Best worm box in Tejutla. Been working with this guy just about since i arrived. He started with a box for worms made out of boards. i told him he could have much higher production if he made a bigger box. he decided to do one out of block. it´s even got a poured concrete floor. i helped him make it. i told him that he has the best worm box in tejutla, he thought it was pretty exciting. good stuff.

here´s "my" volcano. right after work. climbed up on the roof of my house to take it.

it´s easy with sights like this

éxito

so i started working with a farmer about 3 months ago. he had problems with his chickens. they´re layer hens. they were not laying many eggs, he´s got 100, and he was only collecting about 7 per day.

i went to check out his farm. his barn was completely closed off. no sunlight was getting in, and did not have electricity going to the barn, so he couldn´t have a light inside. chickens/whatever animal need some light, at least in the morning, as a sign, in this case, to start laying eggs. also, the floor inside was all wet. needs to be dry, or else they can sicken easily. in the case of their food, they were only receiving half of the necessary ration (they need 4 oz a day for every chicken). he also lives at a pretty high elevation, higher than where i live, so it´s cold, and some measures needed to be taken in order to maintain a higher temperature inside. i gave him some simple instructions at the beginning and did a few follow up visits.

I went there today to see how things were going. he´s now up to 75 eggs daily. before he wasn´t even covering the cost of the feed, now he is with some profit. he´s fun to talk to. he and his wife always invite me in for some coffee/eggs and tortillas after we check out the chickens. he always has a lot of questions about the US. we´ve talked a lot about the educational system and politics in general. today we talked about oil and the middle east.

it´s really fun. i have to travel about an hour and a half to get there and an hour and a half back on a crowded old school bus. but, i always look forward to getting there, and always leave with a strong feeling of contentment. i´ve got a good job.

here´s the new sunday morning tradition. i can buy a pound of strawberries for under a dollar on sunday mornings (market day). what you´re looking at here is a 3 stacker of pancakes. at first glance you may think, big deal, strawberries on pancakes. however, there is that amount of strawberries on every pancake in the stack. also, they are banana pancakes with chocolate chips in them. it´s pretty much bliss every sunday morning in my house.

i´m a chicken consultant now. here i´m giving a training on chickens to a group of women that another volunteer works with. it´s the third volunteer i´ve helped out on their chicken projects. i always wanted to be a consultant.

2 year awakening

the 31st of august was my 2 year anniversary here in Guatemala (woo-hoo and stuff). it was so ridiculously appropriate how i woke up that morning.

it was 5 am. i was sleeping better than any baby has EVER slept. i awoke suddenly. i was pretty sure that the world was coming to an end that very instant, and/or, that there was a earthquake, and/or that my shelves had all broken and their contents were being tossed upon my tile floor creating a giant ruckus. whatever was happening, it was creating a "giant ruckus" not heard before at this hour of the morning, and it was REALLY confusing jake.

turns out, the neighbors were celebrating a birthday by setting off dynamite. ok, so it was fireworks, but they were literally shaking the windows on my house. i consider myself pretty accustomed to that kind of thing, but i really wish i had a video of that event, the look on my face would have made all of us laugh at me. ha.

just what you needed...pictures and witty descriptions of the pictures

I can take shots of clouds at my level looking out my window. what have you done lately?

Lady and a baby who planted a garden (the baby didn't plant it. like a baby could even sustain a hoe). It's pretty good. You KNOW she's got a box full of worms.

Looking at clouds out my window again. That cloud might actually be at a level lower than I.

Fair parade. NO IDEA WHAT THAT IS, but it looks pretty sweet.

Fair parade. I know what that is. Children, walking, in traditional garb.

This is your average soccer field. There's a goal in the back there. It's made of sticks.

Some terraces and stuff, because it looks cool.

because you wanted to hear more about them

here's a fun website on worms. Treehugger.com

pics

I work with a school now, we made a box for worms. It's got boards on the sides and is lined with plastic, should be great.

More worm box pictures, can't get enough of that stuff

This is an amaranth plant. It's pretty amazing in terms of the nutritive contents of the leaves and seeds that it produces. It's also relatively easy to grow, doesn't need a lot of water or fertilizing. It's a good thing for malnutrition.

