"So much time, so little to do... Scratch that! Reverse it!"

My oh my it's been a busy 5 days (and then some...)! Sorry again for a long post, but I have been without wifi/internet connection at all/the cable to upload my pictures, so here ya go!

Saturday 7/26

• 4.5hr Chicken bus ride from Xoy to Antigua
• This ended up being far more pleasant than anticipated b/c I had first pick (excuse my use of literally, but I was LITERALLY the first person on the bus) of a nice window seat and rack space for my bag and got to keep my bus and seat for all but the last 45min of the ride. 
• Hung out at La Casaca for wifi and a wonderful cappuccino and smoothie
• Also, in my trek from the bus to el parque central, I stopped by some tents selling books in the center and purchased "The Little Prince," "Anne Frank's Diary," and "Rigoberta Manchu" in Spanish to boost my dwindling reading supply and assist in some Spanish learning/practice
• Shuttled to Guatemala City to meet my new favorite midwesterner, Mary H.
• Spent the rest of the night chillin at the Holiday Inn
• The goal of this stay was to enjoy some quality gringa time and consisted of:
• watching movies such as Jurassic Park III and Superbad dubbed in Spanish
• Superbad looses A LOT of it's humor without the voices/delivery, so I said critical lines like "He's a freak, he's the fastest kid in the world" and "they said it would be like that in health class" and "I'm in!" among many others...
• having mozz sticks, potato skins, and burgers at the Hard Rock Cafe
• instantly regretting our awful, overly-processed, constipating (yes, I said it...) meal selection and spending the time post-dinner laying immobile in our beds until Mary started snoring at 8pm and it was time for sleep...

Sunday 7/27

• Early morning breakfast with one of my favorite former professors, Laura Matthew
• She introduced me to this WONDERFUL Swiss bakery in Zone 10 called Los Alpes and other than a very fulfilling breakfast, I left with copious amounts of pastries for Mary and I as well as my evening hosts
• Some pool-side relaxation with Mary, a trip to the Oakland Mall (crazy nice mall, but nothing we really needed), and a lovely lunch at a Catalan tapas restaurant
• Enrique D. picked me up from the hotel in the afternoon to head to his parents house for the night
• He is a Guatemalan-American (as in dual citizenship) civil engineer who graduated a few years ago from Notre Dame (though I tried not to hold that against him) and is living and working in Guatemala on a variety of projects including his own programming firm, some ped bridge design/construction, eco-friendly soap making, and who knows what else
• He and his family were very welcoming and generous hosts who I look forward to spending more time with/swapping civil engineering insights here in Guate!

Monday 7/28

• Enrique drove me to Antigua 
• I dropped my things at Los Bucaros (a hotel I've stayed at on almost every EWB trip) and we grabbed breakfast/I hung around and worked on wifi at Luna de Miel, another excellent and delicious eating establishment in Antigua
• Met Laura and Lisa (!!!) at Bucaros after they arrived from El Salvador, and promptly returned to Luna so they could have some yummy crepes for lunch b/c Lisa was getting hangry (and as someone who fully appreciates the struggles of hangriness, I got them there ASAP)
• Bopped around Antigua a bit, including some time in the market and at the wine tasting establishment directly under the arch to sample and purchase some wine for the impending visit from Mark Federle and the MU team
• Ended our day with a simple dinner near Bucaros and a REAL beer at the Bavarian Beer Garden (yes, there are actually quite a few in the cities)

Tuesday 7/29

• Left for the Lake with a shuttle from Erick (another common hire for EWB trips) and an obligatory stop at Bagel Barn for breakfast on the road
• Arrived in Nueva Providencia around 11:30am to visit the old project and chat with the community
• Fun fact: NP now has flush toilets at the school, courtesy of an NGO Pueblo a Pueblo and their WASH program which I am looking to learn more about after seeing their impressive work in NP
• Hiked out to the spring box and walked portions of the pipeline - there is some work to do... but generally things look good!
• Chatted with current and past comite members
• After Laura said some good byes and I briefed them that Steve Crowe, the hitecha muchachos, and I would be returning with LA TURBINA the next day, we continued around the lake to hop a lancha in Panajachel
• Hopped a heavily over-loaded lancha for a very slow ride out to our hostel, La Iguana Perdida, which was just as wonderful as we expected and even signed us up late for family-style dinner!

