircraft comes to a complete and full stop.

By mid afternoon, day of the presentation, this is what my bike looked like. Allllllmost there... just a few finishing touches.

I made the mistake of attaching the donut to the table before i put the base of the blender on it. Allow me to explain.

The blender needed to sit perfectly above the hub (the part that spins from contact with the bike´s wheel). So by attaching the red circular part first, without the base of the blender, i got it slightly off. Thus when the base and blender sat exactly where they needed to they hung off to one side of the red piece ever-so-noticably. Carlos assured me it was fine, but my perfectionism contended that, in fact, it was not. I insisted on fixing it and Carlos had a good suggestion.

The silver-painted plastic base of the blender has four holes in which to screw. He said that i could cut four screw tips off, place them facing down in the holes and then imprint the necessary predill points into the circle. Good call.

I did this then pre drilled. But after trying to get the second screw in, and it didn´t go, i knew that i had to widen the holes so tht i could see them lining up. I re-drilled the holes to be just slightly smaller than the head of the screw, this way the screw would pass through the wood, catch in the plastic and act as a clamp. It worked perfectly.

The next challenge was to get the red/silver apparatus perfectly alligned with the hub so that all would allign as it needed to. To do this i placed the augmented base on the blender, locked it in place, flipped it upside down and then put the hub and table on top. This way the puzzle pieces were all together and i could screw, from underneath, the whole thing together.

It came out just right, everything lined up nice and neat.

I set the table on the bike and got to fastening it down. Carlos had said we would use rivets, like the other liquadoras have, but in the time crunch he said just use normal screws. Not nearly as pretty, but faster yes.

One thing that i wish i had forseen was that the table had to be put on before the handle bars could be welded on. At first i didn´t think it was a big deal, but when molten bits of metal scarred my careful paint job i was a little displeased. It still looks really nice, just not up close.

And here it is all finished up. (If i were to do it again, i think i´d paint the table candy stripes)

While i was working away on the bike, Carlos was putting the finishing touches on a little project he´s been working on for a while- a yarn spinner, that could be bike powered but isn´t, its motorized and just happens to utilize a lot of bike parts. (When he was working on it i asked him why not a bike, he said they wanted a motor, i said bikes were better, he agreed, i said we cant count on electricity and fuel into the future, he said i know, that´s why this- maya pedal- is so important)

With the bike machines all finished up it was time to pack up and go. I was down at the internet cafe checking a few things out before we left. The ladies loaded the truck and came down to claim me.

Carlos, Ana Maria, and Johana looking like superstars.

Me running out of the internet cafe with my nice pants on my head, and we were off! (Except for a pit stop at the lavenderia to pick up a fresh shirt and socks for me).

After getting changed and flipping my nose ring up I was ready to present. We waited for a little bit to give people time to come in. Not very many people to start with, in large part because the literature said both 5:00 and 5:30, depending on which flier you saw. But at about 5:15 we started up.

In hindsight i wish that i had taken some shots of our venue, Rainbow Cafe. Its a charming little restaurant with an open air inner courtyard, brick walls and ceramic tiled roof. All of antigua is really beautiful and charming, its easy to see why the tourists flock there.

I spoke for a few minutes about the history of Maya Pedal, how it was started up inconjunction with a Canadian group- PEDAL. How it was incorporated in 2001, its relationships with other internationl NGO´s. I talked about the variety of bike machines that they make, what a magician Carlos is, the importance of this kind of work, and how one can help out with the mission and vision of MP. During the presentation i passed out photocopies of all of the bike machines, with their names and descriptions.

To highlight one of Maya Pedal´s specific projects, Anneliese talked some about las Mujeres en Accion. She passed around an aloe blade, chamomile and, ah, umm, another herb (sorry Anneliese) that the women use in their shampoo making process. There to represent the Mujeres was Ana Maria, who sold 90 quetzal worth of shampoo that night! (We also did pretty well in donations, over 300 Q)

Next, i invited Erin to come up and demonstrate the machines to the crowd. She seemed a little surprised at first, apparently when she offered to play Vanna White she was joking. But she got up all the same and did a terrific job, she´s a natural presenter. Good projection.

First was the desgranadora- the corn de-kerneler. It was a huge hit, the crowd cheered when the corn popped down and back up. Its a funny process to watch, it amuses local kids for hours at a time. I´ll have to post a video of it sometime.

Next was the liquadora, which got some calls from the crowd for margaritas. Its funny, most people over forty look at it and think, booze! But us interns look at it and think, while drooling in a homer simpson voice, ooooh, smooooothies...

And then the electricity generator. Which actually generated too much electricity and burned out the bulb. During the Q&A it was not surprising that most people were curious about generating electricity by bike, specifically, what they could power with it. I could see the train of thought barrelling through their minds- thinking of all the appliances and gizmos that they would like to run by getting their daily dose of exercise. Biking electricity is pretty inefficient, most of them were unimpressed by the many hours of biking it takes just to power three tenty watt bulbs (3 hours of biking to 9 hours of light). I´m sorry to say this is the kind of mentality we need to begin letting go off- we´re not going to be able to bike our way into energy independence, not even on a personal level. In my mind it seems more prudent to ask, not how can i keep my gizmos running, but do i really need my gizmos? But i digress.

After Erin demonstrated we asked if anyone in the crowd would like to try ou the machines, several were pretty excited to come up and check them out.

There were some really terrific people in the crowd, we got several offers of donations of bike parts and tools, someone offered to screen print us shirts that we could sell. Two women from texas took time to explain internet fundraising to Anneliese, and we enlisted some volunteers in the process. All in all it was a good night, Johana and Carlos were very pleased with how it went.

After the talk we packed up and headed home, most of us riding in the back of the truck. With a better view and less stuff, this ride was a lot more fun than my first back o´the truck excursion. Carlos was happy to make it as exciting as possible, we all screamed in terror/joy a few times.

From the truck Johana spotted a man pedaling a bike by hand, she recognized it as one of Carlos´designs and jumped up and down for us to take pictures. But doing thirty made it hard to catch. I think i´m the only one who, kind of, got him.

Earlier in the night i had suggested that we stick around in Antigua for dinner, but Johana said it would be too expensive. Instead we stopped for roaside food in Paramos. I couldn´t figure out why, but i had a real hankering for meat. So i had four hotdogs, which turned out to be eight. I called them Chuchos (which means dog) and everyone died laughing, what are they called in spanish, i asked? They´re called hotdogs.

portion numero cuatro

2009-02-19T11:16:00.000-06:00

Four cans of yellow later, i had a glowing bici-maquina blinding me with its neon glory. Yellow was not the best color to try to paint over dark brown with, but also my techniques were wasteful according to Carlos- he showed us how to use the cans properly, i think it would have saved me a can.

Without orange spray paint i had to use the orange paint from the shop. The problem with this was that every single brush was dead, dried hard as a rock, chock full o´paint. Not wanting to repeat the look of other non-spray painted items, i thought the best way to get it looking nice would be to dip it in the paint. But without enough paint or a large enough basin to do it in, i decided it would be a brilliant idea to pour the paint on. And blow it around.

It looked pretty good when wet, nice and thick, covered all of the flaws of the wood that i couldn´t sand out. I´d just have to wait for it to dry.

Come morning, my Pollock-onian experiment proved worthless, the paint was all cracked and ugly, it absorbed heavily into the wood in some places, not at all in others. It was an ugly mess. So i did the only logical thing, i poured more paint on it.

Oh, and i found a fan to encourage its dry time.

But, by one in the afternoon- on the day of the presentation- it was clear it wouldn´t dry in time. (two days later its still not dry). So i cut another pice of wood, fitted it, drilled, reattached the hub and spray painted it to a nice mellow orange creamsicle.

When i set the table on the bike i discovered that it had somewhow ended up un-level. So in Guatemalan mode, i looked around for a piece of metal, any piece of metal, roughly the right size to prop up the drooping corner. A nut sufficed.

Not a good weld, my first attempt blew a hole right through the square tube. We were running out of time, Carlos had to be called in, quick. Three bzzzzt´s and we were back in business.

Meanwhile in the background, several others are churning away at the peanut de-sheller. Mixing concrete and getting all kinds of messy.

The concrete was pusehd into a series of molds to form the necessary series of cones for the de-shelling process.

The leftover concrete, Carlos instructed, was to be put into a bike wheel while he was at lunch. Neither Anneliese nor I felt particularly confident about this considering that we´d never done it, and really weren´t sure. But the wet concrete had a natural countdown in place and demanded action. Right then, Johana showed up, she knew that the bottom needed water sprinkled on it, and that the whole wheel could be turned back in forth in place to settle the concrete.

With these two necessary procedural steps in place i took over and finished the job. I had seen Carlos smooth out previous fly wheels with a small wooden block, i found it and patiently pushed all the concrete just as it should be. It was a slow and satisfying process.

Once the glaring glow of my machine was dry i uncovered the pedals and attached the rest of the pieces, minus the handlebars.

If you are wondering what that small red circle is, its a prop to go underneath the base of the blender. It turns out the a miscalculation was made and the hub came up too high, forcing the base of the blender up off of the wooden table. The red donut fixed that.

I then went on to the handle bars. Since i had the yellow and orange, i thought it would be nice to have a couple hints of red, the donut and the handle bars. I bought some electrical tape and wrapped the handlebars with it. I really like the way it came out, especially when its on the bike.

preparing - continued

2009-02-18T19:54:00.002-06:00

Shalom,
Installment number three:

By this time the genders had separated, unintentionally, into teams to complete the two bici-liquadoras. Well, my team was actually just me, what with Palo being who knows where.

