Everyday MRM

Our little group of volunteers continued on today back in San Miguel. After some quick organizing this morning at school, Lance, Lexi, E and I all headed up to the town for some more digging in the mud. Armed with less this time (no shovels, no duct tape, no 18 vols) we still trudged our way up the hill and were put to work on a giant mud pit. The goal was less clear today however, as it seemed like the purpose of digging was to move one pile of mud down to another, in a long stream of mud piles until the mud finally reached the street where it could be picked up by the CAT. I shoveled for awhile, calmly digging my shovel deep into the muck and throwing it four feet into another muck bit. Lance was a bit better at the throwing, taking a tip from the locals who flung the mud over their shoulders in a nice long 20 foot arch. The result was some quick moved mud, but also a large splattering of goo over anyone nearby. In about ten minutes I was covered in mud, in my hair, in my eyes, on th...

The town of Pastores had been overrun by the flooding rivers, and much like everything around here, people’s houses drowned. After yesterday’s town digging, many of us were eager to continuar a luta (as André would say), however the school could not loan us the van to take us up to San Miguel. Ashley had been in touch with a man named Forrest who ran a clean water purification mission who was in need of help to clean out his workshop and put together the filtration systems to be installation ready. We had no idea what that entailed, but four of us decided to see of what use we might be. Ashley had hurt her foot during the San Miguel dig, so we narrowed our group down to the bone. From 18 to 4, Lance from Nashville, Eddie from Yorkshire, Lexi from Switzerland via Indiana and Ohio, and Miriam from Nashville, all piled into Forrest’s pickup and drove up the hill. Pastores was nowhere near as bad as San Miguel. While San Miguel was under 8 feet of mud, waste and water, Pastores looked as t...

There’s only so much you can say about mud. Either you’ve worked in it or you haven’t. If you work outside at all, chances are you’ve encountered mud. If your house was recently flooded, you probably had to shovel some mud. If your street was overrun with a pond or a river, at some point you may have had to slog through some mud. If your town was flash flooded by a volcanic landslide, it is safe to say that mud is the single, primary and most important adversary. I now know what it is like to work with mud. Today dawned bright and beautiful in Antigua. It’s like after all the recent natural disasters, the earth decided to give us lovely spring shiny days as an alms. I soaked it up, happy in the sun, happy in my life, happy to be helping and giving, loving and learning. (I sound like someone I know, hey B!, but I guess that’s not such a bad thing.) My classwork wasn’t very productive. Both I and my teacher were distracted by the preparations for the afternoon. I was on fake organizer du...

I got online today for the first extended time in awhile. Before the volcano at least. First thing I see is a Skype from D saying, “are you blown up or drowned? Get in touch.” His sentiment is much appreciated, especially since he and T are coming to Guate in a few weeks. We firmed up some plans for their visit and filled each other in on the aftermath here. After my weekend of Antigua bubble, I finally started to have a better idea of what was happening just 5 minutes down the street. So, this morning I got to school and noticed a poster board with pictures of the destruction of nearby town San Miguel and Ciudad Vieja. During class, Eddie leaned over and told me he wanted to help out. He was going to hook up with a group from a church that was leaving later on. He and I talked at 9am. By 9:30 I couldn’t concentrate enough on my subjunctive to make coherent sentences. My teacher asked what was wrong and I said that I had to do something, anything, something must be going on but what? W...

Today is my birthday. The big one. 31 on 31. What a strange and fun and difficult time to be alive. The highlights. An early morning chat with padres. A cute surprise from my teacher of chocolates and chocolate milk. A high five from Eddie. A chicken and rice lunch with Robin and Rachel. A workout at the gym. Dinner with Alicia and drinks after meetup with Ali. A present from Ali of Kinder Supresa where I got a nice little skunk creature holding a drink and a radio antenna. Why the radio antenna? No idea. Ben received one that was a snail whistle. The day was lovely as all birthdays should be. In some ways, very much like other birthdays, with some crazy happening. One year was skydiving, one was volcano climbing, one a ruins visit. Other past birthdays have been quite tame. Last year I was taken to a lovely dinner. Year before that, I did what I wanted to all day, which was clothes shopping, book buying, and coffee with friends. This year was back to the good stuff, tropical storms an...

Very little happened today. I learned that Guatemala is under the worst storm disaster in many many years. People have died and towns are flooded. It seems that my previous few days of fun in the rain and much like my days of fun in the rain in Nashville, when that flooded. I’m not sure if I have shock that hits before events or what, but my reactions are never really on par with what they should be. (Edit: I met a doctor friend here who says that is normal. I shouldn’t worry.) Rachel, Ali, Thy and I all met at Fernando’s for breakfast. We had all just discovered at the same time that Guatemala had just been through a big storm, some saying hurricane. Thy was remarkably calm, seeing as her boyfriend Ben was stuck somewhere in between El Salvador and Guatemala, pulling a bus out of some mud. Turns out he had spent the night in some Posada in the lowlands, no bathroom and no water. The bus was full on stuck, and the busdriver’s wife volunteered to find him a someone to drive him the rest...

Dear All, After almost a month of Central American life, I thought it finally time to send out a massive informational email. Perhaps the recent natural occurrences have had something to do with it, but I realized today that many of you don’t even know that I’m out of the country. So, here goes. All media frenzied opinions to the contrary, the eruption of a nearby volcano is not as exciting as one may imagine. Two days ago the volcano closest to my current home city of Antigua, erupted. Pacaya has been active for a long while, and there are plenty of places to see hot red lava oozing out from under the rocks. Tours often hike up the mountainside, and it is not uncommon to see smoke roiling around inside the crater. The rocks are hot, the air is hot, and a few years ago I humped up some marshmallows to roast over the hot air and watch as they caught fire from what appeared to be mid-air. I was informed the other day that marshmallows are now sold on the route to the volcano, along with ...