ASIVESCA

ASIVESCA is a small NGO, set up in the south-east of Guatemala, in the
semi-arid municipality of Zacapa. Its name stand for Asociacion de
Investigacion Y fomento del desarollo Cabañas, loosely translated as
Organisation for the promotion of development and research. It was
setp up in 2008 by a sociology-major then mother of 2 called Annie
Ruiz, and has managed to keep going with the help of some local
volunteers, though not nearly enough! They are currently focusing on:
education, environment and awareness. Under each of these umbrellas
they have several projects and activities:

1. A library (education), currently set up in part of Annie´s house,
though hopes are of having a separate building at some point in the
future. The town has never had anything of the sort before, and it is
mainly used by kids who come in to read books their parents cannot
afford, as well as some older students and adults who need specialised
research. In return, Annie asks for a small voluntary donation of 10
centamos (the equivalent of 1 eurocent). Smaller kids can have a book
read to them and others can even get help with their homework! Their
support network at school is abysmal, so its a wonderful chance for
the kids who really want to learn.
The library also has 2 computers in it (kind donations), one with the
internet and one with an encarta installed on it, as well as having a
printer. A lot of kids do not know how to use a computer and,
consequently, for homework will pay 10 quetzales (1 euro) to an
internet cafe to do it for them - keep in mind that this is more than
some people have to eat with a day. I did a week-long beginners
computer class to 5 kids (8-12 years of age) and by the end they were
searching google for games in their free time. What freedom for kids
who have so little at home!

2. Various other classes are held in the librry (education) such as
knitting. This is a way ASIVESCA is trying to motivate housewives
otherwise restricted by their husbands and glued to daytime TV to get
out of the house and do something for themselves. They have a class on
wednesday and thursday, making patterns and designs from books or
magazines with donated yarn. Hopes are to start selling some products
from September or so onwards, the proceeds of which would be for the
knitter herself, minus 5% for the NGO.

3. A recycling center (environment) - this is a building kindly lent
out to them for free, on the edge of town, and is open on mondays from
9-12 and then 3-5. They collect plastic which would otherwise be
thrown out on the streets. It is still very basic, and seems to have
had less response of late, but we are trying to increase awareness by
putting up big signs for now. Incentives for recycling are also there,
every trip being rewarded with a token for a notebook or book about
Guatemala donated by another organisation (Zootropic, who protect an
endemic species of lizard called the Motagua valley beaded lizard,
possibly one of the most endangered species of all lizards with est.
less than 200 individuals in the wild). Every time ASIVESCA is able to
fill a truck full of recyclables, they receive 1009Q (just under 100
euros) which they re-invest into improvement of the center. Taking the
idea of recycling a step further, they have been practising building
walls out of PET bottles with school kids.

5. They are involved with a partner organisation called Aliaza para el Desarollo Sostenible del Valle del Motagua. Alianza has a much wider span of influence, covering reserves in the whole of the Motagua Valley in the south-east of Guatemala. Currently they are trying develop of a tourism infrastructure, with an eye on university researchers (as there is such a high level of endemism in its bird, plant and reptile species) and archaeologists (there have recently been discovered constructions most likely of mayan origin).

6. Finally, for promoting awareness they do not focus on any
particular subject but they will hold talks about (for example)
recycling at schools, dental hygiene at the isolated villages in the
hillside, and joint educational talks about the beaded lizard with
Zootropic.

Lack of government interest and support has left ASIVESCA to their own
devices for funding, which is few and far between. One of their sponsors are organisations such as Fundacion Defensores de la Naturaleza, or another called JADE which was set up by the Dutch government. With the kind
donations they have received they have done as much as anyone could.
One of their current ideas is to get monthly funding for the library,
so they are able to provide a minimal reward to volunteers of 30Q per
3-hour shift, about 2.5 euros. The total amount they are hoping to
secure is 200 euros a month.

One of the other great support schemes they have is that of
scholarships. Through scholarships, kids who otherwise not have enough
money to buy the shoes for school are able to enjoy a more worry-free
childhood. The amount varies depending on the age and grade of the
recipient - from 380 US dollars a year in preschool to 811 US dollars
in high school (which boils down to 67 dollars a month). The good
thing about their program in particular is that you receive an exact
breakdown, to the dollar, of the costs (including health insurance!),
and Annie sends you personal e-mail updates every 3 months.
Futhermore, the recipients MUST visit the library to make sure they
study. There are currently only 3 scholarships ongoing, but the
ever-positive Annie thinks this is great already!