The starship trooper alien bugs each needed a final leg attached, both for stability and to house the seat post. And as the sole representative of my sex i declared Team Man ready to go.

First i ground out a crescent in the bottom tube of the bike frame. This was to maximize contact between the pieces of metal and encourage a better weld. It took some time to get the top crescent and bottom crescent just right, the both had to line up to create the space for a true and plumb seat post.

Then the top tube (this being the word i was so painfully struggling for two posts ago) which i had previously removed needed to have the tube of the headset (not the header) welded to it to provide enoguh height for the seat post. In my inexperienced mind i thouhgt, i`ll just tack weld the two together and then bend it into place. So i did, but it did not.

When i went to bend it, knowing nothing of how the tube was constructed, the top part stayed and the rest, to my chagrin, popped off. Grrrrr.

So i hammered it off and started again. This time I was sure to weld the little bugger to the tube. My tack weld bend strategy worked well the second time around and i got the thing looking pretty straight.

Though with an unnattractive- but still strong- weld. The learning curve isn`t the smooth parabola that Mr. Teacher`s graph would like you to believe it is. Its a bumpy oscillating general upward trend.

I then cleaned it up some on the grinder, and stuck it to the rest fo the machine. Also not the prettiest weld on the block (it was last to be asked to prom) But a fair amount of grinding got it looking a little better.

I then ran into a problem that i`m not sure Carlos factors in during construction- the floor is not level. This translated into a rear seat post/ third leg that didn`t touch the floor. I wouldn`t have known had i not sat on it and almost fallen backwards.

With this new realization in mind i took it over to the most level spot i could find- the tile floored section of the hallway- to check it out there. I needed to remove just a little teeny tiny bit from the the center post. I ground it down, but apparently too far, transfering the important job of floating from the back to center. It also was pretty unstable side to side. Unsure of how importnat or not the center post was i decided to leave it for the morrow, moving on to the rear stablization.

I found some angle iron to run perpendicular to the bike, a measure that would surely stop the rocking. The iron was too big to put in the table cutter, so i had to use the hand grinder. The one of frequent use was too small, largely due to its frequent use. I fishec out a big one from the tool box and, boy, was it big. I don`t think my picture can do it justice. It was like holding up a 20 pound large-mouthed bass. (I was tempted to pose with it like my catch, but holding it by the cord is bad for it, especially with all that weight).

I set the iron against the bike, leaving the cut end to fall off, which is something you have to do to avoid pinching the blade and a possible kick back (not good).

Once cut i made a tack weld and took it to the level spot. I could see it needed slight adjustment. Hammering helped there. When set i took it back and welded it all on.

After I decided to get the seat post set up. First i cut a small slit in the top of the tube, this allows the tube to constrict and hold the seat post steady. I then put on the hardware i had pulled from another bike, it didn`t quite fit, so i jammed it open knowing that i could squeeze it back into pladce with the screw.

What i failed to take into account was the fact that the bolt for this apparatus is specially designed to fit and not move on one end (to make taking it on and off easier by only needing one hand to do so). This made it shoot off at an angle and miss the opening on the other side. So i tried to opend the other hole with a drill, it proved to slow and i thoughti might be wrecking the drill bit, so i just notched it out with the hand held grinder. Probelm solved. Uglyily.

Having the seat on I was curious to see the rest of it together, so i cut some square tubing Carlos left for me, set the tray on and found some decent handle bars.

The rustic DIY look actually really spoke to me, i like the slick painted ones too, but this felt a little more bad ass, like, i just dumpster dived me blender machine, uhhh, what!

But the dirty home-made look isn`t fashionable here like it is in the states, where people don`t have money they`d much rather look like they do. Which makes me wonder why so many of us in the states like looking like we don`t.

I opted for yellow.

I also opted for spray paint after seeing how the brush method faired.

getting ready to talk to some tourists

2009-02-18T18:51:00.000-06:00

Bon Gornio,
Welcome to Part Duex.

The next step in the bici-maquina-making process was to attach the rebar pieces i had so enthusiastically bent. My welds were fast and accurate, filled with a small sense of pride i showed Carlos who, much to my satisfaction, exclaimed that they were his welds. The picture isn´t the best, but you can see my lesson paid off.

Anneliese and i took turns welding away, it was great fun for both of us.

The next step in construction was to make a small wooden table for the blender to sit on top of. Carlos gave me rough dimensions from which i cut a round-cornered square. My days as a novice carpenter had me wishing for an orbital sander to clean the thing up, you know, get it looking good (shaving a 64th off of most ugly wood can bring it miraculously back to asthetic life) But there is no such sander, just a metal grinder which i used to smooth out the corners some. Maybe we can find Carlos an orbital sander somewhere.

Carlos then placed the hub, showing me approximately where it would sit. He then measured out on the wood, drew a mark and commanded "cut."

So i drilled holes in all of the wooden tables, three in total, and moved on to the hubs. From my experience de-constructing a liquadora several weeks prior, i knew that each hub would have to have four of its spoke holes widened to accomodate a screw. So more drilling, and then onto attaching.

The odd part about this process is that we didn`t actually have any screw short enough to not pop out the other side and look terribly un-professional. Again from my intimate moments with the liquadora i knew that i could cut a screw in half, sharpen the new end and it would, more or less, function. Holding the screws to the grinder was a little difficult, in part because of their size but mostly because the grinding heats them up fast. It was a good incentive to be economical with my passes.

After sculpting several new screws, predrilling and attaching the hub to the bike-sized table, i moved on to the base.

Each bike needed to have more rebar bent to connect the two forks at the front of the bike. This is for added stability and overall durability. More good muscle use ensued.

They almost look like stickly little animals, dinosaurs, or those weird bug aliens from starship troopers.

More bicimaquinas in one week than all of last month

2009-02-15T15:21:00.001-06:00

.
For the past week we´ve all been working on a few bicimaquinas for an upcoming presentation in Antigua. I´m not sure i understnad exactly, but i think that the machines are being sold to the a cafe in the epicenter of Guatemala´s tourism industry. (Antigua is a huge magnet for travellers because it is absolutely stunning). While we are there we´ll demonstrate the machines to interested tourists and speak about what Maya Pedal does.

For the presentation we´ve been working on two stationary liquadoras, one rear mounted liquadora (to function on the back of a working bike), one grain mill and a peanut de-sheller. I and the girls have had our hands in the liquadoras for the most part, we´re trying to finish them up this weekend. Carlos didn´t leave us with any instruction, just an expectation. At first i felt a little flustered, but then i realized that its because he trusts us to do it, which feels really good. If Carlos approves, you know you´re set.

There´s a lot that´s happened, so much that its kept me from writing about it. It´ll have to come in several parts, or it will be too massive. Epic, epic is a good word. It would be too epic, and totally unreadable.

So, welcome to part one.

Erin and Anneliese stripped two women´s bikes to their bare frames. These are to become the liquadoras Carlos tells us. I ask why women´s bikes in particular, he says because they never sell. This was interesting to have pointed out, becuase its true but i never noticed it- there are bicylces everyhwere, but not with women on them.

After all the unecessary stuff had been removed, the bar, ahh, i don´t know what its called, the top bar, the one that goes from the seat post to the header, that one. It needed to be cut off. Once it was off, i ground down the remains as best i could with the hand grinder. Not too pretty but better than it was.

Next i had to find two, roughly, matching sets of forks to create the base for the maquinas. At first i thouhgt i was looking for ones as angled as the ones of the other bicimaquinas shown below. I did the best i could, but none were so extreme. Then carlos pulled out this crazy tool and told me to bend them, which succinctly sums up Carlos´style- if it doesn´t fit, make it.

After bent, the forks needed to be cut to the same length. Like so:

When preparing to weld to bike tubes, its important to grind off the paint. This serves two functions, one it makes a better weld, two it keeps you from inhaling toxic paint fumes. I un-painted the back of the frame near the drop outs, this is where the forks will make contact.

This is the approximate placement of the fork.

Next was to weld the forks on to the frame. I wasn´t sure where Carlos wanted them, angle wise, so i asked him to tack weld them on where he wanted it. He obliged, and i finished the rest. My welds weren´t so bad this time, definitely better than previous attempts.

However, when it came to welding the support tube underneath the bottom bracket i totally botched it. Carlos laughed and offered me a much needed lesson.

Bike tube is pretty hard to weld to, especially doing stick welding. Its really thin and if you spend to much time on one spot you blow a hole right through it. It just melts away.
As you can see i did a pretty terrible job. But Carlos showed me that if you do litle spurts, taps almost, you can extend from the bead that you´ve already put down and fill the hole. It also helps to have some additional metal in there- he grabbed a broken spoke to add more material to the mix. Once he demonstrated i tried my hand at it and actually got it to work, which was awesome.

The support post i´m describing looks like this on a completed bici-maquina

When all were securely attached they looked like this-

The blender portion sits on top of a piece of wood fastened to rebar. Carlos instructed me to bend two pieces of rebar per machine and weld them into place.

Bending them was a fun process, it involved a lot of focused muscle power, something we Americans don´t get to do on a daily basis. Its amazing how my people have all but erradicated the physical work from work. And then feel compelled to go to the gym to make up for it. (I recently finished an excellent book that delves deep into this issue, highly recommended- Better Off, by Eric Brende)

If only i had three arms.