Wednesday 7/30

• Went on an early morning kayak excursion with Laura, fueled by left-over cake from family-style dinner the night before and coffee from a lovely couple who invited us to their lodge porch while we waited for the kayak rentals to open
• It was a lovely way to start the day! Highly recommend it!
• After a quick breakfast of toast while waiting for a lancha, I headed over to Tzununa for a tour of the projects happening there
• This was really intriguing and I ended up introducing them to EWB because they need help with the town's water system - in exchange, they had lots of good info (lessons learned, lists of NGOs, and their infrastructure diagnostic) to share. Definitely a cool group of folks that I hope to work with more!
• Met Steve in Pana for the drive to NP
• It was a blast to be present for the FINAL DELIVERY of the turbine after all of this time, though everyone was baffled by how small the little pelton wheel actually is
• We were supposed to meet at noon, but thanks to protests earlier in the week and issues with his truck's power train, he didn't make it to Pana until 2:15pm, meaning we didn't get to NP until 3:45pm, meaning we barely made it out by 5:45pm to get me back to a lancha. HOWEVER, by then, lanchas had already stopped running from San Lucas, so Steve (being the awesome person he is) drove me back around the lake to Pana where I narrowly made "SEGURO, la ultima lancha" of the night at 7:30pm... 
• I was greeted back at the hostel with a plate saved from family-style dinner and a Brooklyn Brewing East India Pale Ale, so I really can't complain - add it to the list of "es Guatemala, no?" stories
• There was a lovely "open mic night" after dinner which consisted of everyone at the hostel crowding around a fire, telling jokes, and singing songs - I was pretty wiped out and not feeling great, so I only stayed for a short while, but it was a very nice gathering and certainly one of the reasons La Iguana has a reputation as the best hotel ambiance on the lake

Thursday 7/31

• Tried to make a 6am kayak ride, but at 5:40 when I woke up, I still needed to pack and make a 7:20am lancha to my shuttle in Pana, so I opted for some relaxation around the hostel after some leisurely packing
• Said goodbye to Laura and Lisa and made my way to Pana for a quick breakfast and a very prompt shuttle
• I finally had a nasty illness in Guatemala! WARNING: if you have never spent time in a developing country, the following content may be considered graphic and excessive. If you have, you'll be familiar with the use of bowel-movement details to express general well-being/travel struggles (I'm vividly reminded of my father's experience when we came to visit my Aunt here in 2002 - as he put it "the day when monkeys fly out of my ass has arrived" though if I remember his struggles correctly, I was better off...)
• Having felt progressively icky since I had some street meat for lunch with Steve, my shuttle ride became an exercise in mind over the gravitational flow of fluids (I won)
• Once we reached the shuttle bus parking area in Chichi (most travelers come for the market during the day and return/head to a new destination in the afternoon, meaning the shuttle buses all park and hang out) I narrowly made it to the bathroom and fortunately had some emergency napkins in my purse because despite paying 3Q for clean bathrooms, they did not contain toilet paper...
• My plan was to hop the earliest chicken bus around the corner into Xoy, HOWEVER I had no interest in leaving the relative comfort of the parking structure and bathroom access, so after trying to talk a nice shuttle driver into taking me to Xoy (his boss would only let him do it for 500Q YIKES and he ultimately didn't have enough time to make it there and back), the driver took pity on me and let me sleep in his shuttle bus
• When I woke up a few hours later, he had bought me some diarrhea meds (aka imodium) and gatorade and the nice lady let me make an extended trip to the bathroom for free (this time I brought my roll of toilet paper that travels EVERYWHERE with me)
• After conferring and commiserating with Waleska, I decided to spend the night in Chichi, at which point, my shuttle driver friend flagged down a tuk tuk for me and directed him to a cheap but clean hotel he knew of - El Mashito, which I added to Google Maps (previously didn't know this was possible, but as usual, a brilliant use of crowd-sourcing on google's part) because this place was lovely!
• Settled into my hotel room with a tiny tv that plays one channel of telanovelas, took a wonderfully hot shower, took my temperature (96.7 chickayeah!), bought and drank some more gatorade, then got antsy and went up the street to the SUPER SWANKY Mayan Inn to drink some soda and use some wifi to re-connect to the world
• After a relaxing evening and lots of hydration, I am happy to report that I regained control of my bowels and made it back to Xoy!

