Day in, Day out

I need to head to the roof of Maya Pedal everyday!

It's been about two weeks since we've been in San Andres Itzapa and it is still tough to say what is going to happen on a day to day basis. We have been working at the bike shop everyday and each day is a definitely a new adventure. Some days are spent only working on fixing bikes while other slower days are spent on cleaning the shop and sorting through components. There are some amazing things that I've found out while working here. People are very innovative when it comes to finding solutions to problems. In the U.S. if you needed to somehow route your front brake into a cable stop you would go out and buy something like this:

In Guatemala I needed something similar to build up a bike to sell and couldn't find one in the shop. I asked Rodolfo (the mechanic at Maya Pedal) what to do at the end of the day. We ended up leaving the shop for a bit and when I returned he had drilled a hole on the top of the stem that is just big enough for the brake housing to fit, and then drilled a small hole just big enough to fit the brake cable on the bottom of the stem. Instant cable stop with no searching for parts or buying special pieces. Clever, minimalist, and unique, though I didn't take a picture. In addition, this solution provides one less point of failure in the future. There is no chance of the cable hanger bending if your bike falls off the top of a bus (One of the volunteers told me a story where two guys were able to take his fully loaded bike and put it on the roof of a 'chicken bus' while it was moving). I'll try to remember to take pictures of the cool solutions we encounter. Generally, there's nothing a little (or big) hammer, some grinding, or welding won't solve.

Late night help from Negra, the Maya Pedal  adopted chain tool expert

Most days we end up spending about 10-ish hours a day working at the shop. It's tough working where you live as we end up working into the late evening. Even on weekends I'll look for some parts in the parts room or tighten up the cables to finish up the latest bike we're building. We do take small breaks during the day, especially when the tostada lady comes by to offer us a snack. One of the volunteers has started tracking the number of tostadas she has eaten. Considering the amount of tostadas that I have consumed, I don't think I'll keep track of that number :) The food here is pretty amazing. All of the volunteers take turns cooking and getting things from the market (in addition to our tostada addiction). Shreya is going to post about all of that great stuff pretty soon. Stay tuned and come hungry!

Let's Talk Shop.

The bike shop here at Maya Pedal is, apparently, quintessential Guatemala. Which is to say, seemingly unorganized. Tools and parts aren't always placed where they belong and rarely return to the spot where they came from. We have been working a lot on organizing and cleaning up the shop, and I think it's going well..

Before...

After!

 

Surprisingly, the wheel room has maintained its cleanliness the past couple weeks.

Still, there sometimes appears to be a method to the madness as Rodolfo (the mechanic), can find things in the parts room amazingly quickly. He has expressed appreciation for all the organizing we have done, though. I think it does help him out so we aren't all running into things on the floor and missing tools.

As far as work goes, we sometimes get various projects assigned to us from Rodolfo, and we ask lots of questions and try and initiate our own projects. So far, we have worked on building up and fixing bikes for customers, orders for a bici-degrenador (corn de-grainer), biciliquadora (blender), and a battery charger. All pedal-powered, of course. I also picked out an old rusty bike frame, and Nilit and I are working on getting it built up. It's a small sized frame, which is in high demand here where even Nilit is picked out as a tall man. It has been tough to build a bike up because all the parts around here are old and recycled from other bikes, and there is so much variability in bike types and the necessary parts. Sometimes I spend 20 minutes just finding a very specific part (like a stem that fits or a bottom bracket piece) or a even just matching nut & bolt.

Using the dye grinder because my weld sucks!

Learning how to weld!

Nobody except the other volunteers speak English, so we are getting lots of Spanish practice. We also speak a little with customers who come by and need something fixed. I really need to learn more bike part translations, though. Us volunteers also have a (somewhat loose) rule of speaking only Spanish with each other at dinner. It's hard because we sometimes realize we are eating in silence because of it and switch back over :)

Maya Pedal is in sort of a transition period right now with regard to leadership. There's quite a bit of rumor and hearsay about what happened and who did what, but I don't care to propagate that here. Suffice it to say, I don't think it's affected our work too much so far. It may soon, but we will find out in due time.