Here´s both side by side, you can see one of them sits a little crooked. The perfectionist in me wanted to straighten it out, but Carlos said not to bother. Good enough is up there with if it doesn´t fit make it.

Meanwhile, in the background of welding flashes and spark showers, Palo skillfully widdled away at the bolt-to-become-blade-spinner. Turning the top of the round bolt into the necessary square shape.

el dia de san valentin

2009-02-14T12:20:00.008-06:00

On Friday the 13th, the staff of Maya Pedal threw us a Valentine´s day party. It was supposedly tailored to Palo´s need to leave early for livingston (8 hours on the bus). We were told it would begin at ten. But really what that meant was that they would show up closer to elven and have us help them get ready for the party. For three hours.

Palo left in a little bit of a huff somewhere around 2:20.

It was a fun event, full of festive decorations, confetti throwing, games and traditional food.

The food was really delicious, much better than the stuff you´d buy at a stand, it was even better than the stuff you get in local restaurants. But when i saw them preparing the food i new it would be a problem, they didn´t disinfect anything, and grilling didn´t seem like enough. But they threw us this party, and it was one of those say-no-and-you´re-a-jerk situations. Its really unfortunate because those of us with weak North American stomaches get forced into eating stuff that we really oughtn´t to. I´m going to try to gently tell Carlos and Johana that i can´t eat anything they offer me, i hope they understand.

We were all asked in advance to have two things ready for the celebration. The first thing was a game, but it turns out that this could also be a story, joke, or talent. In order to decide who would go we passed a balloon around the circle and when Carlos, who wasn´t looking, said stop, that person had to go. Anneliese was first.

Very nice bigote, Anneliese. When mustaches come back into syle for women, you´ll be leading the pack.

Erin caught ten raisins in a row in her mouth.

Palo did a hand stand for about thirty seconds.

Johana told us the story of Green Eggs and Ham in Spanish (from memory). No one seemed to catch it but me, not that i understood every word, but i got huevos verdes (green eggs) and jamon (ham). I had everyone play a game called king frog, where you make animal montions in order to become the enviable king frog.

Johana´s little girl, Anjelie, was a real mix of emotions all day long. She´d go from being really happy and laughing to screaming and crying. Sometimes it wasn´t even clear what she was all upset about, she´d just burst into tears. She´s a really odd little girl, none of us understand her. She´s very doll like, in her size and features, but mostly in the cold, unwavering stare that she normally gives. She´s shy, but not a run away shy, more of a i won´t show you any emotion kind of shy. I remember one day she was under a chair playing, i bent down to make silly faces at her and she just looked at me blankly. She didn´t move, she didn´t blink, just constant emotionless eye contact. It wasn´t until i left the room that she started crying. I´ve decided that she and i are going to be friends, which is actually coming along pretty well- i got her dancing one day, and she now lets me pick her up and tickle her. If i´m successful, i´m pretty sure i´ll be able to befriend any small child.

The second thing that we were all supposed to have for the festivities was a secret santa gift. Palo and i thought this meant it would be a total secret who the gifts came from, lending both of us a false sense of security in our supposed anonymity.

Anneliese and Erin got, respectively, lacy underwear with an awesome "flight of the conchords" inspired card (a funny new zealander acting/singing group) and then a Canada patch, fake rose, and cartoon super hero mask.

Carlos got a nice polo shirt. While Johana got a really cute heart crown (there was also one for Anjelie- who erupted again when it was attempted to be put on her head) I´m sorry to say i don´t have any pictures of this awesome pair of crowns.

I got a really awesome gift, probablly the nicest one in the whole group. Carlos gave me a sweet hand knit bracelet and belt. The belt won´t fit any of my north american pants, but i think its supposed to be more decorative anyway. They are amazing gifts, i really like them. In fact, i like them so much i put them away almost immediately. (So they won´t get dirty in the shop).
If you´re wondering why i´m laughing above its because when i unwrapped the present, it was acutally a box of head and shoulders. To explain, i haven´t showered in... a while. My hair at this point can stand up straight, it even gets a funny elvis curl in the front. Clearly, i take water conservation very seriously.

Okay best for last. Or maybe worst. Here goes.

I took the secret santa thing literally. And was really hoping i wouldn´t have to own up to this one- it would have been a lot funnier when it could have been from any of us. But, in any event, i bought Chris some condoms- valentines day, get lucky, ha ha. But the funnier part was that there are these ridiculous Brahva Beer posters everywhere (i mean everywhere). They have these plastic american-looking women on them showing way too much skin. We happened to have one of these in the building, and i took the liberty to abscond with it and transform it into a box. Emphasis on the plastic.

I added the santa, mostly for its creep value, but also in the spirit of the gift giving. If you can´t read what he´s saying its, actually, if you can´t read it, i´m not going to write it out again.

It was funnier for everyone else than Palo and me (Carlos thought it was soooooo funny), frankly i think we were both a little embarassed. But he took it like a champ.

Edison was wrong

2009-02-11T17:31:00.004-06:00

Inventing is actually 20 percent inspiration and 80 percent frustration. So far there`s been no sweating involved.

I came back to my perpetual project of trying to get grounds from the back of a bike, adding this time a smaller wheel. The first challenge was trying to find a new inner tube for a 12" wheel. None to be found in the shop, but there was a 14". At first i thouhgt that i would cut it down, glue it back together and be set. Palo thought this was a bad idea- just stuff it, he said, carefully.

I tried to wriggle the tube into the wheel, it really didn`t fit, it was full of kinks and i was positive they would keep it from inflating. I was wrong. It blew up perfectly.

One thing to keep in mind when doing this is that the tube may want to slip out and get pinched between the rim and the tire, and this, in Palo`s put-on gringo drawl, "no es bhwehno."

The way to avoid it is put the tube in, tire on, and "massage" the tire back and forth perpindicular to the rim. Like you would your lover`s feet.

The next challenge was that the hub and all of its accoutrements did not fit into the fork. Oy.

I really just wanted to replace a single nut on the bolt, but in the process of its removal i discovered some other problems with the innards and went for a full dismantle. When finally cleaned and re-greased i attempted to put it back together. I hadn`t been that careful about noting its postions, but so far these things are fairly straightforward- pieces that look like they fit together do. However, this was not the case this time. Several attempts and variations on construction proved futile. Finally i put the thing together minus two particular pieces, it spun beautifully, i couldn`t even tell the difference. I was about to go forward and i thought, no, do it right. You need to learn how this stuff actually works. So i waited for Palo, who turned out to be Carlos.

"Da me cinco cervezas!" joked Carlos, laughing in his gotcha kind of way. (translation- give me five beers) Carlos took what i had struggled with for over a half an hour and put it together in a way that it just worked. Of course it all looked very easy and straightforward under his hands. Honestly, i don`t know if i can even recreate what he did, but it was good to know that it was possible. And knowing is half the battle.

Once back together with a smaller nut, i stuck the wheel onto the fork- it fit perfectly. I tried to spin the chain onto the gear, but it wouldn`t. The gear which i had mistaken for fixed, was most definitely not. I`ll weld it. Done.

Back to the bike, try to spin the chain on, won`t go. So so tight. What is going on? I`ve got my concentration on the wheel, where the problem was not. When i look up its staring me right in the face. The wonky chain ring attachment that never looked quite right now looks very wrong.

At this point i acknowledged my 80 perecent frustration level and left it for the night. Really i`ll leave it for a few nights. There`s more important stuff to do.

please excuse my fingers

2009-02-09T11:41:00.005-06:00

A couple days ago i was wandering down our street and i saw an open door with a man sewing inside. Palo had told me that he knew the local tailor and commisioned him to make a saddle bag. He also said he had an amazing porfolio of work that he had done in the states- vampire costumes or something. As a hobby tailor myself, i was really curious to see what he was up to.

The man that i met was Adelso, a very friendly man with about as much english as i have spanish. Turns out, he worked in Albany for a while, and Hudson too- places i´d been hanging out in only a few months earlier. Small world. (Courtesy of fossil fuels).

He had several singers floating around, one with a motor attached and this one totally foot-reliant. I got pretty excited about it and he offered to sell it to me. I would love to put money into the Guatemalan economy and Adelso could definitely use the money, i´m just not sure it makes sense to try to lug a singer all the way back to the states. I´m tempted though.

It turns out he is not the only tailor in town, there is also his brother Jose Luis. The two of them have worked in the states for a variety of companies. I get the sense that Jose Luis is the more adept of the two, it sounds like his US fashion-scene experience is significantly greater than his brother´s- though Adelso was very clear that he can do anything his brother can.

I flipped through the booklets of the places where Jose Luis worked, the stuff was really impressive. I haven´t seen anyhting that he´s actually made, but he claims that he can make, and has made, everything in the catalogs he showed me.

Here´s some of it-
This model reminds me a lot of my friend Alexa, She´s got some pretty sweet model shots i wish i could put up for comparison.

Apparently this model only looks good while scowling in her grandpa´s glasses.

And the crazy vampire stuff

Palo seemed to be particularly into this corporate vampire suit. I love the pale models they found for this catalog. I´d guess they are all actually into the whole vampire thing.