Here's a linseed plant. We were harvesting the seeds yeaterday off of a number of plants, they use them medicinally (not smoked or snorted).

the fair is loud

so, every year, there's a fair here. kind of like a county fair type occasion. the staples are; video games, foosball (i don't think anyone actually knows how to spell that word correctly unless i just did it for the first time), booths selling plastic junk (for lack of a better word that says exactly what it is), candy (to include the cotton variety and a lot of stuff with coconut), rides that i do not dare get on because people die, and finally, probably the most noticeable part, NOISE. right now, i'm sitting here, pretty much can't focus on this (to write pretty much can't focus on this took me a minute i think, second time it was easier) because there's noise coming from everywhere. guy's got music playing in here, right outside, there's more music, even louder, and then there's the firworks. for the last week, i wake up every morning around 4, then at 5, then at 6, because of fireworks. the funny part is, is that it really just started this weekend, and will go all this week.

so there should be some pictures, if i don't take any, i'll put some up from last year, and you'll be none the wiser.

have a good week, the fair's actually pretty cool, you should come.

jake

disturbing news

what´s this i hear about ENGLAND having better candy bars than us? it´s not right. if there's one thing that i want America to be winning, it's the candy bar race! i want some chocolate. hey, check out my apostrophes, some of them are not like the others.

ok, i swear i'm not crazy down here (this is one of those comment inspiring comments). i just saw this on the NY times, felt a little disturbed, thought i'd blog it.

i'm in guatemala again. first week of work is done. ready for the weekend. cutting stuff with machetes, baking with fake ovens, and some general laziness. have a good one

bellys and earthquakes

went to lunch today at about 1 pm. ate a bunch of tortillas with cheese and salsa. then came the main course. "Belly" they call it. so it's pretty much intestine of a cow or something. ate that right up. interestingly, this is the "restaurant" we eat at every wednesday in this other town. SUPPOSEDLY, it's the best in town. General plates consist of the foresaid belly, we eat some foot stew, and some days, we get tongue. it's like i don't clean my plate.

anyways, after lunch, i was sitting in the truck waiting to leave. the truck started to rock back and forth a little bit. thought it was the wind. turns out there was a 6.8 quake of the pacific coast. didn't see any damage here. think there was in other parts. i'm safe though.

so, what's more appalling, the belly, the earthquake, or the clean plate where there was belly?

enjoy your evening

so i'm winning

third world development....developments...(allow myself to introduce...myself)

-some of the women i've taught about chicken sicknesses have started to do their own vaccinating in their communities. they're charging the people for the vaccine (7 cents or something) so that when it comes time to vaccinate again, they'll be able to buy the vaccine. turns out i worked myself out of some of principle jobs here. work harder? no. teach someone to do your job, then take a break.

-gave a big talk to some people from different communities about starting their own seed sales.
in my mind, it's a principle problem in the villages i work in. people REALLY do want to buy seeds, but seeds are sold far away and in quantities too grand for their home use. they seemed excited. i gave them a simplified cost of production talk, explained where seeds could be bought, and told them about my experiences (remember the hot cakes?).

-people are so interested in the california red worm, the one that works through manure and turns it into gold. talked about it before the seeds, gave them ideas about how to make a simple and inexpensive container for them. they're really interested, i just see few people putting it into practice. it's gold! c'mon!

-so i now have a rather established nickname. fun, eh? here in guatemala, often times a white person, especially a blond haired one, gets called "canche" (pronounced kanchay), which is to say, "blond white person". there's more. since i'm a GIANT here, they modify the word. instead of "canche", i am "canchón", or big blondy more or less. i feel like clint eastwood. you're jealous. this really has nothing to do with development work, unless clint eastwood once peace corped. peace corps is a verb. i'm peace corpsing. i peace corpsed. i will have peace corpsed. totally a verb. alright, this turned into a huge jake ramble. by the way, tropical storm barbara is messing with my barbecue this weekend. mala onda barbara, mala onda.

