Livin' the Dream in Livingston

I finally have time to blog the week! As usual, the weekend flew by, and all of a sudden I'm left wondering, "Was that trip to the Caribbean a dream? Did I really live that?" Pictures are great for keepin' my story straight.

9/9 Friday

Biggest Export in Puerto Barrios

A travel day. After five hours on exhaustingly long, curvy roads, Justin and I finally arrived in the evening at Puerto Barrios, a barge city used mostly for industrial purposes (Biggest export in the harbor this past weekend? Chiquita Bananas, of course). We were warmly welcomed by a monk's family. The night consisted of Mass, Dinner, and hammock/reading time, bed. The food was good, and hospitality better.

9/10 Saturday

View from our Hotel Deck

While it took a bit longer than we expected to get up and at 'em in the morning, Justin and I finally got a ride to the boat launch, where we would take a $5, 15 minute boat ride across the Caribbean Sea to a beautiful, touristy port village. Because of the cheap prices due to a recent lull in tourism, Justin and I found a room for $25 a night, fully equipped with a posh restaurant overlooking a beautiful view of the Sea and walk-out to a private beach. Couldn't get much better. Justin and I took an hour or two collecting necessities from the village: food, ice (which came as one big block of ice in a sealed plastic bag), drinks, and a few cheap trickets. After gathering this important material, we spent the rest of the day reading, swimming, and lounging around on the beach. It was a wonderful rejuvenation of the senses.

Our night was rather interesting. In trying to find a proper place to dine, we came across "Alexandar the Great," a local who told us he knew were the best food was in town. We decided to trust him. Although what appeared to be at first a sketchy situation turned into a blossoming night: Our fried fish and "moriscos" soup was served right by the oceanside by a poor Garifuna family.

The Garifuna are descendants of runaway slaves from the 17th Century (please read about them!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garifuna_people). The Garifuna have their own bastardization of the Roman Catholic faith. They also speak their own language, and live primarily in Central America. There are about 600,000 Garifuna in the world, and the only community in Guatemala exists in Livingston.

Regardless, they make GREAT seafood. Our meal was relatively cheap, and even though we had to pay off our tour guide "Alexander the Great,"it was worth it.

9/11 Sunday
After taking a small amount of time to reflection upon the tragedies which occurred on this day ten years ago, I was swiftly reminded of the impact of 9/11/11 in Guatemala: The Presidential Election! The night before, while we were returning home, we were followed by a huge mob marching down the main street of Coban. After thinking that us two gringos were doomed, Justin had quickly reminded me of the demonstrators/protesters that would likely be out in full force due to presidential elections.

Centro de Votacion

Today was no different. As we walked off to our boat tour for the day, we saw a huge line outside of the biggest building in Livingston. The building had a big sign above the entrance, "CENTRO DE VOTACION" with several hundred people lingering outside. Streets were blocked off with police caution tape, and villagers would casually walk under and over the yellow tape. Soldiers stood idle nearby with shotguns in their hands. Pretty intense.

Policeman Moderating at Voting Center

While the voting situation was intriguing, Justin and I were definitely happy to hop on a boat for a nice tour of the Rio Dulce, the coast along Livingston and beyond. The ride cost about $12 bucks, and was probably worth $100. Our first stop was at the Seven Altars (see http://guatemalaguides.com/Izabal/25-02-2011-A-destination-with-Seven-Altars.htm). We took as many pictures as possible, enjoyed the water, and tried our best to soak up the atmosphere. The pictures won't do this trip justice, but neither will my words...

Seven Altars

Jumping from the Highest Altar

Our second stop was on a white sandy beach further along the Rio Dulce. Here, we were served Coco Loco (Rum served in a coconut) and a few Gallo beers. While Justin read in one of the several hammocks along the beach, I chose to explore the stretch of beach as best I could. Snapped quite a few great pictures (all of which are copyrighted, all rights reserved... I may add haha). I continued exploring until a pack of wild, seemingly starving dogs began to follow me. As I turned back to return to the beach, the alpha male began to flank me on the right while the others began to close in on the left.