A Proposal

Jose Luis and Adelso are very interested in showing their designs to American companies. They asked me if i would be willing to do this for them, I told them that i don´t know any companies, but i can look for them while i´m in philly and see what i can come up with. I told them that i would post pictures of their designs on Flickr so that people could check them out, and that i´d be happy to try to facilitate some business deals. Here´s the website:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35218500@N03/sets/72157613528491101/

Their idea is to take these high end designs and use traditional Guatemalan fabrics to create them. It will be interesting to see how the designs translate with Guatemalan textiles. They told me they would make a few garments from each catalog and send them home with me. It sounds like a lot, but these are pretty motivated guys. I´m really excited to be helping them out.

project: wheel continued

2009-02-07T19:21:00.001-06:00

I believe when i last left off i had flipped the fork over, finished welding a new base onto it and the mill was even floppier than before. It kept falling off to the side (as you can see in above photo).

Well, i came back to it a couple of days ago with fresh eyes and tried to figure out what to change.

The first thing that i did was to switch the stem with pivot around, i hadn´t done this when i flipped the forks over. Considering that the angles of both the pivot joint and corresponding drilled holes in the neck of the fork were a little wonky, i thought it might make a difference. And it did. Though not perfect, it definitely stabilized some when i reattached the two pieces as Will made them.

It was sitting well enough that i thought i would give it a go. Palo was conviently wanting some coffee ground, so we killed two birds with one bike.

It was a little too loose at first, Carlos showed me how to tighten it and voila, Palo had delicious freshly ground coffee.

The next logical step was get the whole unit sitting lower. Although effective, it was a little ridiculous to pedal the bike by hand. Lowering the seat would allow me, and your average Guatemalan, to use leg power- a more powerful and ergonomical arrangement.

I think i mentioned it in a previous post, but if i didn´t, my first thought to get the whole unit sitting lower was to ditch the wheel, but keep the hub (the hub being the epicenter of the wheel where the spokes all attach and the axle is). My plan was to wrap the hub in rubber so that it would function like the liquadora.

The first thing to do was pop off the wheel. Next i had to remove the tire and inner tube. The air had to be let out of the tube, and then i used these little pry things to convince the tire off. I think they are called tire levers, or leveragers? Is leverager is a word. I don´t think so, but we can pretend it is.

And separated like so...

Then the spokes had to be removed using this thing- called a spoke key in spanish, i think spoke driver in english. The key is used to unscrew the spoke nipples, yes, nipples. The nipples are reverse threaded, or another way to think of it is that they are correct threaded if you view them from the inside of the rim. Like this:

Once removed, the hub looks like this. The box its sitting on top of is the nipple bin. That´s where all the nipples go, courtesy of Anneliese´s awesome organizing around the shop.

I took all of the spokes out, tedious for sure, but not nearly as tedious as removing one when the rest are still attached to the rim.

Then, just for fun, i put the hub back on to see how much lower it would be.

Pretty big difference. The seat could now sit where it should.

Seeing the hub like this gave me a thought about the rubber. What if the rubber were shaped to conform to the wheel? It would increase the surface area, and therefore pull, and it would also serve just to keep the darn thing from falling off to the side.

On the roof there is this big tractor tire, Carlos uses it for exactly this type of thing. He was fine to have us cut into, just be mindful of the metal (i didn´t know tires have metal mesh in them). We cut from the side, since it seemed to be the place with the least metal. (oh, i´m saying we and us becuase Erin has joined me at this point).

However one poor go with the drill was enough to convince Erin that there were better things to do. (She broke Carlos´homemade hole saw) I suggested she try again with a different strategy, it wasn´t her fault the bit broke, it was weak and would have happened to either one of us. But she had her power tool fill for the day. There goes we.

I cut out several circles and ground them to a flatter state. I then drilled small holes in the center of them and cut them apart so they would wrap around the hub (leatherman strikes again!)

Once on the hub they looked like this:

Alas, they didn´t work. They were just spinning in place, not moving the hub at all. They needed to be attached, and in a flash i had the perfect idea! The hub, needing to hold spokes, is lined with holes. Why don´t i drill holes through the rubber and tie wires through? That´ll do it for sure.

Well, drilling accurate holes in the rubber was pretty difficult. Really it just didn´t work at all. So in a Carlos-esque move i thought, why don´t i get a sharpened spoke red hot and just jam it through the rubber? (Something OSHA never would approve) (they never approve the fun stuff)

So i did.

In a word- awesome. Okay, two words- awesome & ineffective.

I took the whole thing mostly apart, ground down some spokes and got to it.

After way too much time of not being able to get the molten spears from one end to the other i began to consider other options. Also the stench was probablly getting to the others in the kitchen, "you´re wasting gas" they told me. Yeah yeah, you just don´t like my tire stink. Weirdo.

It took me some time, but eventually i figured out that the holes don´t actually line up. They are slightly angled from one another. Also to get the spear through it also had to hit the right height. There was enough play in the whole system that it would be pretty difficult to actually poke it in one end and get it to come out the other. To compound this, i could only come from one side as the welded-on gear was most definitely in the way. (I tried to make a right angle spear to get around this, to no avail).

Once the novelty of the crazy plumes of rubber smoke, which seemed to stick to the hub like magnents ( so cool, you gotta try it), i decided that this method wasn´t going to work. At least not without consulting the maestro. I tried to melt the rubber onto the hub some, and to a degree to the other pieces. It seemed like it worked, but a test run proved otherwise.

I reattached all of the parts to the hub, then used the metal grinder to carve out the shape of the wheel. On the bike it looked like so:

Okay, so what else can we grind? Cocoa beans!

And in action, here it is:

The mill, couldn´t be too tight (as tight as it need to be for a good grind) or it simply wouldn´t work. It functioned, but poorly. Its funny, in the video you see the chain hopping all around- turns out it wasn´t even on the gear but it still worked- i have no idea how.

Tightening up the mill would wreck the rubber set up.

And also, the chain kept getting strangely stuck. Upon examination i found that it was popping off of the chain ring on the mill and getting caught between the ring and the barriers on it. Fixing this involved some fine tuning with a wrench. The walls couldn´t be too tight or they would totally constrict the flow of the chain, but they couldn´t be too loose or the chain would fall off and get caught.

Once i got this all settled it, the rubber was still a problem. Yarrgh! If only my pyromaniacal scheme had worked.

A few days earlier i had spotted a little tire, probablly the tiniest in thewhole mess of bikes. It would be a middle ground between the rubber covered hub and the original wheel, probablly requiring the seat to come back up some. I´ll give it a go, but its already ripe with new challenges, namely that ther are no inner tubes its size- i´ll have to construct one manually.

I may just scrap the whole tire, rubber bit entirely. Plan C is already stewing in my mind, though i don´t think its a design a north americans will like. Yet.

The new tire compared to the previous one.

a late night dash to the middle of nowhere

2009-02-05T13:55:00.007-06:00

At 11:30 am yesterday, Palo (or Chris), comes huffing up to the interent cafe. "Carlos says we´re leaving right now for San Marcos" "Right now?" "Yes, right now." I close my session and we both scuttle up to the shop.

Sure enough, as we arrive the first big cement hunk of the bici-bomba is being loaded into a white truck. We jump in and get the rest settled.

Without enough room in the cab, three of us are puzzle pieced into the assortment of objects occupying the truck bed. Chris seems to have a better sense of what´s going on, here´s what i find out:

1. We´re going to San Marcos, neither of us know where that is, but its apparently 6 hours away.

2. We´re going there to set up the bici-bomba (bike water pump) and we´ll be staying over night, probally installing early in the morning.

3. After the installation Carlos, Palo and I will get on a bus and do the six hours back.

4. Palo doesn´t think they are going to want to stop for lunch. Supposedly we´re already late.

So we bump our way out of town, Palo and i are pretty stoked to be riding Guatemalan style, the view is beautiful and the fresh air feels great. Its also alot more social as everyone wants to wave to you, and well, we wanted to wave to everyone.

Despite the beautiful sunny day, the wind didn´t take to long to trick us into thinking it wasn´t quite so beauftiful after all. We got pretty cold pretty fast. Luckily i happened to have a pair of work gloves in my pocket and Palo lent me his sweet dreadlock soaked ski mask, which actually wasn´t smelly at all and was so so wonderfully warm.

Though after while even the gloves and mask weren´t doing it. We didn´t have much of a choice til fate intervened. At some point a couple hours into the trip traffic just stopped. To us gringos it wasn´t entirely apparent what was going on, but we soon found out it was construction. You know in the states when the neon-green reflector suited men stand in the middle of the road with their revolving Stop/Slow signs? We got caught in the Guatemalan equivalent. Instead of waiting for six and a half minutes, we waited for over a half hour. Great chance to pee. Great chance to watch Grey´s Anatomy.

Actually i´m not giving it enough credit. It was far more enjoyable than it would have been in the states, everyone expected a long wait and turned off their cars. People got out and socialized, and of course, there were vendors galore. I bought gum, which turned out to be an excellent investment for the trip.

Oh, but i digress, what i meant to say was that i pulled out a long sleeve shirt that i had stuffed in my sleeping bag, and Carlos lent me his sweater on top of that. "Now i´m golden" i thought. A few more hours convinced me otherwise. Our next pee break provided the opportunity to pull out the last stop- i wrapped myself in my sleeping bag. And it was glorious. I even fell asleep.