They are desperate for other donations of any kind, and they will soon
be putting a list up on their website. The library of course welcomes
any books in any language (though Spanish is most useful), the ladies
group ould love more materials (yarns, threads, magazines etc). Used
things useful for the reserves such as cameras, binoculars,
identification books, computers, printers, laberl makers, backpacks,
markers and other freebies you may throw away as junk are more useful
than you know!

Their website is still in the works, and once it is improved, all of
the information they have will be easily accessed, but in the meantime
I´ve attempted to fill the gaps.
If you are interested in donating your time (they consider any input
as extremely valuable), money and/or materials of any kind, feel free
to contact me (esterderoij@gmail.com) or Annie Ruiz
(anadelrosario.archila@gmail.com)


Making a PET bottle wall with a school. The woman in blue is Annie!


The library building of ASIVESCA


Knitting projects made by Annie (on the right) and her class


Me teaching a computer class in the library


The recycling center

From Antigua to Atitlan to Xela and Cabañas.

I ended up leaving Antigua the next day. Not because I did´nt like it after all, but I was trying to fit in a volcano visit (which i felt i had to do as they´re everywhere in this region) along with a possible visit elsewhere into my schedule before starting my volunteering.

I took an early morning bus to Lago de Atitlan, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful lakes around. It´s situated higher in the mountains, a welcome change of weather, and I wanted to rest before hiking on my knee, which was still not entirely painless after a few days. The 7am bus was the only direct one there, and was one of the infamous ´chicken buses´. These are re-used American school buses, that are totally pimped out, multicoloured paint and christmas lights on the outside, used for all transport by the locals. It was a nice and bumpy ride, with often 3 people squeezing onto benches that are supposed to hold 2 people, and all 3 seem to be on the plump side (I don´t know if i´ve gotten too used to skinny Japanese, but I find that there´s a lot of fat people here, though people here are short too whereas belize they were tall and wide!). On top of which, the bus driver looked like he was one of the village people, with a big sombrero-cowboy style hat, his aviator sunglasses and a nice moustache to match.

One of the other many reasons I went to the lake on this day was that it was market day in a town called Solola, just above the lake. Markets are supposed to be very interesting in the Western region of Guatemala as a lot of local tribes still wear their traditional dress. And it was true! The women wore these beautiful garments, the base colour of which was black adn then they´d embroidered all of these multicoloured patterns on top. Very special. It´s quite interesting as all the different villages around the lake have slightly different outfits, like another had these white blouses that had emroidered patterns near the top. They´re all beautiful, but taking something like that out of context and just wouldn´t fit in at home - you´d look like you were still wearing something from 40 years ago. what a shame!

I then took a boat to a little town on the lake called Santa Cruz, because I´d heard the hostel there is really cheap and really relaxed. I did not like taking the boats, because there, along with the taxis and the tuk-tuks, they rip you off as a foreigner. In the chicken buses, I pay the same as the locals, about 30 quetzales for a 3 hour bus ride (depending on where you go - this is about 3 euros). It was a pretty amazing place, called ´la iguana perdida´ and it was just the rest i needed!

I met a group of 2 Australians and a Dutch girl there, and I moved on with them to the next village on the lake - San Pedro. We only took a boat halfway there and ended up taking a tuktuk the rest of the way to get a good view of the lake. It was a good idea, but entering San Pedro gave us a rather unpleasant view of the town, which changed once we explored it a little more. Our hostel for the night was quite depressing, albeit with a very friendly atmosphere between the guests, and the next day we checked into one which was slightly more expensive, but unmentionably better. Rain for the rest of the afternoon limited our activities (from now on, I´ll be encountering a lot of afternoon showers as the rainy season is in full progress), and the evening saw a lot of alcohol, which meant we spent the rest of the next day loungeing around. Good thing there was a lot of rain that day!

After the second night in San Pedro, we parted ways, with one of the Australians and the Dutch girl staying behind for Spanish classes, and the other Australian had to move on to Mexico. I had, after a lot of debate, decided to go to another city called Quetzaltenango (or Xela) as there´s a very active volcano there.

Xela is a lovely city! It has a lot of colonial architecture, but in contrast to Antigua, has much more of a Greek influence for some reason, and they´re not as pretentious about as they are in Antigua. But like Antigua, there are many Spanish schools meaning there´s plenty of foreigners around (not that i minded!). And they too had an earthquake, but more recent - in 1902 - so most of the older architecture is vestiges of what it once used to be. It´s a pretty good indication of what would happen in Europe if there ever was a big earthquake! I took a stroll around town and went to check out some tourist offices to see if there was a tour going to see Santiaguito (a volcano that erupts about every hour). No luck! This is one of the problems of travelling alone - most tours require at least 2 people. And going by yourself was too dangerous (this is still Guatemala, after all. The US havent given up the search for some of the drug lords out here).

