Here’s a little bit about what we did each day for field based training:
Sunday, February 13
We got picked up in our towns and rode to Totonicapan, where we went on a cultural walking tour. We got to visit several artisans in their workshops and talk to them about their work. We went to a ceramics place, a wood working place, and textiles place. The textiles place was amazing because they had these huge wooden machines and they made all the patterns by hand and had to count thousands of strings- it seemed very difficult but the artist could do it while talking to us!
Monday, February 14
We spent the night in cabins at a beautiful but cold ecological park called El Aprisco, which was a huge pine forest. This day was really fun because we were in pairs and each pair had a station to present along the trail. A group from the local school came and visited each station and we taught them about the environment and at the end they cut out hearts and wrote Valentine’s Day poems on them to give to their parents along with a seedling. It was really neat because when we asked the kids if they knew how to plant the trees that we were giving them, they all said yes because the city had done a reforestation project with them. The kids were so cute and so tiny even though they were 10-13 years old and a lot of the girls were wearing traje tipica, which is the traditional Mayan way of dressing.
Tuesday, February 15
So we got up this morning, ate breakfast, and then found out the place we were going to go to was inaccessible because protesters were blocking all the roads. They told us the protest was supposed to be over around 2, so we stayed in El Aprisco to learn how to use several tools (even sharpen a machete!) and then we helped start a new trail. We got in the vans to then go to Nueva Alianza near the coast, which is where a coffee and macadamia farm is located. We were stopped by the road block though, which was still going on and wasn’t going to stop until the following day. It was very ironic- the protesters were protesting road blocks! We had to change our plans and get a hotel for the night, which was fine because it was very warm where we were and a nice change from being bundled up!
Wednesday, February 16
We woke up and traveled to Corazon del Bosque which is in Solola. Corazon del Bosque is another small park, and it was also very cold when we were there! We stayed in cabins though and this time the bathrooms were inside the cabin too so that was nice. This was probably the most boring day, with a lot of it being charla based. There were various volunteers with our group, and they would give us a charla, or talk/lesson, on topics like Emergency Plans, Aveturismo (bird tourism), and Interpretive writing. It was probably the hardest day, basically because we didn’t do many hands on activities and we were missing out on the warm weather and café/macademia farm tour.
Thursday, February 17
We woke up early this morning to go birdwatching in the park. It was so neat- we saw a rose headed warbler (I think that’s what it’s called in English) and some people even saw a quetzalillo, which is similar to the quetzal but has a smaller tail and is more common. We had more charlas today but a fun game of ultimate Frisbee at the end. It’s always nice to have a hackysack or Frisbee on hand!
Friday, February 18
We left this morning to go to a park near Lago Atitlan called Chiuraxamolo. The park was awesome with a zipline and a cool interpretive trail. We got to walk the trail and see a couple Mayan altars, and then after lunch we went on the zipline and helped maintain the trail. The zipline was awesome except that we were told afterwards that it hadn’t been mainatained in 9 years! The volunteer who works there has had a hard time getting the park to cooperate with him and motivate them to work. Since it’s a municipal park, the mayor appoints his friends to be guards (whether they enjoy being at the park or not) and they get to slack off. It’s really hard to train them too because when the next mayor gets elected, he just replaces all the old guards with people from the new party in office. The muni doesn’t want to pay for maintenance of the zipline or safety training either. Things get very ugly when politics are involved!
Saturday, February 19
This last day we finally went down to Santa Catarina, a pueblo right on Lago Atitlan. The lake is so beautiful but knowing that it is so contaminated hurts! It was even recommended to a volunteer near the lake that he shower with purified water. Despite all the bad news though, we had fun eating a huge barbecue lunch and then headed back to our sites.
So, that was field based training! I was so worn out after that I slept a lot on Sunday and this week we’ve been working on our project for Ciudad Vieja. It’s been very exciting to actually be putting into practice the things that we’ve been learning. We are trying to put together a walking tour/brochure with a map that has the location of different workshops of artisans here in Ciudad Vieja. That way the tourist can visit various workshops and get to see how things are made by hand and then perhaps buy something if they want to from the artisans. So last Thursday and Friday we walked around the city with a couple of people from the muni and visited several talleres. We saw some awesome carpenters and a guy who worked with metal, and some women who made typical sweets. Most of the people were really friendly and showed us how they make everything and welcomed us into their workshops. We even got serenaded by this really cool guy who taught guitar lessons as well as carve wooden statues.
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