You have to read this...

I know some of you who read this blog don't regularly check out my wife's blog too. This is one story you have to go read. Click here.

Old and Young Helpers

I have some really great help at the Bible Studies. Most teens are the typical kind that sit around until you ask them to do something, but we've never asked for help and received a half-way job from somebody. However, children and adults are very eager helpers, usually doing things without us even asking.

I was met one Tuesday night by these two little girls who were very disappointed that we only had one broom and promptly went and borrowed one from a neighbor so that they could sweep together. Then they took my paper towels and proceeded to wipe down all the tables. The funny thing is that their time is on Mondays and there wasn't even a reason for them to be there. After thoroughly cleaning everything, they went home.

The three men in the following picture are 70, 65 and 68 years old respectively. After every Bible Study they stay behind and pick up chairs and put away tables with me. Then the four of us all leave together. Each one has his own story. Aaron, in the first picture, has built two of his own violins using wood and plants (for the strings) that he takes out of the jungle. He tunes them by ear.

This is Fabio. I call him Lucky. He has been shot twice (and is not afraid to show you the scars by the way) and also been hit by a car while on his bicycle...twice. Both times they left him for dead in the ditch on the side of the road. That's what happened to his eye. He comes each night...riding his bicycle. I think after the second time I would give it up, or at least stop riding my bike on the highway after dark.
Eulalio comes with his whole family (wife, three sons, daughter-in-law, grandson and granddaughter.) Every time we visit his house he is working outside, sweeping the dirt or pruning plants. Also, you gotta love his shirt.

Death in Guatemala

Last night, while preparing for our adult Bible Study a lady came by to see how I was doing...well she actually came by because she is a busybody and needed to share the latest town gossip, but at least she greeted me with "How are you and how are the boys?"

She shared a lot of information, but you can't trust 95% of gossip and the only truth she shared was that Lukas Macz died in Sayaxché. Also the family is poor and can't afford to build a tomb.

The Macz family is one of our very regular ones. At least 5 adult and teen family members come each week, do their homework and bring their Bibles. I'd never met Lukas, but he was recently deported from the States and was supposed to be in Sayaxché working.

I wasn't expecting any of the family to come last night, but several of the sisters did. They showed me pictures of him and gave me the real story. Nobody knows how long ago Lukas died, but nobody in Sayaxché knew his family, so they went ahead and buried him there. The paperwork to get him exhumed will take 2-3 months. The family started their 9 days of mourning yesterday.

I have never done this before (for obvious reasons) but knowing they need money for the tomb I asked the open ended question, "Is there anything you need?" Normally you have to qualify that question and not let it be anything, but for this family we would try and do whatever we could. Claudia responded that her grandmother was poor and so they didn't have any coffee or sugar.

It is typical for the family during the time of mourning to have drinks and bread for people when they come over. Shelley and I in the past have always brought that stuff with us, so this was an easy one for us. So tomorrow I'll make 3 gallons of coffee and put it in our cooler (which will keep it hot for 2 days) and we'll go visit the family. I'm sure we'll be helping in other ways soon, but the money to build a tomb is only $20, (I know because we've paid for two other previously). We are taking Mateo with us tomorrow, who is also Kekchi, to help us with any cultural norms that we haven't learned yet.

Pinchazo Pt. 3

For some reason my truck has a real problem with flats. I think I pick up nails when I take my trash to the dump.

When I got home I was shown that one of my rear truck tires had gone flat. I asked how long it had been like this since I was talking to Quincho every week checking on the house. We have friends here who could have come by to get it fixed so the truck didn't sit on a flat tire on one side. He said about 2 months!

So the first thing to do once I got back was to get transportation. I couldn't get the Blazer started after hooking back up the battery, but that was because it was out of gas, even after leaving it with a full tank 5 months before. My truck tires weigh 70 pounds each and it is hard to move a flat tire (especially when one side is actually flat from having a truck sitting on top of it for 2 months).

I wrestled it down the three blocks to the highway where I flagged a tuk tuk to take me to the tire repair place, who worked on it while I took my gas can to the gas station. Once I got back the guy had it aired up, and charged me Q20 ($2.50). He said it was just the inside seal that needed to be fixed.

The next day it was flat again, so I took it to a different place where they immediately found the nail and put in a patch for Q30 ($4) without even taking the tire off. My dad was with me and we had never seen anybody do it this way before, but the guy assured me that his patch would last longer than the tire would. So far so good.

Trying to Find a Windshield Pt. 2

You can click HERE to catch up on part 1. What do you know, the next morning (a Saturday with plans to drive with the family to Guate on Sunday), I called and "fijese" the windshield didn't come. I expected this, so I told them to have my deposit ready and that I was going to come and pick up the Micro and take it to somebody who could do it right.