After this week of adventures, I have LOTS of documentation to catch up on, and got to spend a night with the Madison EWB group in their new project community, Asuzenas. Nice group of folks who I arrived just in time to have some meals with them, chat with the community, and hang out with Lupita (and Bruno Brazilia with the apalledo change due to Lupita's concern that Alemania is not masculine enough), Angelica, Mincho, Waleska, and Kevin H. (Madison mentor). All excellent company, and it was good to catch up with Waleska and Kevin on recent happenings and ideas/plans for work moving forward! Stay tuned!

And now for (many) photos!

Early morning stop in the market before leaving on Saturday for my road breakfast/lunch - sourdough rolls, chiquita bananas (for real), and an avocado

In the Holiday Inn with Mary and the haul of pastries from Los Alpes - YUM

Return to Providencia!

The bridge looks good...

And the new addition to the school is finished and painted, along with a new paint job for the old school building

ALSO the FLUSH TOILETS (crazy!) and the teacher, Jimmy, proudly showing them and explaining the WASH program - I need to get in touch with these people, b/c I'm very impressed with their work here and the level of empowerment Jimmy was demonstrating

The old handwashing station, new bathrooms, and old pit toilets (looking left to right)

This Avett Brothers song was playing as we arrived in the Iguana Perdida office/bar area to check in and I was discovering that, in addition to the typical, icky Central American beer selection, they also had this one, glorious, Brooklyn Brewing Co. East India Pale Ale - the song is far more dramatic than the situation warranted, but I have been struggling to say "I love beer" here when the beer is just so not good...

Anyway, this was the view from our hammock on our porch, so I had to take a picture to capture the moment of "Brooklyn taking me in" on Lake Atitlan

Kayaking!

Woohoo!

Scooted by La Casa del Mundo - a place I have vivid memories of from my trip here with my dad and aunt 12 years ago and HIGHLY recommend if you visit - though this place is more couple's getaway/family friendly whereas La Iguana Perdida is a fun spot for a younger crowd/making new friends

Not too shabby for some early-morning exercise...

This was my attempt at a panorama of our morning kayak excursion - it was a little choppy (and only got choppier from here), but despite the wavy horizon, I think it captures the setting pretty well

Just hanging out near the dock, waiting for a lancha to take me to Pana so I could get to NP for the afternoon - ALSO I had a revelation in this very spot after trying "the famous" Iguana Perdida pineapple and avocado smoothie - AMAZING

Now for some work pictures... 

The nutrition clinic in Tzununa with my tour guide/head of nutrition, Ana Maria, standing in the white shirt

The outside of the nutrition center

The health center under construction - huge facility that will partially function to recuperate malnourished babies and pregnant mothers, as well as have the capability to handle complicated child birth

New, stamped concrete roadway (funded by the Muni, not the foundation, but still pretty nice)

THE TURBINE HAS ARRIVED IN PROVIDENCIA!!!

Everyone slightly confused by how small la turbina is - they were expecting something similar to the massive water wheel at the old finca (which would explain some concerns about the size of the power house...)

Steve layin out the turbine for his hitecha staff

4 new homes have been wired by the community - very happy to see they followed the example of the other homes and properly used conduit and GFCI outlets!

New roadway in the community funded by Bill Peterson and his group in Minnesota (he helped build the roof of the powerhouse back in the day, and has since been returning with his church group for other projects within the community, including the school addition)

Another shot of the bridge - looking good!

Early morning packing on our balcony - hammocks are quite handy for stuff organization...

Again, the view from our balcony at 6am

One last photo with Laura!

Lisa was there too (but the group photo ended up on Laura's camera - this was an accidental photo bomb, but I think it came out pretty well!)

My little room in El Mashito Hotel - big fan and will certainly return!

las primeras semanas del trabajo sola en Xoy

SO after making it through the barricades and back to Xoy for work, the past couple of weeks flew by with plenty of work at el filtro and settling into my room. Highlights include (and fair warning - I've mostly been working, so highlights include A LOT of enginerdy explanations...):