Before giving up, I thought I´d try a hike that I could do by myself, from which you could also see a bit of that volcano and the 2 others in the region. The next morning, when I wanted to set out, the rainy season meant the clouds were way too low to have anything of a good view. After some back and forths I decided not to go, and walked around a little more. It was very interesting, because the outskirts of the city had a big american influence (there was a taco bell, wendy´s, walmart, you name it!) whereas the inner city still had small tiendas run by small families.

I ran to try and catch a nicer bus, but i was too late by 15 minutes, and I ended up on another chicken bus for the next 4 hours to Guatemala City, after which I had to take a taxi to a different bus stop.
The bus ride wasn´t too bad, i got a window seat meaning i could safely guard my stop, but about an hour in it started to pour down with rain and an hour later i realised my big bag was ON TOP of the bus. SHIT! They had put a rain cover on my things, so when I got to Guatemala City my bag was dry - what a relief!
When the taxi arrived at the other bus stop i was literally BOMBARDED by BUS drivers who wanted me to take their bus! They were reaching for my stuff inside the taxi and I had to forcefully tell them to stop whilst I paid for the taxi. I got out and the first person who was able to grab my big bag from the trunk got my service.
3 hours later, and I arrived in a small town called Santa Cruz, to start my volunteering for the next 3 weeks.

It was much warmer here than in Xela! Being in the mountais, when it rained and in the evening it got pretty chilly in the city and on the bus ride meaning i even used my hoody when i wasn´t using my raincoat. But here, rain or no rain, it´s very hot. In April, they reached 46 degrees C apparently. The place I´m volunteering at is called Cabañas, which is reasonably big, but there is a town with a drug family about 2 towns away, so the people here don´t like to let me walk around too freely, makes sense really!

I´m working at a little organisation called ASIVESCA (Ill put up a blog post explaining exactly what they do when I next have time). The woman in charge of the NGO (Annie) is really sweet, and she speaks great English, so she helps me out a lot (her family is also lovely). But she also likes me to practice my Spanish, and at times I have had a big headache keeping up with it all, along with the midday heat. Mornings after rain is the only time it´s a comfortable temperature here. But I feel I am remembering a lot of Spanish, and I´m getting my tenses back a little... give me 2 weeks ha!
I´m staying at some friend´s of Annie´s, and it´s quite lush - I have my own bathroom and everything! And they keep trying to feed me! They have a little girl, who seems to want to copy everything I do.
The first day I was here, wednesday, I joined a meeting of various reserve owners in this area, which they hold once a month and they brainstorm ideas for raising money for the reserves and developing opportunities for tourism (their organisation is called ALLIANZA). Yesterday Annie explained what ASIVESCA does in detail, and we kept a little library she has here open for the day. I was fed by Annie´s mother-in-law both for lunch and for dinner - luxury! A staple here are black beans (frijoles) which they eat at every meal (in bean form, soup form or pureed with tortillas) it seems. I don´t think i´ll want to see them again after I finish off here! But I also ate cow´s tongue, which was quite pleasant. They eat their main meal here at midday, and in the evening they only eat a little as they go to bed aorund 9 and go to work at about 5. But the odd thing is that often for dinner they will have some black beans, and then some coffee with sweet bread. Why coffee for dinner?

The landscape here is beautiful. You have vast green hills that surround the basin that Cabañas and some other villages are set in. They have long dry spells, which is why it´s known for as a semi-arid region, but after a few days of rain everything turns green. They have a river that flows through, but a storm called Agatha hit last year, with lots of rains, so much that many houses were flooded, along with roads and bridges, and the river has been moved covering people´s farm land. The river seems to move a lot. Because it´s so hot and dry they have over 40 species of endemic cactuses, and they have some beautiful birds here too like several species of motmot, hopefully i can grab a good picture at some point.

There are a lot of blackflies and mosquitoes though, of which I am not a fan!

Today we went to plant some trees in a reserve and climbed up to a mirador overlooking the valley. Ive put up a few pictures already, I´ll be taking more over the next few weeks. Tomorrow and Sunday I´m heading off to a different village for some Spanish lessons, and next week it´s all library time with some computer classes I have to teach too!

From San Ignacio to Flores to Antigua

Having rested in San ignacio, I set off to the the ATM cave the next morning. I did pop by a mayan ruin called cahal pech, though to be the oldest, dating back to possibly 1200BC.