At times we work 10ish hours a day which can be a bit tiring on the feet - but the time still seems to fly by somehow. I have fun getting my hands dirty and getting things accomplished around the shop. A handful of days have been a little shorter or lazier because we aren't always loaded with customers, and at times we haven't had the materials we need to start a new bicimaquina. Nilit and I have also been training online in the evenings for the Unite for Sight program in India. Based upon the information they've given us, we have to start mentally preparing for lots of 12-hour working days including OR procedures, outreach camps, and clinic work. Sounds exhausting, but so very rewarding at the same time. I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it!

We are actually on vacation right now from Maya Pedal. I'm writing from Guatemala City, where we needed to visit the Indian embassy. We are then traveling around for a week up to Flores and Tikal (where we will see Mayan Ruins) and then to Semuc Champey (to see some apparently gorgeous waterfalls and views!). We then return to Guate and bus back home to Itzapa. I'll post pics and stories when we get back :)
Have a great week!

Oh, the places you'll go!

Sorry for the radio silence! I actually can’t really believe it’s been over a week since we arrived here in Guatemala. Things have been interesting, fun, and challenging all at the same time.

I’ll do my best to paint a picture for you. We are living in a small town called San Andrés Itzapa, perched on a hillside. When you look around in each direction you’ll see volcanoes and green mountains filled with delineated farm land. There is one main street that goes into Itzapa, but once you get into the main town square it branches off into smaller streets and alley ways. In the main square you’ll find a bustling city center with a large open market area, fairly large concrete city government buildings, and tiendas (small convenience stores). Lots of Pepsi and Movistar ads painted on the buildings. In the morning you’ll find the market area filled to the edge with vendors selling fresh vegetables, fruits, rice, and beans. The air in the city is generally a bit humid but fairly cool; and smells a little like a warm concoction of vegetables, bread, exhaust fumes, and fertilizer. It reminds me of India in a lot of ways.

If you continue past the square and walk uphill on the cobbles and broken sidewalks, you’ll be in the company of fellow shoppers, a few stray dogs, a few more tiendas, panaderias (bakeries), and tortillarias – where inside youll see a few women chatting and flattening corn tortillas back and forth from hand to hand and placing them on a large flat grill. You'll smell the corn when you walk by. Keep going up and up the steep hill and, before the cemetery at the top, you’ll find a bike shop, and our home for the next two months – Maya Pedal.

We aren’t staying in a 5-star hotel, that’s for sure. Maya Pedal provides volunteer housing, which is one floor up from the main alley and bike shop. There are three rooms and a shared bathroom. Our room is probably barely about 70 square feet, but Nilit and I spent our first afternoon and evening fully cleaning before thinking about putting our things in it. Our bed consists of a twin-sized metal frame with recycled bike tubes strung across and a couple of foam pads on top. Together with our sleeping pads and sleeping bags (which nicely zip together) we actually have a fairly comfy bed!

Lots of natural sunlight through that window ;)

We've organized a few plastic crates as makeshift shelves for our clothes, and used the nails already in the wall to hang our backpacks and a line to dry our clothes and towels.

 

On the first floor we also have a kitchen with pots and pans, a full-sized camping stove, and a pedal-powered blender…

Making some horchata!

Vegetarian restaurant food is hard to come by in Itzapa - But the market sells beautiful avocados, beans, plantains, oranges, rice, and all sorts of veggies. Cooking those with some spices and together with fresh tortillas from the ladies at the nearby tortillaria makes for a truly fantastic home-cooked meal. 

It’s only been 10 days, but we are getting more and more acquainted with everything around here and it’s starting to feel a bit like home. I don’t know how we will feel in a couple of weeks or months, but I like where we are now.

I’ll write a bit more next time about our work with Maya Pedal, the bike shop, and what we’ve been up to..

Until then, adiós y buenas días!