• Filter was not functioning when I returned per an order from the Alcalde to bypass the system - "¿Por que?" you say? Since it's the rainy season, the springs ("nacimientos" which are captured by "capitaciones") are producing more water than the system is designed to handle, so we had shut off some of the springs to bring the flow down to design levels, however over the weekend, enough complaints came in about people not having enough water that Florencio just decided to let 'er go... 
• With the promise that we would work tirelessly on the system to get it up and running and passing enough water for el pueblo (and with my physical presence in Xoy), we notched the flow down, but are letting her run higher than design to see how much it can handle with only daily bed cleanings
• A consideration to increase performance was to add better peagravel to the beds (apparently the original shipment during construction was not ideal, but used) assuming that the existing peagravel was too fine, thus being forced down into the course gravel layers and subsequently plugging the pipe holes... 
• LESSON LEARNED: adding new gravel to a functioning sand filter is NOT ideal
• Theory suggests we should be able to place a layer of peagravel on top of the sand bed, and, while the sand layers are suspended and quick during backwash, the gravel will settle nicely into place (because it is heavier)... theoretically
• We ended up spending a solid 7-8 hours backwashing and prodding the sand/peagravel mix and, one week later, still have some pea gravel to settle, which, other than stratifying the AGGREGATE (there is your favorite word in action, my non-engineering friends!) into different levels and ribbons throughout the sand, the filter beds are still functioning fine
• We only did this to 3/6 beds (to see if/how much performance is improved) 
• As of right now, the filter is performing FANTASTICALLY which makes me a HAPPY HAPPY ingeniera 
• as a total side note, as we left the perfectly functioning filter today at 6:30am (after a crisp, 5am start to the day), after my favorite fontanero, Alejandro, filled in the data collection notebook I developed with him and set up for him to maintain a log of system functions PERFECTLY, and we were getting ready to head back into town for some coffee and to report our happy findings to the Alcalde, I saw two dogs playing on the hillside near us. Super corny, but this mountain-top hillside was beautiful in the early morning light, with a smattering of trees and cows and a rustic house, and these two dogs loving life - they just looked so darn joyful, I really enjoyed watching them and felt like they were sharing my joy of things finally moving in the right direction
• All of the Guatemalans I work with refer to me as "ingeniera" or "ingeniera Elysia" and whenever I tentatively ask for something like a ride, or a few hours of Alejandro's time to help me run tests, I get responses like "que tu dices es la orden" and "estoy aqui para servirle" - trying hard not to let such power go to my head...
• Last weekend I FINALLY had a chance to buy a table and chair from the market and buy some tablas (1"x12"x8' ish planks) to construct my storage unit - I thought about buying a wardrobe, but they're super expensive (compared to my move-in budget...) and just don't provide EXACTLY the type of storage I want... so I designed my own (engineer, duh) - implementation of said design consisted of:
• purchasing tablas from my neighbor who goes with his dad up the mountain to harvest the trees, then they have a make-shift saw mill to cut them to approximate dimensions, and set them out to dry/advertise in their yard (they are white pine and very sappy)
• taking said tablas to the carpentry shop in town which was SO COOL (pictures below... dad, you would have been in heaven) to cut them into slightly more consistent, standard, dimensions, "clean them" (as Mincho put it - aka rough sand them), then I marked out the lengths and our master carpenter cut them into pieces
• heading out to Mincho's with screws, PVC for hanging clothes, paint, sand paper, and "wipey" (their non-tacky version of tack clothe) to put the pieces together (pretty sure this process went more smoothly with warped, fresh-cut planks and non-pilot-hole screw connections than any piece of IKEA furniture I've ever attempted...)
• sanding and wipey...ing and PAINTING
• As you'll see in the pictures, I had grand plans of painting clearly laid-out sections blue and others green, but neither my skills nor my paint supplies allowed for this, so it quickly degenerated into "screw it, I'm gonna paint the parts that will be visible with whatever combo of colors I have left and expand paint splatters to make them look intentional"
• Finally, Mincho chopping down a and shaving a branch from a tree in the yard to reinforce the inside of my PVC clothes hanging rod
• The whole process took my weekend and ended with the components being delivered in the back of Mincho's pickup truck Monday morning, meaning I spent a lot of time at Mincho's house Saturday and Sunday
• during this time, the family got a new puppy (sadly, the late Taffy had 5 puppies, but was hit by a car before the puppies could survive on their own, meaning the whole family passed away a few months ago) who Lupe (short for Guadalupe, Mincho's 5-yr-old daughter) promptly named "Alemania chivas de brazilia" (guess who she supported in the Copa, much to the shegrin of her father??) - this was eventually revised to "Bruno Alemania" (his name was originally Bruno) with the clarification that Alemania is his last name (pictures of their cuteness can be found below)
• In preparation for my map-making activities (AJ, your maps are still hanging all over the Muni and other Ministry offices around town...), I've been taking lots of points and tracks with my GPS and spending lots of time in the local hotel restaurant to utilize wifi to run Google Earth Pro instead of attempting such work on my little, Claro internet stick... the daytime waiter, Alberto, has been quite helpful explaining the Guate bus system and I can tell you ALL about the latest telanovela drama (but I'll spare you the riveting tales of lying, stealing, cheating, and babies that grandma doesn't know about)
• Been spending lots of time with Alejandro between measuring flows and water quality (turbidity) at the filter and spending hours taking readings of water depth in the distribution tanks in 15-min intervals, which could be a horrifically boring and sad task in the hot sun, but is in fact quite lovely, b/c Alejandro is a wonderful, dedicated, and positive person.
• THE TURBIDITY METER FINALLY HAD ITS MAIDEN VOYAGE – many photos below, b/c the guys have been amused by the detail and weight of the whole deal since I first showed up on site with it, and both Mincho and Alejandro were more than happy to take MANY pictures of it in action… So be prepared for the photo shoot below…