Pretty much when i woke up we were on our last leg of the trip, off the highway and onto a very windy, very dusty, jostling, heart-burn inducing road. At this point Palo and i were past hour number five. The other guy with us in the back had moved into the cab, and who knows where the other guy went? (Palo says he hopped on a motorcyle at one of our pee breaks...) He and i decided that pretty much any other form of transport would feel luxurious in comparison. Yes, even the tightly packed chicken bus would be a step up. We were ready for our home-made roller coaster ride to be over.

By dark we pulled into a small farm off of the country road. Having stopped several times before we weren´t convinced this was it, but a "baja" from Carlos said that it was. We start pulling stuff out and Carlos, known for his joking, says, "he wants us to set this up tonight." Haha Carlos, thats a real knee slapper right there.

He wasn´t joking. We carried the cement blocks down a small hill, through a bunch of brush and to an old fashioned stone well. The roof over top fit the locals, but I, and Palo especially, defintely didn´t fit. Before long we were ripping it off, not becuase Palo is the tallest person currently in Guatemala, but because the pump needed the overhead space.

The owner´s sons (and sons´friends?) pulled out two wooden stakes along side of the well and flattened the surrounding earth to make room for the bike piece of the pump. Once ready we slid the cement into place. Next we put the corresponding cement piece on top of the well. Carlos seemed skeptical about the angles, but we moved forward (usually the pump and bike are level with one another).

Meanwhile Carlos is untangling the rope and beads, and the owner is measuring the distance to the bottom of the well. He checks his length against Carlos´PVC that he brought, and there is more than enough. The PVC is cut and the rope fed through it.

Next the flywheel (the tire pieces cemented together) is attached to the pump section and the chains are installed between bike, flywheel and flywheel holder. The pump is assembled in pieces and slowly put into place. Everyone is working on something, so most things are simulataneous and a little hard to keep track of. Eventually all of the piping is installed and Carlos begins to feed the rope and beads through the system. When he gets to the end of the line he ties it off to itself, and we spend some time biking it and testing its taughtness. It needs to be cut and re-tied several times. (Any excuse to pull out my leatherman is a good one.)

The line of the rope was confusing to me at first, and honestly looked like it was going to catch on its itself in a few spots. But Carlos knows his stuff, it worked great. Toward the top excess water spitted onto curious onlookers, but it was nothing compared with the thick flow pouring out into a 55 gallon drum several feet away. I was designated official pedaler for the evening and i was surprised to find how little effort it took. The pace was somewhat awkward (because the beads do stick a little bit) but otherwise it greatly simplfied their former one-pail-at-a-time operation. And, beyond construction and transportation, with absolutely no fossil fuels. Just feet.

Not to long after our installation, or maybe it was in the middle of it, Carlos announces that we are going to catch a 2:00 am bus, no es broma he says (not a joke). With his constant barrage of jokes we´re not sure what to expect. I think this is part of his plan.

We finish up and Carlos says, okay ready to go? We are going to walk for three hours to the bus stop and then get on the 2:00 am bus. We start walking joined by one of the owner´s sons (or sons friends, its really not clear). The long night aside, the moment is beautiful. Without any light pollution we are greeted by a crystalline sky. Though we have flashlights, the moon is more than bright enough to light our way. Silent and cool the night is inviting and fresh like springtime in the states. On dirt road and foot path we make our way through the quiet hills.

Carlos insisted I take this picture even though i told him it wouldn´t turn out well. These are the only lights in the area, a mining operation on the other side of the valley.

45 minutes later we walk into dowtown San Marcos, a town about an eighth the size of Itzapa. This is where we are to catch the bus. I´m glad he was joking about the three hours of walking. I´m glad he also, as it turned out, was joking about the 2:00 am bus, though we did catch a bus right before day break. The guy who was with us, Hector i think, he had some sort of quasi-apartment, which was really more like a dorm room. No kitchen, no bath. Not really sure how that works. It was awesome of him to put us up and to be our guide. Though i´m conviced Carlos is secretly James Bond and could have gotten us back entirely on his own.

After many more hours of sleeping poorly through three separate bus rides, we finally did make it back to Itzapa. Carlos told us to take the day off. Which was kind of funny considering how few bikes we actually service on a daily basis. Really, he needed the day off and he deserves it. Carlos works really hard.

The bici-bomba

2009-02-03T18:56:00.006-06:00

For as long as i´ve been here there has been, what i thought was a broken, bici-bomba (bicycle-water pump) sitting off in a dark corner of the shop. Yesterday we pulled it out and started making new parts for it.

First, Anneliese and i dragged these two heavy pieces out into the light to clean them off.

Then Carlos instructed me to use my knife to cut the sides off of two tires. Erin walked by while i was doing it and asked to join in. The next part, Carlos showed me, was to clamp the pieces together, drill holes in them and then use wire to tie the two pieces together.

When i went out to decorate the town, Erin took over

Meanwhile, Palo, or Chris, looked for the perfect bike wheel to fit inbetween the tire pieces. He found one and later wired it to the inside of the tires.

Fast forward through the evening and we pick up this morning with Carlos mixing cement in the road. Its an interesting process to watch, he pours a mound of cement mix then depresses a cavity in the center. In the cavity he pours water and then skillfully directs the water through all of the mix with a flat shovel.

Once the cement was mixed Carlos shoveled it into the reconstructed-tire-bike-wheel. The wheel was sitting a top a flat board with a hole drilled out (for the axel to poke through and remain un-cemented).

Next Palo twisted some thick metal wire around a piece of PVC, which will evidently hold the PVC in some way. Carlos welded the metal rings that Palo made to two pieces of rebar and then fit them onto the PVC. He then fiddled around with them in relation to a much larger piece, then left them there, standing up and calling it a day.

I believe that the way that the bici-bomba will work is by pulling a long string with a series of wooden beads on it. The beads are forced under ground into the water source, then pulled back up through a narrow pipe. In this way each bead acts as a shelf for a small amount of water, and in total it can lift a fair amount over time. The picture at the very top of my blog, where the title and other pictures are, of a man on a bike, that one, that is the bici-bomba in action. It looks like a pretty exciting device- we are all really looking forward to getting it installed and functioning.

Today in the shop, we were unusally busy. Lots of folks came in looking to have their bikes fixed, and all of this in addition to the bomba work. It was good learning all around. I was very excited to work on my very first bike, as opposed to shadowing someone while they worked. Though i did need Palo and Anneliese to explain a few things and lend a hand every so often. The problem was that his crank arms were flopping around (the parts where the pedals meet the body of the bike). I took the crank arms off and the bottom bracket apart, it really needed some cleaning and replacing of a few key parts. We tightened it up and it spun beautifully. Mission success!

Anneliese got to work on a sweet old Schwinn, complete with bike powered head light and spedometer! It was a beautiful, albeit rusty, piece of machinery. We all spent some time oggling at it.

Anneliese removing the seized chain via gigantor bolt cutters!

To clean the replacement chain, Anneliese opted to use the fire trick.

almost in big trouble

2009-02-02T18:17:00.003-06:00

So combining photo documentation with a late night work project turned out to be a bad idea. Allow me to set the stage.

I wake up normal time, come down, eat, and get cleaning. The board is coming in for their monthly meeting and we´re trying to spruce the place up.

Johanna is cleaning in the main work room, Chris is there working on a bike. Anneliese and I get started on cleaning off a bici-bomba (a bike powered water pump) and we´re both pretty excited to be getting a chance to work on a maquina.

We get called off to join the board meeting and introduce ourselves, all good and fine, then we go back to our work.

I think to myself "i really need to be photo-documenting this," especially once Carlos asked me to start cutting apart tires. I go upstairs to look for my camera. Not there. I come back downstairs, ask around, no one has seen it. Come to think of it my technical-drawings book is missing too... I go back upstairs, dig through everything. Still not there.

I talk to Johanna, she asks where i left it. "On top of that big barrel last night, i forgot it and left it there with my book and sweatshirt and bottle." "Don´t you remember your bottle and shirt were there this morning?" "You´re right." Crap.

Everyone assures me they have to be around, the camera makes sense, but the book too? You must have misplaced them. Its logical, especially since everyone was up and about and no one saw anything. But my gut tells me its wrong.

I listlessly go back to making the piece that Carlos asked me too, but i didn´t get too far before i had to stop. An plan came to me, one that would need to be implemented immediately, it seemed like my best shot.

I sat down with my dictionary and drew out a missing poster, complete with a reward- 1000 quetzales, or $150 dollars- a huge sum to any local. I drew pictures of the missing book and camera, said that they were very important and that they should be returned to Sr. Matthew at Maya Pedal.

Most likely the theif was most likely looking to sell the camera, and i was, in effect, lining up to be the first buyer (and with the best price). I figured i didnt have much time so i rushed down to the copy store with my original and printed up a hundred. I then spent the next couple of hours hanging posters all arounf the town square, main roads and MP´s street.

Part of my logic was that a gringo hanging reward signs would garner enough attention to word-of-mouth it back to the theif. And as i expected everyhwere i put up a poster plenty of people crowded around to ask questions and express their sympathies. Cuidado they´d say. One guy even came up and mumbled a bunch of stuff about god and the devil. I think he was trying to tell me a parable, but he also seemed a little crazy so i´m not really sure.

Some folks suggested that i use the announcer, a modern equivalent of the town crier. The announcer drives slowly allllllll over town, even out into the country side, making announcements and for eighty Q you can get on his list. I was kindly led to his garage, but (thankfully) he was on lunch. I realized i was hungry and headed home, hanging posters all the while.