and the answer is

that was some great participation. very good answers, i chuckled. someone got incredibly close. she's not on vacation, they're not worms, and weren't causing any REAL ploblems, only blocking the digestion of some things being eaten. more of a diet really. There WERE some parasites hanging out in my belly. the face meant, "i know a fly just flew into my coffee, but i've already got giardia, so i'm gonna drink it anyways". that's what is fun about parasites. once you've got em, who cares? eat what you like. it's rather liberating. i did buys some pills, there's four of them, you take them all at once (i like to think of them as "depth charges"). luckily they don't cause any adverse reaction in the good ol' intestinal tract, just kill the giardia.

it'll be fun

so here's the game...what does this face mean? Leave it in a comment, or keep it to yourself. Unacceptable answers would be anything unclever like "i'm dumb", "i like john deere", "why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see (that would have been clever, you know, seinfeld). answer is coming soon.

my quarterly globalization report

so this is where i complain about how america is invading my life in ways i wish it wouldn't. not "invading" in a good way folks. if papa john's decided to open up around the corner, i'm not complaining. if netflix "invades", i'll hold the door open for them. this report mostly involves how i heard a terrible song from the america (if you say the ukraine, can't you say the america). HOWEVER, when i am sitting here trying to use the internet, and whatever that song was from the titanic movie comes on IN AN INSTRUMENTAL VERSION PLAYED BY KENNY G OR SOME OTHER CLOWN!!!, i am upset. That just happened. Makes me want to do non peaceful things.

i got nothing

there are things to blog about, the doctors that were here again, good news for chickens, the caramel rolls i made last weekend, that ¡t's raining, the entire box of cereal i ate today, blah blah blah....

but i'm lazy right now.

seeds for sale

i sell seeds. you can buy them. i sell them by the meter. yeah, the meter. enough to plant a meter of whatever plant. i measure the seed with soda bottle caps. i put it in little home made envelopes. i seal them with masking tape. then i sell the heck out of them. they cost 25 or 50 cents (guatemalan cents). $1 is about 7.50 of the currency here, so you do the math. they sell like hotcakes (hotcakes are the current topselling good worldwide). today, i sold $8 or so. i don't make a profit, they're sold at cost. I know there was somebody (J.D.O.) out there that was saying "oh, so jake is in the peace corps goudging people, good for him". it's a good time.

walk to work

here's a series of photo taken as i was walking to a community where i work. the first photo is the reference point. the following photos look down upon this point. the 6th photo looks at position 5. i think this works.

reference point


2nd position, looking down at reference point

3rd position, looking down at reference point

4th position, looking down at reference point

5th position, looking down at reference point

6th position, looking at position 5 (hill in center of photo, it's grass on top)

teachin'

so i gave a training on chicken diseases today (it's rediculous how much i know about chickens). it's interesting the kind of possible distractions a person can have in the teaching environment.

1st distraction: started to rain, then to hail a little bit. normally, not a big deal, however, when the door is open to let in light because the house doesn't have electricity and the roof is tin, it makes a lot of noise.

2nd distraction: chickens of all sizes entering and exiting the house at will and people trying to get them out

3rd distraction: the dog, entering and exiting the house at will, and people trying to get it out

but we got through it.

your trash

i was on a bus the other day, and there was a sign in the front of it. it said, "don't throw your garbage on the floor". this does not mean, don't throw your garbage. it actually means, "throw it all out the window".

sounds kinda romantic...

I can say "i live in the western highlands of guatemala", but it's a little misleading. don't get me wrong, it's beautiful and all, but it's generally dirty, dusty or muddy, very poor, and kind of noisy. however, it is home, the western highlands of guatemala.

been a while

so here's the update

-my big sister is engaged. good job josh (not my brother but the fiance). confusing right? anyways, you smell like apricots.

-my parents came, they braved the chicken buses and bathrooms. they did well, no one got sick, many photos taken, not one casuality. good job guys.

-i'm still working. chickens, gardens, worms, the occasional goat, a tree here and there, and some rascally rabbits.

-some awesome minnesotans came (aside from my parents) as a Helps International team to give free surgeries, dental treatment to people in and around my town and to make stoves. i helped translate for a few days with some dentists and ate their delicious american food. some awesome people left me a bunch of snacks. tonight, a snack pack will be eaten. i miss them and their food already. by the way, that pillow is awesome (yeah, i got a new pillow!).