Yikes, OK FINE TIM, I did have a lot to report after 2 weeks... sorry for the length and delay...

Also, shout out to the McCarthy-and-cousins crowd in Huron this past week - I was telling Mincho what Tim was up to out at Lake Erie (poco de sol, poco de cervesa, y mucho descanso, familia, y COMIDA) in response to his (frequent) questions about how "el hombre de un mil batallas" is doing, and I enjoyed his response - "Ah, es un regalo de la vida"

Finally, after a meeting with the Alcalde tonight to discuss our findings, concerns (mostly social/water use/waste related), and recommendations for the water system, I'll be packing and off in the morning to meet with a variety of folks in Guatemala City, Antigua, and around Lake Atitlan - stay posted for info on that next Thursday when I'm home!

WARNING - pictures are proceeded by some more enginerdiness to provide some more background to info above...

First, numbers (sorry, explanations are in Spanish, but that's what I have prepared for the Alcalde...)

This is what a "capitacion" looks like - I tried to capture the awesomeness of finally reaching these (it takes a 1hr pickup ride on dirt roads then a 30min hike up the mountain), but the feeling of coming across ancient ruins in the jungle doesn't quite translate... brother Michael, I need your photographic eye in Guatemala. please!

The white lines feed the filter I'm working on - 4 capataciones feeding the Chilaj line

This is a schematic of a sand filter (thank you google...) to explain the peagravel (fine gravel) dealio... Ours is not fed by a septic tank...

Mincho and Alejandro at the beginning of our day of backwashing trying to settle the darn peagravel 

Me feeling artsy as the day wore on

The carpentry shop and master carpenter - again, I need my brother's photography skills to capture how cool this place is (there are maybe 5 other rooms like this and stairways all over the place like they were designed by the folks at Hogwarts)

Lupe and Bruno Alemania and the desk when I still had dreams of carefully laid out, separated colors

Bruno Alemania "in his new home" according to Lupe (this lasted 30 seconds)

The finished products! notice how the colors started to blend...

Not to be one of those people who takes pictures of their food... BUT to prove to my mother that I am nourishing myself, here's what happens when I'm left to my own devices for cooking - eggs (so many eggs...), a stir fry of various root veggies, squash, and green beans from the market, and some sauteed tomatoes and onions and hot sauce, of course!

My room after the set up! My traje skirt with pinned items that was on the right-hand wall didn't last the night - I can't put holes in the wall (darn cinderblock!), so I'll need some more heavy duty 3M products from the city - my cheapo "Truper" wall mounting tape has only kept up the Harley poster so far...

The view of our little courtyard from my room

Mincho gathering a sample of water - THE FIRST

Look, pa, it works!

The SECOND sample (compliments of Mincho - I swear, I don't ask them to do these things, they just don't trust my balance and take their own initiative...)

IN USE

LOOK, PA!

The strap put to good use for the hike to the distribution tanks (which thankfully only takes a 15min ride on dirt roads and a 5min hike)...

...and up to the tank entrance for testing!

Alejandro with his turbidity meter and carrying case this morning - he pointed out how much lighter his was...