Pinatas

When I was a little boy. I would dream about what it would be like to have been able to go to a real Indian village. Even just the word village had such possibility. The explorers from Europe call all the people they found in North America, “Indians”. Here in Guatemala, the indigenous people hate the word Indian. If you travel around in Guatemala you will see there are some people here that have very different features. Like some of the people are very small and brown. Some of the people here are white as Europeans but little and brown to white are the two ends of what you generally see here. There is a black cultural on the coast but they usually just stay there. If you want to go see a black culture that came from the slave trade, go to Livingston. I was a little disappointed when we were there. I didn’t see that much of the people there holding on to some black culture thing. It’s just a small town of black people. You can use travel guides if you want to go to festivals or to see the people here holding on to there heritage in events but to go to these little villages and see how these people here really live is a lot harder. We have a little worker that has been helping us work on our boat. For two years now as we have been coming in here. He always comes back to work. We gave him a used solar panel and a used battery along with some LED lights because there no power in his village. Now he could have lights. We gave him some fans. He said at night the fans slowed down and the light went dim. I found him another battery, used but still holding over 12 volts. This worked for a while Then this failed. I told him how to check it and sent the tools. One of the batteries had failed and the other was on it last days. We stared looking for a better unit. With a lot of help from other boaters I put together a very good unit. 75 watt solar panel battery holding 13.8. Wired to a panel with a meter to monitor how the battery is doing. Now I wanted to go install this myself. I didn’t realize this was my chance to see deep in to the culture of the indigenous people here. We weren’t going in to a village to install a unit in a school where every one knew we were while we were there. We took a pinata. If you want to see a child’s eyes light up in Central America, bring out a pinata. If you want to torture a child, hang up a pinata and tell them they will have to wait till later to whack it. The longer the wait the more you can torture them. Our helper had a friend with a pickup truck. We were to go there in it. As we turned off the main road on to a dirt road we passed a boy with a pack mule. Not a good sign. Shorty the road turned bad. We came to a river. The driver stopped Put the truck in low gear and went over bank making all the speed he could crossing the river to make it up the other side. We were really holding on and this time and I was wondering if holding on would be enough.

Crossing the River

The road went from bad to worse then bad quick. We went on then turned down through some trees on a trail trough the woods. As we stopped in front of our helpers house, all the kids there ran for there mothers screaming. “Gringos!” I installed the unit.

Helper’s House

The kids watching from a distant but when we drug out the pinata that changed things fast. I knew these people lived simply but now I was seeing it, Now I was touching it. This was a little more simple than I thought it would be. Our helper house is maybe 12ft by 12ft. One room with a lean to porch. The walls are heavy boards stud up on there ends set on the ground with maybe a one inch gap between each board. Why I don’t know. Maybe for ventilation. There is no windows in most of these houses. I didn’t walk around in the village. I know these people are very suspicious of outsiders. Some of the houses were bigger but none of the houses were in any order like facing the path coming in. They’re almost like mushrooms coming up out of the ground. They cook on a table with a cement top with wood.

This is for grinding corn everyday

The main staple is corn. The corn they grow here will grow anywhere. They grow some on hills so step it looks like you would need a rope to gather your corn. It’s not good to me. Even if it’s coming out of the field it’s tough and has a strong dull corn taste but the people here love it. There are always chickens. Always dogs and always kids in these villages. I always feel better around dog, kids and chickens. I don’t know why. The pinata was the high light of the day. Maybe we grow up to be different but kids are always the same every where we have been. Seeing this made me think of what the old people talked about when I was a kid. Talking about the way it was when they were young. I couldn’t help but think of how judgmental we are. To them back then if you were trying hard to live better a women wanted windows and a floor so she didn’t have to live on the ground and had lots of light in her house. If they were talking about it back then. They new people that lived in house with dirt floors and maybe no windows. What is important to me now is our helper has lights and fans. We had a great appearance and remember this . Just a few years ago, I had a doctor tell me that I need to build Pam a house. He said that Pam deserved to live better than living on a boat. I reminded him that our boat was named after her. Not by accident. That I had built her a house with my on hands. The way she wanted it. Even then she was talking about building a boat. The older I get the more I think happiness is what is most important in life. I try not to be judgmental but if you must, Just look in the eyes of a kid here whacking a pinata and tell me what you see. I guess we all would like to be that happy.

Whack The Pinata

Independence Day, Guatemala

We are still in Guatemala planning on leaving after hurricane season is over but we will miss this place. We love it here but it’s time to move on. We were here last year on there Independence Day. Mostly it’s the young that make the most noises. They blow one note horns and shout. From what I have been told, when independence came runners went to remote places to spread the news. The young or it’s mostly the young get in the back of trucks and ride to places to run. They run through towns. Cross bridges but mostly they run where they can be seen. A lot have torches. All have a way to make a racket.

Central America is a place of great contrast. We have tried to see as much as we could while we are here. To try and tell how different it is would take a book but here is just a little of what we have seen. Guatemala City can run from modern with a major airport to ghetto. It’s at a higher elevation so it’s a lot cooler than most of the country. 2/3 of the people here live there. The people that live there can run from some one that look like they just came in from Europe to very little indigenous people. In the center of the country is farm land and a lot of what you eat as far as vegetables come from here. They ship a lot north. There is a great different in it people. If you have a good job and live in Guatemala City you may drive a car or at least a motor bike. You eat at Burger King and watch TV. If you are Maya you may live where you don’t even speak Spanish. You may speak one of the many Maya languages but a lot of Maya speak “Kiechi.” They are villages here with power and villages without. The Maya people mostly are small and the women wear traditional dress. We love to go to town and see them come to town in the back of small trucks. We have put a lot of this in our blog. Then indigenous people here live in small villages some times so far out they have no road. If you have been keeping up with our blog you know we have worked for a foundation here and have installed a solar panels in a school recently. We went up there on a mule. Pam and I went back to the states and road our old motorcycle around the country for 2 months this year and Pam never smiled and laughed as much as she did riding her little mule. Here is some of what we will miss next year if we are gone. Here you can see how most people here dress with clothes from the US that was sent down here in large bundles. Some have something wrong with them some are used but all of the clothes sent here are cheap. Pam has a band on her hat that says Guatemala and she was cheering them on so they came to get their picture made with us.

