“Once there was a way to get back homeward…”

We are now official members of Team Biodiesel!!!  I have no idea what day of the week it is or on what day we met up with them but I am pretty sure it was a few days ago and that we are here today wherever here is.  

 Ok so now for some actual information.  We are in Xela, Guatemala, a town with more Pollo Camperos  (KFC central american style) per capita than presumably any place on earth. We are staying in a hostel called Casa Argentina where some freakin gringo assholes keep stealing our food.  An entire block of mozarella cheese, two things of yogurt, an entire loaf of bread, jar of jam and can of olive oil.  God knows what else was stolen that we haven´t even noticed yet.  Some suspect the campesina ladies that keep doing our dishes behind our back.  I know better.   Upon discovering a complete lack of skill for anything related to construction of alternative energy sources, Meg and I have decided to do what women do best…cook and ask for money.  So we´ve been going to the market everyday and buying food and then we cook meals for 8 with one pot, one knife and occasionally 3 forks, while sneaky little gringos dart in and eat whatever they can get their grubby hands on.  It rains every night around the same time and gets super cold and I have no jacket other than a knit pink zip up which up until yesterday had duck poo on it….will explain.

Before we talk about ducks.  Let´s talk about biodiesel and more importantly our biodiesel buddies.  So the crew was driving down in a school bus fitted with beds but a couple of them are foreign so they couldnt get accross the border so 3 of them flew down to get started.  They all either go to school in oregon or washington or are from oregon or washington or something.  We´ve got Ben who likes to shove incredible quantities of food in his mouth at any given time and at lightning speed, Curt, who is a lingerer and whose flip flop we found in the duck box last night for some reason, and Joe, the most aryan looking Jew I´ve ever seen.  They are really great and nice but GOD do they love biodiesel.  Speaking of.  I should mention something about the project.  So they are building small scale biodiesel processors to be given to small indigenous communities to help them assert their autonomy in producing their own energy.  Right now Amit and this guy Tanner who we randomly met who had tons of blueprints for solar technology in his pockets are building a solar box to heat the oil so that even the production can be done purely with renewable energies.  By the way, biodiesel is diesel fuel made from veggie oil, and the processors modify the oil so that it can be used in any diesel oil without congealing and stuff.  They are also writing a book on how to make/use/love biodiesel etc.  Soon we will go to Honduras  in the bus where a conference will be held for people and communinities interested in and working on biodiesel to come together and share wisdom and drink a lot.  Their project is truly amazing.  It is the most comprehensive, well put together thing I´ve ever been a part of and it freaks me out that they are all the same age as me except Tanner the solar dude who is 19!  Ah! What  the hell am I doing with my life.   So I´ve been fundraising, translating, cooking, and trying to get the biodiesel kids out of internet cafe for two seconds a day.  They work so hard allllll the time.  I think its time for a vacation.  We might also work on some vocab lessons to help them build off of the 4 words they know…duuuuuuuuude…….niiiiiiiice……siiiiiiiick………………fur suuuuuuuuuure.  Maddening.

Oh yea.  Ya thought the 3 gallon jar of pickles at the sack and save was the best impulse buy ever, try two baby ducklings!  So we went to a market called San Fransisco Del Alto or something like that and after enjoying hours of walking around in the first gringo free  (i said gringo free not mormon free) market I´ve ever seen, we happened upon the livestock market at which time we encountered baby ducks.  Naturally, we bought some.  We grappled with the idea of buying a duck for a good 15 minutes, and then bought two.   Their names are Dada Tinamit and Dada Hernandez Javier Loka mitrananda.  They are of course Margies.  They are named for the hospitable and the intriguing.  We bought some food, and a ducky traveling case and then got home to do some research on our new pals only to discover the total inadequacy of our ability to provide care for them.  But we are trying our best.  Amit is gonna download a duckling playlist I wrote for them last night because they really love music.  I think Tinamit actually shed a tear when I played Freebird.  I´m really excited to have my first pets!  They are gonna live with Amit when we get back on his farm.   Yet, for some reason, it didnt occur to us until a day or two in that at some point THEY ARE GONNA GROW INTO FULL DUCKS! CRAP! How the heck are we gonna travel around Honduras with two full grown ducks?  We´re gonna need a bigger carrying case.   Anywho, they are doing well, pooping a ton as I believe they should.  

The rest of the lake was excellent.  We met some hilarious israeli dudes and went for a 6am swim…not with the israeli dudes, and stayed in Panajachel for a night where we ate some uruguayan food, aka pasta, tofu parmesan and a veggie burger.  We also read aloud from the Alchemist in an attempt to discover our destiny which I guess Meg will never find cuz she doesn´t seem that interested and completed our complete list of countries by letter of the alphabet after realizing around J that we ommitted Brazil, Egypt and some other crucial countries.  Oh how I long for the good old days before biodiesel.  The bus with the rest of the group is supposed to roll in today but I am skeptical, and also very excited to see what new souls Fortuna has brought Meg and I for our evening discussions.   As for my thesis….nothing to report.         