I then set about trying to find a windshield in Petén. A friend of mine called four different places in Santa Elena that he knew about and nobody had one for our model of Micro (there are TONS of these things on the roads, so I'm not sure how that's possible), but he was going to keep looking. I drove my truck to the city, thinking I could take the Micro to a windshield place and drive home without having to spend another day sitting around. My friend called back after about 30 minutes and told me that he found one in Melchor. Melchor is a border town with Belize and takes anywhere from 1.5-2 hours to get to from Santa Elena. The problem was that there was no box to ship it in, and therefore no way to get it to Santa Elena.

When I told him that I would just drive the Micro there with no windshield he acted like I was the dumbest Gringo he'd ever met. Anyways, he set it up with a friend of his there who could install the windshield and I went and got a pair of sunglasses, picked up the Micro and my deposit, and started driving. I will add that I was nice to the ladies at the Serviteca, because I didn't know what parts of my Micro they still had and I didn't want to burn any bridges and lose parts forever.

You don't fully appreciate a windshield until it's gone... Bugs at 60 miles an hour feel like rocks, and rocks...make you bleed. I think everybody should see Guatemala in this way at least once though. You can hear the people laughing at you; you can smell the horse drawn carts and the soap from the laundry day in the river; you can taste the gravel from the rustic dirt roads... I guess it would be like driving a big not-fun motorcycle.

Side note: my first dicho (axiom) that I learned in Spanish was "En boca cerrada no entran moscas." It means, "Flies don't enter a closed mouth." and it was sage advice for this experience.

So after 2 hours I made it, found my new windshield and the whole installation process was pretty painless. A couple hours later, we discovered the Serviteca still had one of the bars to my grill guard (that they had to remove for some reason before installing the windshield) and my rear-view mirror. Told you so!

The drive back was much more pleasant.

It was when I picked those items up that I informed them I would no longer be spending money at their business.

First Fruits

All of the zucchini's (6 of them from 6 seeds planted directly in the container) have started flowering. Here's a pic of the first actual zucchini growing. This is just 36 days after planting. I know that zucchini is one of the easiest things to grow, but I'm still pretty proud of myself. (Oh, and this pic was the first taken with my new lens. Thanks, Mom!) -Farmer Jim

Trying to Find a Windshield Pt. 1

So I mentioned before that I needed to get a new windshield for the Micro. It did have a lot of cracks in it (several that went all the way to the edge and one from top to bottom), but the main reason was that it was so tinted that you couldn't see out of it! During the day it was fine, especially if you want to drive around without anybody seeing you, but at night you could only see if you were the only one on the road. Any other light from any other source would make it like you were driving blind. This is a problem especially with all of the motorcycles, bicycles, people and horses that roam the highways at night with no taillights.

When taking the Micro to the Serviteca to get all of the usual service things done, I mentioned to the mechanic about fixing the windshield. I really didn't want the place to try and do it, so I just asked if he knew a guy that could come do it while it was there. He said no problem.

So when I went in later they had a list of all the things I wanted done that would have to wait for another day while they ordered the parts. No worries because they order it the same day and so "tomorrow at 8:30am you can drop it off and we'll be done with it."

I should state here that this place is notorious for being late. A job that they say will take 2 hours takes 6. Since this is 45 minutes from my house, I plan on doing lots of other things in the city while I'm there, but I still end up spending many hours sitting in their office which only runs the A/C on cold days...

I waited two days before taking it back. They had my other items that I needed (door handle, turbo belt) but "fijese" there wasn't room for the windshield. But don't worry, we'll have it tomorrow for you.

The problem is that I don't like driving back and forth 1.5 hours round trip and wasting each and every day just sitting around, so I had them fix the things that they could and I waited a week before going back for the windshield.

This is a Friday before a Sunday that we are leaving for Guatemala City. I didn't think too much of this because they said they had the windshield. It was more expensive than other places should have charged me, but the assured me that this came directly from the Toyota agency. It was so specific that they took my registration card out of the Micro and didn't give it back that first day (which could have caused lots of problems in the case of a police checkpoint) just so they had all the right information.

So I dropped off the Micro at 9. They said it was a 2 hour job, but they had to take it to the place where they would install it. This was something I could have done myself, but they were dishonest about that point from the beginning. I went and met with an architect about our new house and when I arrived at 11:30 hoping to pick up my Micro, it was still sitting there! They hadn't even taken it to the guy yet.

So I sat there until 3:30 pm when one of the girls comes over with some really bad news. The way she's carrying on without getting to the point had me thinking they had wrecked it or somebody had stolen it, but it turned out that the windshield...DID NOT FIT!

Oh but don't worry because we're ordering it right now and it will be here tomorrow morning first thing and it won't even take very long because they already have the old one off....Wait a second...You mean I can't drive it home...and you can't put the old one back on because you broke it into a thousand pieces...but I have to trust that you'll have it here tomorrow when you didn't have the first one after TWO days... I told them what I thought about their business practices and then caught a taxi home.

The lady in charge even blamed it on God, saying that everything happens for a reason... While I believe this to be true, nobody has the right to blame their own poor decisions or mistakes on God. God doesn't make people do stupid things.

To be continued...