Happy runners

Here they are loaded up to go run some where else.

Loaded up to go run some more

Here we stopped to talk to a friend and two beautiful Maya girls came by in Maya clothes.

This beautiful little women works in the grocery store and we talk to her as best we can in our bad Spanish when we go through her line. For Independence Day she wore a traditional dress to work. They are hand made even the cloth.

She is always smiling and today when she let us make her picture, Pam and I were both smiling. What I like best about being here is its’ beautiful people and there’s so much to see here. The girl in the picture may make it to 5 feet tall someday. That is if see wears her high heels to work.

Teak Work

Have you ever dreamed of being in the Caribbean? Living the simple life. Some people do but if you want to work on your boat or do about anything beside drink beer and lay in a hammock. It want be simple for long. When Pam and I was getting ready to leave on our first trip we took with our boat many many years ago. Remember our boat is home built by Pam and I. Our cabin was not finished so I covered up the insulation with cheap boards. My Granddaddy would say “Never do a fair job when you wanted a good job because you my live with it forever. I been living with that forever. I found some dry teak under a building down here and with Pam saying.  “Our cabin is alright. I can live with it.” I tore it all out any way. Now I was committed to doing it better. First thing is. We are in the Caribbean. It rains a lot. I have no shop. The teak is not sized. This means the boards need to be ripped down to where I can use them. It’s hard to rip board down to size with a table saw but even if it was easy. I don’t have one of them either. This is basely the story of my life. Up the creek with out a paddle. Trying to figure out how to make one when all you have is a few stick. I made a home built table saw out of a cheap skill saw I bought for 20 dollars in the states just before we left. It’s a terrible saw but it all I have. I used ply wood to make the fence and bolted the saw to the plywood table I made on 2 saw horses. To make it more like working in the Caribbean. The blade won’t go up any more that 2 inches.

Jungle Table saw

I went out the other morning and uncovered the saw. Roaches ran every where. I just waited for them to leave. I lifted up the drill I had left laying on the saw and when I stared it up, roach parts came out on me and all over my work out of the fan. One thing you have to get use to is, working this near the jungle You are never along. The wild monkey that was watching me work the other day has not been back but I moved my tool box. I wear cut of jeans most of the time. Have I said lately how hot it is down here. Something ran first up my leg then down my leg. I dropped the tool box jumping stomping and swatting at a spider that maybe could wrap it legs around my leg. Pam has finger cramps now from spraying. She has learned another trick. She likes book swaps. If a mosquito flies by her. Remember this is the Caribbean. You don’t have to wait long. She lifts the book up wing to wing and slaps the book shut. When she opens it up again. You can “see” how successful she was. If you ever come down here and go to a book swap. You like the book but not the blood splatter. Pam has read it. If I say much more, you may think I’m lying or complaining. I’m doing nether. It just the way it is. If you know some one that has great tools and turns out great work. Remember me. Trying to make do with what I have but always remember this. I never give up and living this way. I never get bored.

It will only take a little while to do.

Making some progress

Monkey Business

When I was a kid and coming up on the little farm I was raised on. I dreamed of great Adventure. I dreamed of living in the woods like the Indians did. I watched my Granddaddy’s TV. We didn’t have one. Of the great cowboys. One thing I never dreamed of was working. As I got older I realized, most great adventures take a lot of work. Pam and I have seen most of the US out of the windshield of a big rig when we were young. We did that for years. Lot of work to see the US and you only see where big trucks can go but we saw what we could. We traveled around working in nuclear power plants. Saw some more that way. We built a log cabin on Lake Greenwood in South Carolina “Cut the trees ourselves” and lived there for 8 years. We didn’t go far but that too was an adventure. But the biggest Adventure has been the building of “Pamela Ann”. Our little schooner and taking her sailing. It took us ten years from the first peace of metal that was laid until we took her lines on board and left. Our boat is home made. We drew the plans and built most of her. We built the hull, the steering wheel, the windless to take her anchor on board, the mast, the sails, Even the drive unit for her auto pilot.

 We made the Auto pilot drive unit

We made the Steering Wheel

We made the Anchor Windless

Today I was working. It never ends. We are getting ready to go on another trip after hurricane season is over. And there in a tree right beside the boat I looked up and the little helper that works for us was pointing. I looked and two little black eyes were looking back at me. I never grow tired of Dolphins, Big Ships or “Monkeys”. Some how it made all those hours of working, Building our boat seem worth while. There has been a lot of these days as we travel but it’s funny how just seeing a wild monkey in a tree right beside your boat can bring it all back. The memories of long days working to make enough money to buy a box of welding rods. Listening to people say they had a brother-in-law that could build a better boat in 6 weeks and he could leave any time he wanted. Like I said.” Ten years before we could leave and we still never have enough money.” We have to wait and save before we can go most of the time. Will there ever be a great Adventure? I’m still dreaming, but maybe. The great adventure has always been there. Seeing a wild monkey from our boat makes us wonder.

Monkey in a tree above the “Pamela Ann”