As i approached Maya Pedal a woman stood outside of the door. I knew immediately. I greeted her as i approached and she went for her bag. "Is this what you´re looking for?" I felt a lot like Dorothy Gale in Return to Oz (the sequel, which is excellent by the way) when she faces the Gnome King and he slides his stone robe aside to display her vibrant ruby slippers "Are these what you came looking for?"

I was faced with an interesting moral dillema, and unlike Dorothy i didn´t have to poison this woman and burn down her house to get my stuff back, she just handed it over. To test her i asked how she came across them, she replied "I found them on the ground." My conscience wavered, but my anger got the best of me. I thanked her for returning them, i truly was grateful, but i also made no offer to give her any reward. And her conscience didn´t allow her to ask for one, considering she had already lied to me. (It also didn´t seem like a good precedent to set- steal the gringos stuff, get lots of money!)

It seemed pretty clear that her kid had lifted it and she, the least offensive figure, brought it back, in part because she felt bad, but mostly because she thought she´d get paid. I didn´t like lying, and this is the first time since i was a little kid that i can remember blatantly doing so. But in the moment i couldn´t justify shelling out a bundle of money to someone who just robbed me. It seemed pretty unjust. Though i´m feeling lots of things other than anger: relief, guilt, sympathy, insecurity, and surreality. Though my journal of drawings and camera are back in my hands it feels fake, like i´m holding a ghost, or i´m just dreaming.

Much like my sickness was a jolting wake up call to be more careful with my health, this was one to be more careful with my stuff. Clearly the universe is trying to tell me something.

reconfiguring project: wheel

2009-02-02T17:16:00.004-06:00

When Will constructed his prototype for a detachable grain mill, there were a few unforseen technical challenges that came up. Yesterday i decided to get started on one of them.

Because of the way the wheel needed to spin (pre Will welding the cog to it) the grain mill had to be placed accordingly off to one side, throwing off the balance of the bike. Though not a huge problem, i thought it might be the simplest place to start. Will suggested that, since welded, the wheel could be flipped around and the grinder put more centrally. While i was at it, i decided that i would flip the fork around and use the other side, envisioning a possible future swapping of the wheel for the much smaller rubber hub-covering (mentioned in the previous post).

You can see here the fork is flipped over and i´ve welded two new pieces of rebar to the fresh side.

Here it is with the new base welded on. And below a close up of the weld- you can see i´m pretty new at this.

Since i was welding a whole new set up any way i decided to move the base structure that i was attaching much closer to the wheel. I roughly marked it, and came a hair too close. The rebar and a little of the new platform had to be grinded off. No problemo.

(What was really interesting, was that when i finally attached it to the bike, the mill was closer to the bike seat than it had been before, weird.)

So with the new base put on, i tried attaching the mill to see how things looked. It appeared at first that everything was fine. So I tried putting on the chain. Doesn´t fit. What? Why wouldn´t it fit, its closer, if anything it should be looser, not tighter. So i broke the chain, with this nifty little device that pops out the pin between chains- lets call it a chainbreaker. It took me a few times of adding and subtracting to get the right number of links, and the breaker was harder to use than it looked, though definitely easier than trying to pop them out with a thin wire and a hammer(what i was doing when i decided there must be a special tool for this).

Once i got the chain on it became pretty clear that the mill was too central, as the chain was rubbing pretty hard on the fork, and needed to go back toward the right. The problem with this is that it would place the underside of the mill directly above the tong of the fork, meaning the bolts would no longer fit underneath. I decided the best thing to do would be to build a little table to raise it up.

I welded the table out of flat iron that was kicking around, cut off the the other base since it would be in the way and used it as a template to drill the holes for the new base. After welding the new base together i ground out, roughly, the shape of the tong it would sit on top of. This was to create more contact between the metal pieces and encourage a stronger weld. It worked pretty well and the mill sat exactly as it was supposed to.

However, when i attached the whole device it sat even more off-kilter than it had before. And further, when the bike pedaled it spun the device right off to the side wher it would fall with a thud and hang uselessly next to the wheel. I tried a few things, like loosening and changing the angle of the stem where it makes contact with the seat post, but nothing seemed to work. And at 11:00 pm i felt better prepared to tackle my pillow than this next challenge. So in a tired daze i wondered upstairs and fell right asleep.

exciting new projects!

2009-01-30T11:43:00.009-06:00

While i was supine, some interesting developments took place. Carlos finally did show, and augmented an existing corn masher to be run by bike. And Will began constructing a prototype of an add-on device he designed- titled "project: wheel"

I didn´t get to take too many shots of this while i was up, it was pretty quickly whisked away to a far off jungle. I´m not sure how it works, but the pedals spin the big fly wheel (which is just a bike wheel poured full of cement) and that turns something which grinds or mashes corn into a pulp useable for making tortillas. I wish i knew what all of the associated trays and containers do, but no one seemed to know, and Carlos was far to busy to explain.

Will´s design came out of a discussion we had with MP´s Volunteer Coordinator Rubin. We learned in this discussion that the bicimaquinas are not donated, as previously believed, but they are sold. Generally sold at a loss, but still too high for most to afford.

All of us came here to learn about bicimaquinas, to aid in their creation and donation to the masses. So this news was a good impetus to get thinking of ways to reduce costs, increase revenue, and encourage monetary and bicycle donations.

Will, a mechanical engineer by training, almost immediately began designing a grain mill model that could be connected to an existing bike. His design would reduced the need for materials, save labor time, and was simple enough that any of the volunteers (i.e. free labor) could produce them. Its small size makes it portable, and inexpensively mailed, thus extending the range of places it gan go within the country. Its immediate downsides would be that you can´t see or reach what you´re grinding, necessitating another person for the most efficient grinding possible. Also, without the fly wheel, it has less power and may not grind as well (Will didn´t seem to think so though).

It didn´t take him too long to mock up a prototype. It worked almost exactly as he envisioned. The small wheel you see is attached to a bike fork, the part that holds the front wheel of a bicycle. The fork is hinged to a stem (?) the part that hold the handle bars to the rest of the bike. The stem can then be attached with screws to the seat post, as you see below.

Because of the inherent friction of the rubber, the two bike wheels act like cogs which turn the chain and spin the grinder.

The grain mill is clamped to two pieces of rebar which are welded onto the top of the fork. The mill can be removed and a corn de-kerneler can be swapped into its place. Presumably other similarly sized devices could as well. The strap you see in the above picture is to increase the pressure between the two wheels to ensure solid contact. Also, the back axel needs to be propped up in order to keep yourself from biking away.

There were, of course, a few unforseen problems with Will´s design. The first was that the chain cog, or whatever its called, wouldn´t necessarily spin with the wheel. Will welded it on. Problem solved.

The next was that the angle of the prototype required the seat to come way up, okay for 6 foot-something Will, but not for your average Guatemalan.

I dont know what Will´s thouhgts are on how to fix this, but i thought perhaps a longer stem, also one that´s angled slightly up, in addition to one or two more pivot points, would allow the device to slip under the seat at a comfortable height, or any height, and it would conform a little more naturally to the shape of the bike. It would also get the gear of the mill a little further away from the bike seat.

Another problem was that the angle of the fork wasn´t quite right, and the whole thing sat slightly askew. Still workable, but less efficient and definitely not as nice to look at. I suggested to Will that perhaps during the construction of the model, that the stem have welded to it a threaded piece (threaded as in a screw). The fork could have welded to it the corresponding threaded piece and the two could be manually twisted into place until perfectly alligned and then tack welded right there (tack weld being a quick holding weld, to make due until you do a real weld). Will thought this was a good idea and could simplify getting the angles right, especially for less skilled workers.

Will commented that the wheel was too large, a smaller one would be better- more rotations per minute. I suggested that the wheel could be stripped entirely and the hub covered in rubber just like the liquadora (from a previous post). That would increase the RPM dramatically. But Will thought too dramatically.

Its a great start. I´m really excited by Will´s design, i think he´s really onto something. It will be awesome to keep working on it and see how it can be improved and implemented.

Roosters are my new worst friend

2009-01-30T11:17:00.003-06:00

I have a loose list of things that i strongly dislike, Roosters, have recently been put at the top of that list.

The awful noise that they make is terrible at any time of the day. But of course, they choose the most innopportune times to make those noises. Namely 1 AM and around 4-5 AM. The worst part being the viral spread of their screams.

It only takes one rooster, one stupid awful rooster, to decide its time to make a fuss, then suddenly a mitosis of crowing begins. Before you know it, one has multiplied itself into 300 and roused all the neghboring dogs as well.

This cacophonous call and response can erupt at any time, last for any length, and end just as abruptly. And all for reasons our human senses could never perceive.

The worst, however, is actually the occasional addition to the chorus of a pig being slaughtered. Its only happened once, but i could almost swear that satan was squealing outside of the door, producing the most piercing, unnerving sound i´ve ever heard in my life. The dogs and roosters at this point make up the chorus of the damned, moaning horribly in the background of this aural hell.

I´ve decided to build myself a cave of wool felt. And foam egg crates.

Oh, and here´s the list:

1. roosters
2. hiccups
3. cobwebs in my face
4. sudden stops in the car
5. American Exceptionalism
6. being put on the spot
7. the way that Anime characters squint their eyes and their mouths get big enough to swallow a boat, while being incredibly whiny at the same time
8. choppy cell phone calls
9. dentists drills- even just the sound
10. amoebas

blehhk

2009-01-28T11:02:00.003-06:00

Several succesful gambles at eating street food led to one that wasn´t.