AZ to C.A. (Central America)

The last few weeks went by quickly as expected. Getting final preparations completed, shadowing an eye doctor, and seeing family was exciting and exhausting at the same time. We pretty much utilized every minute of every day. The flight out to Guatemala included a red-eye flight from Phoenix to Miami, a 4 hour layover, and then a quick 2 hour flight into Guatemala City. When our tickets were scanned to board the flight from AZ to FL, there was an alarm that we didn`t hear from other ticket holders. Were we at the wrong gate? Did we miss our flight? Not the right passports? Turns out we were sittimg in the emergency row and the flight attendant just wanted to get a confirmation that we would perform the duties bestowed to emergency row passengers. Whew! The flight wasn´t that pleasant and both of us tried to sleep as much as possible. I´m usually able to pass out on an airplane, but I couldn`t on this flight. We landed in Miami and settled in for the 4 hour layover. We gained internet access and decided that we should figure out exactly how to get from Guatemala City to San Andres-Itzapa (where Maya Pedal is located). Better late than never. We found a few blog posts on how people did it before us and felt confident that we would get on the right bus. As usual, plans change.

When we arrived in Guatemala City we decided to take a cab to the bus station. After talking with the cab driver (mostly Shreya and her bonita español, along with some ¨mmhmm¨ noises from me) we decided it was worth the fare to just take the cab to Chimaltenango and then a bus to San Andres-Itzapa. The drive was gorgeous, with awesome mountain passes. Unfortunately, I didn´t take out my camera or phone to document. I´ll take some on the way back to the city

San Andres-Itzapa is small city placed on a pretty steep hillside. After asking a few locals, we found out that Maya Pedal is located at the top of the city. Great views...loooong walk, especially since both of us were carrying about 30lbs of stuff. We did enjoy some of the local offerings on our way though:

Mmmm helados!

Once we got to Maya Pedal, we found the door closed with no one inside. Hmm. We waited around for a bit to see what would happen. We talked to some of the neighbors and kids that were running around to see if they knew when someone would return. They weren´t sure if the members of the shop would return later today or tomorrow. It was about 4:30p local time and we were worried that everyone had left early for the day. One of the neighbors gave us directions to one of the shop members house and we started down the path to their house.We ran into some kids on bikes who stopped us and asked if we were looking for Maya Pedal. I guess we were easily identified. They said that they worked at Maya Pedal and were just returning from lunch. They let us in and we settled down. The other volunteers and shop workers came shortly after. A few volunteers were leaving the next day and one had arrived earlier that day. Everyone was super nice and friendly and helped us integrate into the shop and living quarters quickly.

We finally made it. Maya Pedal is still here and functioning. The people here have been great and we´ve been learning a lot. Stay tuned for more posts and pictures coming soon. Take care!

Nilit

Eye Shadow

Nilit and I have been in Phoenix for a couple weeks now! We've been able to enjoy some quality time with friends and family, and get some last minute things taken care of before we leave for our trip. Unite for Sight (the program we're volunteering for in India) requires that all volunteers shadow an eye doctor in our home country for at least two days. After finishing some online training and learning more about eye anatomy and diseases, we were on the hunt to find a local eye doctor willing to help us out. Luckily, my mom's eye doctor allowed us to shadow him and other docs in his office. They scheduled us to be there for two days.

We showed up on the first day early, prepared, and excited. We are both certifiable nerds that way. It went like this pretty often:

Doc: This is the test we do because this is how the anatomy is and this is how this disease works.

Me or Nilit, or both in unison: OOh, wow! That is SOO cool! So how come.....And why can't you...and what if....I bet you could design something that...

Yup, nerds.

The docs were all kind enough to answer our numerous and silly questions patiently. They even allowed us to practice on their equipment, and used "teaching mirrors" when doing retinal exams so that we could see what they could see.

Nilit practicing his slit lamp/biomicroscope skills. The docs make this look easy!

A tad hard to see, but the red light is the patient's retina. It's being reflected from the opthalmascope sitting on the doctor's head. That is what she sees through the device.

I think that part of our enthusiasm to learn this all well stems from just making sure we can actually be useful when we're in India. We aren't doctors or nurses, and the very last thing we want is to do is get in people's ways or create more work than help. The more we know before we get there, the better off everyone will be - especially the patients. We are excited about that.

The problem for me will be that by the time we are leaving for India, all the knowledge will be two months old and most of it replaced with broken Spanish and bicycle machine know-how from Maya Pedal. Not a bad problem to have, but I did bring my notes from shadowing to give myself a refresher before we finally get there :)

We are actually headed to Guatemala right now - Literally about to board the plane as I type this. I'll leave all of that for another post. I'll just put it this way:

We. are. stoked.

See you all in Guatemala.