White Sand Beach Stop

Rio Dulce

Hungry wild dogs

"They're beginning to surround me!" I thought. Immediately I grabbed a large stick off the ground and ran ahead of all the dogs, yelling nonsense and batting the air with my natural dog-smacking club. As I passed the Alpha Male swinging the stick in the air, he growled and barked at me, almost as if in disappointment that I wasn't interested in contracting Rabies. So long as I didn't turn my back on those dogs, they did not advance on me, and I made it back safely to "base beach."

Once our time was up on this beautiful get-away spot, we returned to Livingston quite satisfied from our adventures. After grabbing a cheap burger at a local diner and snapping a few more pictures of the Voting extravaganza, we returned to our hotel for more lounging and napping.

Streets of Livingston

Afternoon turned into evening, soon enough it was time to get dinner. One problem: we're outta cash. With some footwork and a few discussions with the locals, we discover that none of the ATM machines (x2) currently work in the village. What to do? Thankfully, we found a restaurant which accepted cards. The next morning, the ATM was functional, and we were able to get money for the way home. Regardless, this put a bit of a stopper on our Sunday night. We needed to be conservative with the cash that we did have; thus, a few minutes of horrible television coverage of the election, then it was off to bed.

9/12 Monday
We awoke to overcast skies and a light rain. Time to get in a boat! After getting safety cash, Justin and I hopped in the commuter boat for a wet ride back to Puerto Barrios and our 11:00am departing bus. After a few abrupt stops, bus switches, phone drops (yup, I lost my Guatemalan phone. Good thing they only cost like $20 to buy), we were dropped off at Rancho (neighboring village of Coban). Here, we were picked up by a commuter van which can seat 15, but typically was jammed with about 25 people. These commuter vans try to fill up spaces as much as possible, making for a very congested 1.5 hour return to Coban. All the while, I've been reading Mario Puzo's The Godfather, so I was quite occupied, especially important for some of the more claustrophobic moments of transportation. Returning to the monastery was like returning home. Thank God to be back in a familiar place with a familiar face.

9/13 Tuesday
Back to work! Today we moved several donated medicare beds from the monastery over to the old folk's home in downtown Coban. The work was hard, as the beds were very heavy, but also rewarding.  The afternoon consisted of more computer work, along with a nice Gallo beer happy hour with our work partners Alberto and Oscar. After a few beers, we went out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. By the time I finished with that meal, I was busting at the seams. No surprise, however, that I was hungry an hour later.
(Chinese food is weird like that... ya always get hungry sooner than expected. Man, if you're someone that likes eating, you belong in China. John Murray must be in heaven right now).

9/14 Wednesday
Yesterday consisted of more computer work. As I may have mentioned before, we are working through about 60 donated computers. The plan is to bring these computers to the aldeas (that have electricity) and train the people in how to use computer programming and educational software. The project is still in the beginning stages, as right now we are checking the functionality of the donated Desktops.
Here are the statistics after Wednesday's testing...

CPU's/Hard drives
Functional: 40 Nonfunctional: 20

Monitors
Functional: 48 Nonfunctional: 12

Keyboards
Functional: 50 Nonfunctional: 10

Mice:
Functional: 52 Nonfunctional: 8

Not bad. Fr. Bernie is a computer wiz, so he will probably be able to get a few of the nonfunctional CPU's up-and-running as well. All in all, I expect we'll be able to distribute 50 computers to poor villages around the area. This may not seem like much, but the educational impact of this program has endless possibilities for these people.

9/15 Thursday
Now that we've worked through the initial testing portion, it's now time for us to work on the computer programming bit. Giovanni, a tech student of the local university and friend of Bernie, has offered his help with assisting us in the installation of the Linux programming. Today, I anticipate a few trial runs with this new software on the computers. Hopefully we can get this machines up and running for the villagers soon!

Also, today is Guatemala's Independence Day, so fireworks, drums, yelling and street dances will be taking place all day today. If we get the chance, we'll take a break from our computer work to watch a few parades and musical performances (as long as it remains safe). Should be fun!