I´ve been pretty sick for the last couple of days, but i´m coming out of it now. Not many pictures taken, but would you really want to see them anyway?

For any first time travelers out there, the street food isn´t worth the hassle. I thought it was, mostly because i was winning my gambles. But on the other end i wish i had been more careful.

Not the end of the world, just exhausting and gross.

Many many thanks to everyone for all of the support, advice, meals, and general care- you guys are amazing.

Women for Development in Action

2009-01-26T18:37:00.005-06:00

This morning I had to make a tough call, that turned out not to be so tough. Supposedly Carlos was going to work on a machine, a rare opportunity to learn from the maestro. The other option was to go see Las Mujeres de Desarrollo en Acción.
From Maya Pedal´s website:

This local women's collective produces 100% organic aloe shampoo from plants they grow in their own homes, using the bicycle blender. The sale of this shampoo helps support their families and fund their independently-run municipal reforestation project.

The choice to go becamse clear when Johanna told me that this wasn´t a happening that i could just go stop in on any time, it was a once-during-my-trip opportunity. Plus Carlos probably wasn´t going to show.

Johanna led us on foot to the women´s meeting place, just a few minutes from Maya Pedal.
Once there we were warmly greeted by several women and a host of lively children. We were immediately put to work and told that if we were taking pictures we weren´t working. Well... i guess that´s that.

The cameras had to wait til later, but once they emerged this is what they captured.

The aloe spears have to be cut down the sides, the the front and back skins cut off. The snotty fish-like interiors removed and put into a separate container. To call them snotty is really and understatement. Imagine your most snot-filled moment. Multiply it by ten. Then imagine your hands in that moment for hours.

After removing the skins from the flesh, it had to be blended to a smooth pulp. We took turns using the liquadora, which was satisfying, but tiring, for those who tried it. Their version was slightly different from the one in the shop, namely that its base was hand carved as opposed to manufactured. The women´s duaghter made a pretty spectacular effort at the blending, and, well everything for that matter. Clearly, work is the name of the game.

It was disallusioning to see the women pull out an electric blender to work simulataneously, primarily really, to complete this stage of the process.

Once blended, the goo ha to be boiled for a while in a large black cauldron ala the wizard of oz. From there it is strained and allowed to cool some. When its ready its added to 5 kilos of a store bought petro-chemical soap, this was more dissapointing than the blender to most. But as Chris put it, "That´s just real life."

The kids were really a blast, we all had a lot of fun chasing them around and playing games. They thought we were the most intersting things they had ever seen. They intrduced themselves several times and wanted to show us everything. At some point they grabbed a hold of Will´s camera and took a slew of photos, this was the moment that it suddenly became okay for the cameras to be out.

We had a ton of fun, the aloe was both disgusting and wonderful at the same time. It really did resemble pure mucus in touch and sight, but there was something about it (taste?) that made it feel refreshing and beautiful, like cucumbers or swimming on a hot day.

Anna Lisa was all about getting the stuff in her hair. She said it felt like something had been birthed on her head.

At the end of it all, the women made a delicious lunch for us. I said i didn´t feel so sure about eating it knowing that they had probablly not prepared things the way that we would for our lack of immunity. Nina made a good point that it wiould have been pretty rude to not eat it, seeing her point i decided not to rock the boat. The food was great- spicy bean soup with homemade tortillas, an excellent vinegar salad, and the best lemonade i´ve ever had. I´m glad i didn´t skip out, and so far so good.

Tomorrow we head back to buy some of the freshly made shampoo. About half of the crew stayed on for while to help with the dishes and work on the bottling. It was good to see the liquadora being put to good use (instead of us just making smoothies for fun). It was also really good to know that these terrific women, doing terrific work, could continue to do that work, if they chose to, with very little fossil fuels. And hopefully, some day it might make sense for them to hook up with a local soap-making group, or perhaps make their own.

Public safety? Uh, not so much. (A town covered in people Day 2)

2009-01-26T16:17:00.007-06:00

Sunday was the second day of the festivities and it was based primarily at night. Though there dind´t seem to be anything happening everyone was packed into the town square, to the side of which there was a stage. And almost as if to answer the crowd´s desires there came a huge burst of flame, followed by Oooo´s and Aaaa´s and some applause. At first i thought it was some sort of pyrotechnics, because just before it happened someone began riling the crowd over the loudspeakers. Curious to see what they had cooked up I stood on higher ground to get a glimpse. About then the words of the announcer shifted, though his tenor remained strangely the same, he said "Be afraid, be afraid, get back, don´t come closer." Which then turned to "Firefighters, has anyone seen the firefighters? Please call the firefighters. Someone call them" The audience began to laugh, and there were some mocking calls for the firefighters from a couple of wise guys.

Turns out, a popcorn machine exploded, right in the middle of the crowd. No one appeared to be hurt, and everyone was totally enthralled (myself included).

Some poor guy ran up to spray it with an extinguisher, which was really quite brave, but when it sputtered the crowd laughed uncontrollably. To them this whole event was fantasticly entertaining, an unexpected addition to the night´s roster.

Then someone came up and poured a big bucket of water on the fire. Not a good idea if its grease. Not only did it not put out the flames, it channeled the flaming grease in a burning river right towards the crowd. At this point, people starting moving away, though most still remained relatively unfazed.

It was at this point that i decided i had had enough of the excitement. In part becuase of the flaming river, but more because it clued me in that the grease had caught, meaning that the gas generator was next and probablly soon. Basically a bomb.

Despite a twisted ankle i got out of there pretty fast (i´ll come back to the ankle in a later post).

From there i made my way to the alfombra, or carpet, carefully laid hours earlier by Carlos, his family, and the Maya Pedal crew. The alfombra is laid out for the carrying of the virgin- a true processional chock full of interactive theater and dramatic- and intentional- pyrotechnics.

The Virgin float, if its even appropriate to call it one, was not pulled, but carried on the shoulders of dozens of people. By far the nicest of the displays, it showed a scene of the virgin, surrounded by angels and cherubs, backed by her holy son. The whole thing was covered in lights, above and below, which required a generator to be carted behind it. The journey of the Virgin took many hours, purportedly going until midnight (i skipped out at ten). Its first stop was the carpet we made, essentially a path of woodchips and pine needles carefully laid out and adorn with colored wood pulp and flowers. The bearers of the Virgin gently destroyed the carpet we laid out (buddhist sand mandalas came to mind). And paused for a while simply to sway.

Some of the boys i´d met earlier during the making of the carpet were excited to have big kids around and wanted us to go with them during the processional. Past the carpet they led us through a back way to get an elevated view. I was suddenly part of the human mass covering the hills, porches and roof tops. What happened next was by far the highlight of the evening (other than the kamikaze popcorn machine).

The Virgin stopped around a bend and satan approached. (Actually, this part was pretty dull, its the next part that was awesome) A blue colored knight descended to fight satan. Jesus perhaps? Not sure. They had a token fight of touching swords and said a bunch of stuff that no one could really hear. Once satan, the man, was defeated satan, the bull, emerged- a much more interesting character than the dead pan sword tapping human version. Satan the bull did a wild dance up and down the street and suddenly burst into illuminated sprays, showering the onlookers with colorful sparks. His costume was covered in a series of tiers that would go off into sucession, growing all the more intense until a final climax. Everyone was in awe, it was an impressive spectacle and undoubtedly very difficult to pull off from a technical perspective.

The bull fought the Virgin several times, losing each time to the revered Guadelupe, and at one point he lost his costume. *To clarify, his costume was really a big structure he had to hold over his upper half, it consisted of a sheild roughly in the shape of a bull, with a bunch of protuding stems holding fireworks.* But losing the suit did not deter the dark knight, no, he picked it up sparks and all and put it right back on to keep going.

Every so often the marching band trailing the Virgin would start up and the bearers of the float would, in perfect time, take a few steps backwards, then forwards, then stop. Whether this rhythm was symbolic or practical wasn´t clear. The float must have weighed a ton, as it took about 40 people to carry it with great effort. The Virgin also made stops for several fireworks displays, some more grand than others. As well as a couple of roof top slap stick skits.

The first skit, which was very difficult to follow, but very funny to anyone who got it, had a few technical mishaps in the fashion of the evening. Several times during the skit fireworks were set off, presumably in time with a climatic moment. But twice the fireworks faltered, once falling off the roof and into the crowded street, where thankfully it did not exploded. And then again it flew sideways over heads, nearly missing an ecstatic audience. I was continually impressed by the fearlessness of this crowd- a fearlessness which made me very aware of the fearfulness of my own culture, and how this kind of event would have spelled lawsuits galore.

There were further low flying, low exploding fireworks throughout the night. A couple times the tail end of some brilliant explosion would rain down upon our heads. In fact, later in the night a firework bounced off of Anna Lisa´s head (which she thought was great!).

Misfirings included, it was a terrific festival and a wonderful introduction to Guatemalan culture. I´ve heard that Easter is twice as lively- too bad i won´t be here.

Beth and Chris, holding it down for the gringos

A town covered in people

2009-01-26T12:42:00.000-06:00

This past weekend was a whir of activity as the rest country, or so it seemed, poured into San Andreas Itzapa. The reason? The Virgin Mary. Every year Itzapa hosts the annual festival to celebrate the Virgin, and it just so happened to be my first weekend here.

