People we met in Guatemala

Jorge and his doughters

was our first host in Guatemala. He is a very creativ man, works an architect, carpenter, electician, plays Marimba and guitar and has four beautiful daughters. His wife hasn't been at home when he invited us to stay for the night. She has been in the capital to help her brother, who was victim of a robbery. Among other things they had stolen his bicycle.
More pictures of Jorge you can find at "Diary/Guatemala: first days". (mi)

Josh

Gaby is a host in Quetzaltenango and a successful bicycle racer. Since two years she had to make a break cause of an injury. But meanwhile she cycles again through the mountain-landscape of Guatemala like it were the Netherlands. Furthermore Gaby runs a language school. Actually she restaurates a beautiful colonial building downtown where she will move her school. Josh from the States helps her at that work. More pictures from this building you can find at "Diary/Guatemala: colorful poverty". (mi)

Norbert

When we've been in Quetzaltenango there was the first exibition about solar energy. Norbert, born in the Netherlands, has come from the capital with a group of students to show the use of solar energy with some devices and talks. The contrast couldn't be stronger: He and his futuristig devices in between all the barefoot indigenas and the shoeshine boys in front of the historical buildings of Quetzaltenango.
We met at night again for a nice talk in a bar and Norbert told us about a development assistance project he works on. With the help of solar moduls they bring electricity into remote little mountain villages. Primarily the electricity is used to illuminate the houses. So the adults can read after the field work and the children can do their home work. With a smart "selling contract" they make shure, that the people don't sell the donations immediately. A very interesting project! (mi)

Horst and Helga

After we traveled for 13 months all over the world, my parents liked to see her daughter again. Brave they booked a flight to the remote Guatemala. The effort to protect themselves by shots combined with a totally miss-treatment of his doctor brought my father shortly before the flight into the intensive care of the hospital. After overcoming all the difficulties we finally could meet in Gutemala. For my parents and for me it was the first time that we've been so far from home. My parents liked the two weeks in Guatemala very much. Together we spent a week at Lake Atitlan, where we visited the biosphere reserve and several villages at the lakeside. Riding in a three wheel taxi has been a lot fun for them. My brother just stated to save money to meet me soon in Australia. What an honor! (mi)

Rosa and Domingo

Since five years, since the language school Corazon Maya exists, the family Roja is host of the students from all over the world. They have lots of patiens with us, when we tried to make some conversation with the fiew words we knew at the beginning. Rosa always helped us to practice the new words we learned. She also was a very good cook. In the seven weeks of our stay (the longest at one place in our trip) we got a deep view into the every day life of the poor people of Guatemala. Rosa, who can't read, worries about the ...Ausbildung... of her children to allow them a better life then her own.
We are shure, that the language school is a very goot part of ...Entwicklungshilfe... in form of helping them to help themselves. (see also "Diary/the language school"). (mi)

Ronaldo

At the farewell dinner we met the owners of the language school Corazon Maya very private. Of course Ronaldo also has been there. The German, who is in the school since some months, wanted to make Corazon Maya to the best language school of San Pedro. Like we experienced, the school has the potential, it's just missing a little marketing and promotion. We wish him, that it will work out! (mi)

Kjersti, Ashley, Beate and Uwe

And that is are the interested language students from around the world. Kjersti and Ashley from the States lived together with us at the family Roja. Beate and Uwe from Germany camped in the yard of the school in the meantime. The international round was filled up wit twi friends of Kjersti, who came from Hawaii Kjersti speaks fluently German! Beate and Uwe are like we on a world trip, but with motorcycles. Together we always had nice evenings! (mi)

Barbara

The village San Pedro L.L. is one like many others in Guatemala: Street dogs everywhere. They suffer from underfeeding, parasites and diseases, have marks from abuses and accidents, which never were medicated. Also dogs with owners often suffer similarly. The poor Indigenas don't have the money to pay for castrations and so the number of dogs increases massively. With one or two poisoning operations at night each year the people here try to reduce the dog population. The animals then die very dolorously.

In summer 2003 the two in San Pedro L.L. living Germans Barbara Leuschner and Sandra Heinzelmann founded the "Proyecto-Perro-Callejero" ("Street-Dog-Project") and organize since then regular castration-operations. They got support from Dr. med. vet. M. Moulton from Iowa (USA), who volunteered in 2003 and 2004 castrating many dogs in San Pedro L.L. Barbara and Sandra also carry on a little pet shop, where they sell immunisations, drugs, animal food, and other animal requirements. As well there they inform the interested village people about feeding, deseases and education of dogs.

First little successes can be seen: The residents of San Pedro accepted the shop and some even understood, that dogs can't live just from tortillas. First of all the children now copy the friendly contact to dogs. Earlier they only kicked them. Very slowly you can see a rising interest in the health of the animals.

This year also Guatemaltecan veterinarians came to support the project with volunteer weekend work. Thus in the last three months about 100 dogs and 20 cats could be castrated. The project badly needs new donations to buy drugs and anesthetics. At the same time they are looking for veterinarians, who are interested in volunteer work combined with holidays at Lago Atitlan. Actually Barbara and Sandra try to found an official organisation to also castrate animals in the neighbour villages.

The San Pedro L.L. Street Dog Project badly needs support. Therefore please post a message to:

Barbara Leuschner (sakcari@yahoo.de)
Sandra Heinzelmann (pelo702001@yahoo.com)
Both speak English, German and Spanish (mi)

Gelber

Puffing and sweating from fighting with the grade, we could not resist the temptation, which two policemen offered us: They wanted to carry us and our bicycles on theie pickup truck. When we arrived above in Patzún, Gelber and his colleagues also helped us with the accomodation: One of the sleeping rooms was empty, and they allowed us to sleep in their beds. However, we were a little surprised how simply the police is equipped in Guatemala: There was no flowing water, in the loose yard, the vehicles were filled up from barrels, no computers and instead typewriters and file boxes.(mi)

Debby

Debby is an adventurous music teacher from Oregon, USA. She entered the risk with her husband to resign the "sure" employment at home in order to emigrate to Central Amerika and, to begin a new life there. One must enjoy the life, here and today, they said themselves at that time as if they had suspected it: Two years ago, Ron died. Debby plunged completely into her work for an international school at first. Meanwhile, she reactivated her old spirit of adventure and plans a new change of location: Greatbritain provokes her very much. We lived in Debby's beautiful apartment in Guatemala City a few days and also visited her in the school one day, where she gave us an interesting guided tour.(mi)

Christian

The young Guatemalan Christian impressed us in a way, that it was breathtaking: He is independent as webmaster and his apartment is filled with awards. Constantly, he gets invitations to hold lectures in different countries of Central America. Of course, he/it speaks fluently English, incidentally, also his mother and his siblings. A few years ago, Christian decided that it would do him well to travel, and so he began to explore the world intensively. As member of the Hospitality-Club, he could travel also in the expensive Europe and creates interesting contacts. Christian helped us very much organizing our flight to Peru. His family helped us packing and transporting the bicycles to the airport as well as some other difficult things, that we had to take care of before the departure.
Christian's home page:
www.maestrosdelweb.com/blog/ (mi)