La vida es como una caja de chocolates: March 2009

Muy buenos dias a todos. I know it has been quite a long time since my last post, but I have been extremely busy in the last month. The first, most important, and most exciting news I have is that I have finally received my site assignment. For the next two years I will be living in the aldea of Chilasco, which is located in the department of Baja Verapaz.

Chilasco is a small, rural, farming community whose major cash crop is broccoli. To arrive there you need to take a 12 km dirt road that winds through the mountains. It takes about 45 minutes to pass 12 km in a microbus. You know you are getting close when the scent of broccoli slaps you in the face. The town is very simple and poor with about 7,000 inhabitants, mostly farmers that are self-subsistent. We are located on the outer layer of the Biosphere of Sierra de las Minas, which is the largest cloud forest in Central America. The forest is home to all kinds of native plants, some really cool animals like jaguars, pumas, and howler monkeys, as well as the famous national bird, the Quetzal. It is obviously cloudy, it can get pretty cold (we are located at about 1800 meters above sea level), and it is often rainy. About an hour and a half hike from our town through the jungle/forest you will find El Salto de Chilasco, the tallest waterfall in Central America. It stands at 130 meters and is absolutely breathtaking. I keep joking that they only put me here because I grew up next to Niagara Falls, and my Dad tells me I must have a destiny with waterfalls.

So what is it I will be doing in Chilasco you ask, well I would be happy to tell you all about it. I will be working primarily with this association known as ADESOCHI (The Association for the Sustainable Development of Chilasco.) They are a strong and proud group that was founded 12 years ago by community members and with the help of Peace Corps, so they have significant experience working with volunteers. Now your question is: if they have been working with volunteers for 12 years already, how come they still need you? Well, I will be the first volunteer that will be working on business development in Chilasco. The other volunteers have worked on first introducing the idea, then organizing the community. After that they needed to develop the trails, the visitors center, the restaurant, the tourist information center, etc. This is an example of how time moves here, where in the United States we could accomplish these tasks in a year, two years tops, in Guatemala it takes 12 years, and there is still a ton of work to be done.

My first order of business is going to be teaching English classes to the guides. This will not only be a valuable tool for them, but it will do wonders in helping me to get to know the people and integrate in the community. I will also begin work on a clean-up and trash management project, to hopefully clean up the town so that it is more appealing to community tourists. While doing all of this my main goal will be to familiarize myself with the people of the town, the operations of the association, the attractions available, etc. From there the next step will be to work on administration and customer service. They have a strong infrastructure in place to host tourists, but they are very disorganized, and the level of customer service can be poor. I will work to strengthen this, and then focus on developing an aggressive marketing plan to bring the people in.

It just occurred to me that many of you may not quite understand what "community tourism" is, seeing as it is virtually non-existent in the USA. The basic idea behind community tourism is to provide tourists with an intimate experience with culture and nature, where they can enjoy a new part of the world in its natural form. It is a form of ecotourism that is very conscious of its effect on the environment and the culture. Instead of going to Disney World and staying at a resort, community tourists go to Chilasco and stay at the community tourist center. They eat at the local comedor, they spend time getting to know the culture, they learn how to make tortillas, they hike into the largest cloud forest in Central America, they buy the hand-made local merchandise, and the receive a genuine cultural/natural experience. When a project like this is successful enough the income they bring can raise the living standards of entire communities. One of ADESOCHI's first goals is to build a new school building so that their children no longer have to get their education in dilapidated shacks.

One of the other really cool attractions that I have not mentioned for Chilasco, are the jungle treks. You can hire a private guide for about $10 a day to take you on 2-3 day hiking treks into the Biosphere, where there are cabins already set up. I have not had the opportunity to do this yet, but it is high on my list of priorities.

For the 4 days of my site visit I stayed with Don Basilio and his family. They live much like the rest of the town, in very poor conditions. They have no appliances so to speak of, and all cooking is done on a wood burning stove, sothe kitchen is constantly filled with very unhealthy smoke. There are 5 children and only 4 beds, and I took up one of them during my stay; although I offered to sleep on the floor. They were all extremely nice, but it was a tough week. They do have one piece of electronic equipment in the house, a radio, which the boys liked to play until 2 am at full blast, making sleep a rare commodity. Also, basically all they eat there is brocoli. Now I do not hate brocoli, in fact I kind of like brocoli, but after 4 days of this green monster for every meal the patience of your taste buds starts to wear thin. This family really wants me to stay with them for the first 3 months in site, because it is required that I live with a family in some capacity. They even promised me my own room, the closet that is currently being used to store farm tools and fertilizer. As tempting as this offer was, I am very happy to announce that at the last minute I found other arrangements, living with a nice young lady and her family. There I will have my own room, my own bathroom, my own front porch, and a nice big comfortable bed.

Other things that took place in the last month. All of the volunteers in my previous town were evacuated, and I am currently living in a new town. A girl was gunned down in the street near my house, and one of our volunteers happened to witness the act. As a precaution they moved us all out of there for the duration of training. Which ends this Friday the 29th!

We have been extremely busy, we finished our work at the park Senderos de Alux, and presented our annual and promotional plan to the town board. They accepted it and will hopefully follow it to fruition now. To celebrate we invited all of our families, I brought both my new and old, and ahd a big barbeque at the park. It was a really fun day. I also did find some time to escape with Alex to the beach. A place called Monterrico where the sand is black.

In my site there is no internet access, so I will have to take an hour and fifteen minute trip to check email and update this blog from now on. I am planning on trying to do this once a week, but who knows. I have much more to share, but you are going to have to wait until the next post. Adios Amigos.