Everywhere you looked there were vendors selling variations on the same few food items. To a lesser extent people brought crafts to sell, though they were pretty overwhelmed by thousands of rumbling bellies. I ventured to try some of the street food, despite warnings against it. I had some great breads, some of which were dunked in what tasted like honey tea. There were dried plantains, french fries, soft tacos, some sort of kielbasa with several sauces on a hot dog bun. There was also plenty of ice cream and toffees and dried fruit. Mmmmmmm.

I´m not sure what its called but it was pretty good and very difficult to eat. The ladies who sat next to me were trying very hard not to laugh as huge chunks of it fell unceremoniously onto my lap. One of them even produced a spoon for me to use.

The festival was akin to something i experienced at college called "hot dog day." Though the official celebration occured only between two days, the fireworks started much sooner (and are still going). The first really big day was Saturday, when the parade began.

Though dotted with some religious displays, the parade was, to a large extent, not exactly religiously themed- as you´ll see in some of the pictures of dancing teeth, creepy women, and phantoms of the opera.

Just about every troupe in the parade had their own sounds system, and in some cases live bands, which made for a very very noisy town full of competing sounds.

Some of the sound systems were a little more extreme than others. Tied to the machismo no doubt.

What was most interesting about the parade was that it was more like a processional. Even though the performers didn´t appear to be changing there routines at all, everyone kept a few steps ahead of them to watch as they traveresed just about every street and side street in town. People, and kids in particular, crammed onto every surface they could to get a glimpse of the excitement. A large part of the excitement, it seemed, was just the process of following the parade. (This was a fascinating difference in culture to observe- Americans adults would only need to see it once, to watch it again would be a waste of time)

*Note the kids up in the bell tower

And here are a couple of the floats pre-parade

A pig. Maybe.

And us, sharing a tub of ice cream. From left to right: Beth, Anna Lisa, me, Josh and Heather. It seems our photographer didn´t notice Will and Nina. Oh, and looking now, im digging the kid flexing right above my head. Will wanted to get a picture of my flip flops being shoe-shined, and the little guy above me (and all of his friends) was very excited to do so, they called out "muestra muestra!" Which i think means, "show, show!"

We looked around the town center for the flower from the night before, but it was nowhere to be found. Someone thought it was scheduled for Day 2, but we found out later that it happened that day and we all somehow missed it. And Day 2... well, day 2 really deserves its own post.

follow my blog!

2009-01-24T13:17:00.004-06:00

There have been some requests to clarify a few things:

Commenting-
Anyone can comment, you simply have to go to the bottom of a given post and click the word "comments" it should pop up a new window that you can write a comment in.

Following-
If you are on blogger (not sure if it works off of blogger) you can follow a blog and have it appear in your ´daily reading´ on your blogger account. This may also email posts, but i´m not sure about that.

Subscribing-
You can subscribe using an RSS feed, which is latin to me, but apparently it will email you the posts as they happen, or at least a notice that a post has been put up.

Hope that clarifies things,
Keep coming back and spread the word!

And the festivities begin

2009-01-24T11:50:00.000-06:00

Yesterday Carlos dissapeared after lunch, saying that he was going to go home and sleep until nine and then work all night. We thought he was kidding.

Sure enough, night time rolls around and in pops Carlos with his son and another assistant. The next few hours were the fastest i have ever seen Carlos work. I´ll try my best to describe what i saw.

The device he is working on, it turns out, doesn´t need to hold the weight of a human, and by its size probablly wont even have a human inside of it at any point. No, this will be the center piece of a wooden table/stage, which is what the dancer will actually stand on while dancing around the giant flower.

What you can see here is that there is a central post, which stays still, around which are five lengths of metal rebar passing through an old bike, um, a... shoot! i should know this word by now. Anyway, they are passing through the part that the bike chain wraps around on. The rebar is attached at the bottom to a tube length cut very small, maybe three inches, to fit around the stationary tube. All of the rebar are welded to a big ring that is welded to this moveable tube. The moveable tube then has a bolt on it which connects to a crank arm on a -again blanking on the name- big bike wheel full of cement with an axel and cogset attached. In hindsight, i should have taken more pictures.

Basically someone will sit and bike this weighty wheel, all of the power of which will force the rebar up and down, opening and closing the flower. The part at the top where the rebar passes through will act to guide the rebar up and allow it to fall open, creating the blooming effect. (It might make more sense to see it in action).

Needless to say, the whole thing took a lot of welding and, unfortunately, re-welding as Carlos worked through design flaws while building. (Dont worry, i had my eyes shut for this shot)

Here´s a part of the re-constructing as Carlos makes incisions to mark where to add additional welds to constrict the movement of the rebar at the base (they were getting stuck because they were too floppy).

Beth and I chop apart the rear end of a bike to serve for the pedalling part of this mechanical feat. Apparently my sawing skills are impressive as i got applause and request in spanish to show off my muscles.

Despite Carlos´request that we all come help, there were too many cooks in the kitchen. One by one we all made our way to the actual kitchen to journal and sit. Eventually sleep got the better of us and we all passed out. Though Beth, and i think Josh, stayed out there with Carlos until he was ready to go eat. I didn´t get to see how it happened, but the design changed yet again, this time it was the openings up top- they weren´t sized correctly for the proper range of motion.

You can see here the circle had to become a star. And the rebar was to rough to raise and lower smoothly, so it got covered in thin PVC piping.

Carlos, invited us all to come out for food and drink, but most declined, knowing it would lead to a much later night.

And a much later night it was.

At about 1:15 in the morning Carlos and his poor kid were back at it in the shop. I was awoken to the sound of welding and bright bursts of light zapping across my bedroom walls. I took what i thought was a stealthfully unseen shot, but i was wrong, Carlos´son saw me and smiled. It was as if his eyes said, Aha! i know your secret, but don´t worry i won´t tell anyone, because secrets are exciting!

I wasn´t sure if i should feel bad for him or not, at his age i probablly would have been really excited to stay up real late, especially if it meant getting to hang out with my dad.

It looks like the design may have changed yet again. Hopefully they got some sleep in there somewhere.

de-constructing the liquadora

2009-01-23T15:40:00.000-06:00

Being totally clueless about bike maintenance is turning out to be advantageous. The first reason is that it there is no redundancy, its all new, its all exciting, its all learning. The second, more important, reason is that the highly skilled handy-persons are constantly working on bikes, leaving only me free to work on other projects, i.e. the bicimaquinas.

As i discovered during our brainstorming session with Rubin, the volunteer coordinator, Maya Pedal is not particularly well run. Carlos and Johanna are amazing and sweet, but apparently they have very little business sense. And, unfortunately, the bicimaquinas are not donated to indigenous farmers as i had thought. They are sold a little over material cost (which means they lose about 1000 of their local currency on labor). It was dissapointing to learn this, though it provided a good impetus for us volunteers to begin envisioning cost saving measures. Will is beginning to work on a model that would require less materials and work and hook up to an existing bike, instead building it all. Its a very exciting design, and there will be more about it as he progresses.

Beth suggested that the liquadora could be an add on to the rear of an existing bicycle, sitting on top of a rear rack. This got me thinking and tinkering.

I decided that the best way to understand the liquadora, by far the simplest of the bicimaquinas, was to take it apart and rebuild it.
So I did.

Here you can see that the blender turns, not by a gear, but by the friction of a rubber cog against the rubber of the tire.

An upclose view of the parts.

How it connects up through to the blender

A little closer

Here is the main part with the rubber off.

And here it is broken down even further.

I could recognize some of what i was looking at, but i lacked the language to describe what i was seeing, Beth helped me there:

The big silver part standing up is a hub, it comes from the inside of the front wheel, its the place where all of the spokes meet in the center.

The long bolt is a rear hub bolt (there may be a different name for it that im blanking on) But basically this bolt comes from the inside of the rear wheel, and beacuse it is long enough to accomadate the cogset, or casette, it can handle the rubber piece needed for the blender.

The rest of it goes as follows, the two gunky looking rings are bearings housed inside of bearing cages. The object to the upper right of the rings is a cone, its what screws onto the bolt to hold the bearings in place. To the left there is the one removed nut (the other nut and cone are still on the bolt). And the rubber comes from old tractor tire.
I love how they use materials here

This bolt is deceptive. At first i thought the square end was part of it, but anyone who knows about bikes would catch that this cannot be. No, Carlos ground down the end into a near-perfect square to fit into the blender. Man, he is good.

I then took some time to clean up the pieces, using gasoline, which i love the smell of. Ironic, i know. And then i carefully regreased the whole thing and put it back together. Tightening it was tricky because each additional part that you put on changes the previous parts you just tightened. And you dont want it to be too tight, otherwise the thing wont spin, or at least not very well. Getting it just right involves some patient fine-tuning.

This is roughly what the placement would be of the part on a rear rack. Of course there´d be some sort of plywood or something, plus it would have to be touching the wheel to work, but this gives an idea of placement.

After i was finished, i put the liquidora back together completely. The cleaning and greasing seemed to help it run a little more smoothly. I joked with Carlos that i made it better because i am awesome, he gave me a look, and i admitted it was just the regreasing.

I asked Carlos about the possibility of me making one to work on a rear rack. He said that he had designed one before and that he´d be happy to help me. He´s pretty busy, what with the expanding flower for tomorrow´s village festival, but when things calm down a little he´ll show me how. Lets hope it fits in my carry-on.