The ATM cave, or actun tunichil muhknal which is Mayan for the cave of the stone sepulchre, was only discovered in 1983 and then reported to arheaological authorities by 1986. It has seen several different reports by national geographic, discovery channel etc. and it's currently still undergoing archaeological excavation so only part of the cave is open to the public. It was used in from around 200 till 750 AD for sacrifices, including human sacrifices. It lies about 7 miles from the main road and then you have to hike for about 45 minutes across a path, and crossing the river 3 times, to get to the entrance of the cave. No wonder it's been hidden so long! (a lot of Belize's momuments are far from the main road, which is why I think they're so well-preserved). To get into the main chamber of the cave you spend about 80% of the time in water, sometimes swimming, sometimes wading. Some bits are quite tricky to get through so it's not good for claustrophobics! But once you get in it's still a living museum. A lot of the original ceramics offered to the gods are still lying around, along with about 5 skulls - one of which has a full skeleton! It's all pretty damn impressive. Once a tourist got so excited though that she dropped her camera onto a skull that only had 2 teeth left and consequently broke 1 off. I don't think cameras will be allowed for much longer! It was so beautiful down there, all of the stalactites were still shimmering. It was worth the money!

The next day is left for Guatemala bright and early. Crossing the border was pretty hassle free, but it's clear that not many people speak English even 5 minutes from the border, whereas people in San Ignacio were bilingual.
Guatemala feels a lot different the minute you enter it. The buildings are low, often one story, everything feels a little bit more open and more laid-back but more vibrant than Belize. It's also a lot more Westernised, spotting a burger King or a Subway here and there.

I took a taxi to Flores. I'll be honest and let you know I wasn't sure whether I should as there were some brutal drug-related killings (with chainsaws and machetes) in this region of Guatemala 15 days previous, and the givernment issued a 30-day non-essential travel discouragement. But I'd heard from several people that it was fine and i really wanted to see Tikal.

Flores still was pretty busy with tourists so I immediately felt reassured. Was I was surprised by, however, was the presence of tuktuks (they call them that too) on this side of the world! It makes sense, as Flores on a little island built in very European fashion, with the main square on the hill in the middle, all of the roads are very badly cobbled and narrow, and the houses are attached, circling around the island (reminding me of Siena in Italy) but they have the mutlicolouredness of Spanish houses.

The next morning (it's the 1st now right? I have lost all track!) I got transportation to Tikal, but I didn't want to do the tour.
Tikal is probably the most famous and beautiful Mayan ruins. Estimated to be from around early AD, it was a thriving community until the Mayans in Belize beat them in 750-ish and moved the entire population to their site called Caracol (the biggest Mayan community ever). Tikal has several very tall temples (the highest around 55m) and other acropolises that are thought to be the most complicated in the Mayan world. Pretty amazing right?

I would say it ranks in my current top 2 archaeological I've ever seen, along with Angkor Wat (mind you, I've not seen the Acropolis or the pyramids of Egypt). What made this one so special to me, being a lover of nature, is that the ruins are situated in the 2nd biggest protected rainforest reserve in Guatemala. Taking pictures of these huge, old ruins with howler monkeys screaming so close to you in a very interesting experience. I was able to enjoy the running around (and climbing up) the ruins as well as catching some good wildlife shots - double whammy! You can go up some of the temples and you get this beautiful view of the tops of the other temples and a vast expanse of rainforest. I also frequently saw spider monkeys, coatmundis and cool birds like woodpeckers and oropendolas.

For a few days now, I've been having some knee pains, which meant climbing down the ruins was not fun! Got some bandage but I hope that looks up soon.

I had decided to travel on to Antigua, guatemala's old capital, on an overnight bus. Whilst I was waiting for 9 to strike the power went out around 6. Not only in Flores, but 2 other towns as well. When it came to heading to the bus station I wanted to find a tuktuk but there were none around, and I couldn't find a taxi easily eithrr, so i walked some of the way in the dark (with my headlight) and I felt VERY uneasy, especially considering the government warnings! I started worrying a bit and asked a police woman (there were A LOT of police around, which kind of made it worse is a way) where the bus station was and they were nice enough to drive me, with a little hurrying from me. Having a inflatable neck pillow meant I was able to sleep quite well in the bus, surprisingly enough for me!

Guatemala City didn't look that great, just very big. But Antigua is lovely! There are a lot of foreigners here, possibly for all the Spanish language schools, but it has a very calm, international atmosphere, with cobbled streets, decrepit old Europeans buildings (the result of an earthquake in 1773), again the low multicoloured houses against a backdrop of mountains & 3 volcanos. I think I'll like it here for the next couple of days!

Antigua, Guatemala


View of the tops of 2 temples


Old Mayan figure


Movement map