2.5  Jamie….2.5   good as can be expected.

Proud mother of 2,

NandieBee

In the past few days I have basically done my Guatemala vacation over again.  It has been almost maddening that everything I am seeing and doing reminds me of something I did with Andy or something funny that Noah did.  The rest of my day in Antigua was lovely, with a visit to some freinds that I made last time I was there.  We were still staying with Amits family friends, i.e. constantly avoiding their adorably collosol 3 year-old Arun.  At one point he affectionately attacked us with a garden spade.  You could here his foot steps pounding down the hall while in pursuit.  Ive never seen anything so cute and so terrifying.  The margies did a guided meditation and a dharma shakra for us one night, where we sing ¨baba lam ke va lam¨or ¨love is all there is¨ to the tune of anything, like yellow submarine and black magic woman and sing and dance.  It was good fun and cool to see what Amit is all about.  We went back to Antigua that morning and I took Amit and Meg to the church I visited the day before, hence carrying on the tradition of an IHPer getting kicked off of the top of a centuries old cathedral.  I never thought it would be Amit and not Zeno.  We cruised around the market for a while searching for a new Chigari, Zenos dino sidekick and then tried to get this lady to make some quesidillas which turned out to be tiny adorable tortilla sandwhiches.  I left Antigua that afternoon sincerely hoping again that I would return soon

The next day we hopped the chicken bus to Lake Atitlan and naturally ate at the same cafe we did last time.  We met up with Amits family friend Benjamin, in San Marcos, a small village on the side of the lake.  We discovered when we got here that San Marcos is a hippie yoga/massage retreat area, and that Benjamin had sort of founded the place and owned arguably, the nicest hotel here.  We got an incredible room here with a gorgeous loft surrounded by jungle and birds and mango trees.  If we know anything about the hospitality of the margies, this shouldnt cost a thing.  How I constantly manage to end up in these ridiculous accomodations alludes me.  We also have a resident cat who got his head stuck in a popcorn bag this morning and almost fell off the loft.  He is a very kind cat, yet unnamed.  He brought us a lovely dead bird to decorate the patio last night.  We went on a walk last night and ended up going for a swim in the lake.  If youve never gone swimming at sunset in a lake surrounded by mist-covered volcanoes, I highly recommend it.  It is really cool cuz the lake is full of pummus  stone which floats on top of the water, so you are swimming around in rocks.  The water feels amazing and the reflection of the mountains on the water makes everything seem to glow a greenish blue.   As with any hippie commune, we are eating food like pancakes and pizza which is nice.  We were gonna go have a swim at sunrise but in case you didnt know sunrise is freaking EARLY so that didnt work out…maybe tomorrow…ha!  

So not unlike IHP, I guess this all probably sounds like a big vacation.  But dont worry, we are actually going to start doing stuff soon.  The biodiesel group should get in to Quetzaltenango, the site of our project, tomorrow, so we will leave the lake in the morning and head over there to meet them and find out what we´ll be doing for the rest of our time in Guatemala.  Im pretty excited to see what they are all about and try to get an idea of the direction my research will take.  Meanwhile, Im trying to read up on my Central American history for context.  Im not speaking enough Spanish.

Loving LA,

Andie 

I´m back in Antigua!!! Actually at the very same computer from which I wrote my last Guatemalan blog!  It is as beautiful here as I remembered but it is not the same without Andy, Zeph, Noah and Zeno at my side.  I´m being swamped with amazing memories. The optometrist that fixed my glasses with that glue, baking soda concoction is right next door…

I landed yesterday in a swamp of people searching, rather aggresively, for their loved ones.  I found my loved ones and mistakenly thought Amit´s friend Dada who came to pick me up was a porter who I dismissed indifferently with a ´no gracias´ before he could offer me a shuttle bus to antigua.  Oops.  We spent the day riding around in the back of his truck doing god knows what.  I was reminded of my disliking for Guatemala city.  It is like an american wasteland with chain restuarants and chain stores and boxy buildings only more dust and more diesel.  Amit´s family practices a religion, or I suppose a spiritual way of life called Ananda Marga, which from what I understand is a sect of Buddhism, and they have friends who are Margies kindof all over the world so the Margies took us in and we stayed with them last night.  Dada loaned us his truck yesterday, which we discovered during a torrential downpour did not have windsheild wipers so getting to this house where we were staying  in total darkness on windy mountainous roads turned out to be even more adventurous than that prospect alone.  The family we stayed with lived in a beautiful house about 10 miuntes outside of Antigua.  They were so welcoming.  They fed us well and then one of the sons approaches me with a tiny little puppy and says¨You would like this.¨ Boy was he right.  I guess he gathered that from my love for his floppy little ferret that I got to play with.  He was like a little bean bag with feet and a nose.  Adorable.  I woke up this morning and had no clue where I was.

Amit and Meg are hiking a volcano today and considering my fondess for hiking (not a fan) I opted to spend the day roaming Antigua.  I took a chicken bus here this morning and climbed around on the ruins of this old church.  (Climbing on it is actually allowed unlike when Zeno did it).  Then I went and watched some chubby Guatemalan kids play soccer by the bus station.  I got so excited when I saw the top of Agua, the volcano that watches over Antigua, and was euphoric as the bus turned in to Antigua´s gates.  I still can´t believe I´m here.  I guess because just a week ago, Guatemala was just a twinkle in my eye. 

I don´t know exactly what we are doing for the summer yet.  The biodiesel crew arrives this weekend in theory so I should know a little more about the project soon.  I feel freakishly like I´m still on IHP.  Denial is proving to be a much better coping strategy than actually trying to deal with the trip being over.

Jamie:  A FOUR on the plane…Not sure why.

Amazed, 

Andie