Looking for Dog Poop, FBT Part II

After Church in San Carlos Alzatate, we went to Cobán, a city in the middle north of Guatemala. There it was much warmer that I had been used to in San Bartolomé. Also, it was the first time in a long time that I slept without my hooded-sweatshirt and socks. (I would later pay for this warm weather because as the night I returned to San Bartolomé, I would feel extremely cold during the night and even might normal bundle of clothing and pile of blankets would not suffice--- I am going to have to start wearing my winter jacket now).

We stayed in a hostel there and unlike my host family, there was hot water to bathe in (and yes, I took cold showers all 5 days I was staying with the host family). That first night the water felt so good and the bed felt like a plume of clouds. I even walked around barefoot for awhile since the weather was so nice at night.

While in Cobán, I made my first school presentation with Mateo, another volunteer. I knew this would be a tough challenge for my Spanish since I would only be able to prepare so much and the rest would be thinking on my feet. We worked quite hard, Matt on his Spanish (because he needed more help in that area) and me on all the odds and ends. One odd was getting all the plants that repelled insects through their strong smell. Unfortunately, I neither had the money nor the time to get all the plants alive from the market so I found myself in a hotel with beautiful landscaping as well as in a florist shop asking for pedacitos de las plantas (small parts of the plants). These people were quite generous to give them to me since the typical thing seems to be to charge a gringo more for something. Another end was, well, getting dog poop. Yes, dog poop. We, well I, had to get dog poop because part of our presentation also included using 2 bottles, one thing with something nice to smell and one thing with something gross to smell. (Using the 2 bottles and having the kids smell each one, we would make the connection that like humans, there are smells the insects do not like as well. Our whole presentation was on natural defenses that can be used for vegetable in the garden, one being the plants and another being a natural pesticide composed of hot peppers, garlic, and soap.) Thus, I picked dog poop to be the gross thing since I figured it would be ample in the streets as it was in San Bartolomé. I was surely proven wrong. After 1.5 hours of roaming the streets, the market, and the city park where I knew dogs were, I found myself in the dark poopless. I nearly gave up and walked back to the street of the hostel when I went to drastic measures; I decided to start asking people for poop they might have from their dog in their home. I approached the first 2 people near a house I knew had a dog. I asked them if they had a dog and then carefully phrased my request for dog poop – I said it was for an experiment. They had no dog, but pointed me to a store which had a dog, but whose owner was unfortunately not in to unlock the house. I went back to the same 2 women sitting on the side of the street and they pointed me to another house farther down which was 2-stories tall. I first started and the neighboring house since they were people outside. The mother came to the door and once again I explained my situation. She cheerfully said no, but that the neighbors did. She went outside to the other house to the call monitor and asked for her cousin to come out (the neighbors were family). A cousin came out, tied up the dog and then we both look for poop. After a while more children came out from both houses to help and then even the dad who turned on the car lights to illuminate the yard. There ended up being nothing in the huge area in which we were looking, but luckily just as the dad was offering a time in the morning that would be good to come over to get some really fresh specimens, someone found our treasure. I was thankful that it was over since I was so hungry, but I think most of all, I was really surprised. What would a person do in the US to a stranger who looked really different and began talking by asking if there were any dogs in the house and if the stranger could get some dog poop. But I was met with smiles, some laughs, and enthusiastic help. When I was done, I passed by the 2 women to say thank you and proudly say, “ya yo tengo el popo”.

With the bottles and the 3 skits ( 1 skit was where I ate a defenseless plant and the other 2 included me running away disgusted from a vegetable plant which was protected from either the natural pesticide or plant which had a strong smell), the presentation was a success. There are still things to improve, but I enjoyed what I did and that day.

Finally, I found out a little bit about where the future sites will be for us volunteers. Some are hotter, some are colder, some are in tiny aldeas and some are in the mountains. There is going to be quite the diversity, but the common factors are that they are safe, that each site has an agency with which we will be able to work, and that the people in that site are asking for the help for which we are training. October 31 is the day I´ll learn which site in Guatemala I´ll be going. November 15 is the day I swear in as a volunteer and leave for the site. I feel I can hardly wait.

Before one of the lunches we had in San Carlos Alzataté, I helped make some of the many tortillas along with the family and Lauren, another volunteer. My tortillas were edible, but they sure were not round like the others. Look below to try to find one of the tortillas that I made. It´s a bit dark to see, but I´ll give you the hint that I was being patriotic to the state of MI.
Here are some tea plants that are just starting off. We visited this Tea cooperative in Cobán and got to tour the fields of tea plants, the building were the tea is dried and packaged, and here where new plants are being grown by sticking a leaf of a current plant in a small package of dirt.

Here I am with our guide. If you notice, he has a University of Maryland hat. Having US things is quite common hear since there are business that actually go to goodwills and other places like that and buy all kinds of clothes to sell down here. Who knew, hah? One sure I even found was an election shirt. On it was the current MI Secretary of State and Attorney General.