Week 5 Antigua and weekend splurge in Coban

SEC interns reunited

So this week all 36 members came back to Antigua from the four different satellite sites for a week of recap, sharing, and just planning where to go from here. Quite frankly, I was really excited to hear what people had to say about the different products we’ve been selling and about different models for credicapaz (the savings based microfinance). But after a week of meeting at the convent and sitting through hours of overly exhaustive discussion sessions, I honestly think I might have ADD or something.

It’s been encouraging to see how passionate some of the people here are about Credicapaz (which is not surprising because over half of the people here have an Econ background). Our group and another group have what I believe to be the two front running models. What we have is essentially a modified ROSCA (rotating savings and credit) in which every member of a 12 person savings group puts in a predetermined X amount(say 100 Q) in the pot every month. At the same time, every month a different member is selected to take all the money in the pot or essentially the lump sum(1200). People can bid on months they want to withdraw the money and the money bidded is added interest to everybody in the group. This allows for some people to gain access to credit (if they withdraw early before they pay in the full amount), and also allows them to save up for something in the future. Reasons to save for the future might include certain critical harvest periods or special plans to purchase useful items like water filterers or refrigerators. Our model is very much still in the process and Chris, who has already spearheaded CrediCapaz for our group, is working tirelessly.

Nonetheless, I question how much our ideas will actually be implemented here in Guatemala. We only have 3 weeks left, not nearly enough time to see through an entire one year rosca cycle. What do we do once we leave this program? Can we trust that SolCom will actually make this thing come to life? I don’t want them to blindly execute the ideas of a bunch of undergrad university students, but it’s hard to find motivation if we can’t see the outcomes of our work. Development work requires a whole lot of patience and trust. We just all have to buy into the system and just try our best to come up with the most sustainable solutions.

Beans, Books, and…more Beans

Homestay life has been relatively uneventful. I say with utmost relief and glee that Jeffrey has calmed down and has been annoying me less frequently. Since he hasn’t been in school for 2 weeks due to the swine flu outbreak, his dad decided to take him down to the fields to work with him. A smile crept ever so gently on my face when I had heard about the idea. I got to my room and jumped on my bed like a little girl. I muttered, Que bueno. Hell yeah. Break him. Break this boy. Haha, how I love character building in the fields. Jeffrey’s been a good kid though, and honestly I do like him. He only climbed through my window about 4 times this week and only once did he exasperatingly squeeze out a whole bunch of my hand sanitizer and use it like sun tan lotion all over his body.

As I flipped the concluding page of my second book in the past 4 days one night in Magdalena, I realized that I was honestly a pathetic being. Here I am, with a once in a lifetime experience living in the homestay of a foreign country, reading books and watching movies on my laptop every night after dinner. But in my defense, I really am incredibly tired of initiating the conversation after 8 hours of work in Antigua. On top of that, my family is either laboring in the fields or monotonously making tortillas all day. I guess I have decided to just “cut the crap” and only bother them with random questions during dinner and leave them alone after that to watch tv in silence.

And of course I cannot talk about my homestay experience without talking about beans. I really think I have eaten more beans here in this country than I have ever before and that I will ever eat again. I have eaten beans in every size or shape imaginable—black, brown, red, big, small, mushed you name it. What is really bad is that when my family makes beans, they scores of them—I’m talking 3 pots worth. This translates to literally 4 or 5 meals in a row where all I’m eating is beans and tortilla. I think its strange now that I consider even a piece of lettuce a luxury. I’ve had virtually no vegetables or meat here in this country as my diet has consisted of carbs and…whatever beans are.

30 hours in Coban

After spending two weeks in Antigua, I don’t’ think I’ve ever felt more restless to travel and explore Guatemala. We had this weekend off before traveling to our sites to do whatever the heck he wanted and I can proudly say that I capitalized on this opportunity. Xinli was kind enough to organize a somewhat risky trip Coban. Risky because it is 7 hours away and our window for traveling was from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon and also because all of the SolCom staff was advising us not to do it. But here we were a group of ten (me, Hannah, tracey, xinli, Marjorie, annie, rongie, Juliet, shao Lauren), getting into the camioneta bus at 4 am on Saturday aching for something exhilarating.

The drive up was hell. We all stayed in Antigua on Friday night to go bar hopping/clubbing which was actually quite a letdown. Besides dancing with some of the natives, I did not enjoy the atmosphere at all. I felt so many hostile eyes on me coming from older Guatemalan men sitting at the bar. After getting back to our hotel, we had only three hours of sleep before we left to Coban. I was betting on getting most of my sleep on the way up there, but the drive was so terrible and windy that whenever I felt even in the tiniest bit of sleepiness envelope my body, my head would crash violently against the ceiling or the window.

Paradise & Spelunking in Lanquin

We arrived to Lanquin, a town about 2 hours north of Coban at approximately 1 pm and immediately find out we’re staying at a stunningly exotic and picturesque hotel called “el Retiro.” The place had outdoor huts for $4 and hammocks to sleep in for $3. The hotel sits on a plush green hill that has pebbled trails leading to the hotel’s restaurant/bar and—get this, the hotel is sits right along the Lanquin river. It was surreal transitioning from such dirt poor roads to a sudden paradise in the middle of such a rural nowhere.

Later that afternoon, after settling down in the hotel we explored the Lanquin caves. Maybe this is because I have never been to a cave, but I thought this was one of the coolest things I have experienced in my life. The cave was so sweet and unreal, with a myriad of fruit bats, stalagmites and crazy mayan altars where religious and sacrificial offerings were made. I have no idea the significance of any of this stuff and I wish we had a guide to explain things to us but I could always look up stuff on the internet in Xelah where its ubiquitous.

After an hour or so of spelunking, we went tubing. Coincidentally, the lanquin cave is the source of the lanquin river which also led us right back to our hotel! We all got into a tube and went with the rapid currents for a good hour. While it was actually quite dangerous, as there were trees and rocks on the margins of the river, it was mighty relaxin’ jus floatin’ along. I felt like Tom Sawyer or some character in Mark Twain’s river stories. Staring up at the cloudless skies and at the beautiful green hills, I remember feeling such a connection to nature and God, the source of all beauty in this world. I really think I have reached a breakthrough, a few years ago I would never have been able to appreciate scenery. I remember my parents forced me to go to the Grand Canyon and I just effin hated it. I only bumped my ass once on a rock and for a brief 15 seconds I went through a freaken jungle of branches and came out with about 10 species of bugs on me.

Semuc Champey

The next day we went to semuc champey, the premier sight seeing place in Coban. Champey is basically a valley surrounded by a tropical humid forest with many natural pools of different sizes, filled with crystalline mountain spring waters. We hiked up for about 2 or so hours through a variety of beautiful scenes. I can’t think of a better word for this place than “idyllic.” Subsequently, we rushed back to El Retiro for our final minutes in Coban before racing back to Antigua. It was a helluva weekend.