Friday, February 5, 2010

February 5

Once again we are going to try to get to the Melotto School in Chimaltenango. Because Kristen has an early morning appointment, we're going to meet her about 6:45 a.m. at the Bodegana parking lot, which is not far from where our chicken bus drops us off. To pull this off, we wake up at 5:00 a.m., get dressed and eat our breakfast (pre-boiled eggs, heated soup, fruit and hot tea). After gathering the things we're going to bring, we're out the door and walking down to the road. Since it's dark, I bring a flashlight. If the chicken bus driver won't stop this time, at least I can blind him and cause him to wreck his bus. To increase our odds of getting a bus, we walk up the hill to the intersection at the beginning of the cemetery. Seeing some people standing along the road waiting for a bus, we play it cool and stand with them. Before long we have the opportunity to join an already overloaded bus on its way into La Antigua.

We arrive in La Antigua about 6:30 a.m., so Linda has time to walk on the median (paved and about 12 feet wide with full sized trees), while I take some photos of the traffic, people and Agua volcano. As expected, Kristen arrives around 6:45 a.m., just after a Greyhound-type bus pulled into the walled parking area and turned around so that it could easily depart. This bus actually is meant for folks, primarily backpackers, going to Panajachel. One of the Child Aid Guatemalan employees knows the driver and ayudante and worked out a deal for them to drop Child Aid staff (paid and volunteer) at the street leading to Melotto School. Its really neat because it changes a two bus trip to a one bus trip. We intend to use it again, even if it means that we'll need to get up at 5:00 a.m. to be sure to make it.

The one hour trip found us walking down the street to the school. When we reached the gate, we were greeted by the grounds keeper. We walked by the library to say hello the librarian and stopped by the office to Hermana Director (principals are called directors and this one is a religious sister, i.e. hermana). She was out, so the office arranged for the grounds keeper to open the doors to the computer room, although they would be much better off if someone were to steal the junk they have that's called computers.

Once in the room, I booted each computer so that I could insert the Qimo CDs I burned last night. One actually seemed to boot properly. The others all had issues. The two Windows 98 computers don't have the capability to boot from a CD, I quickly remembered when I tried to change the device boot order. Only one of the Windows XP computers booted Qimo properly. Because the five computers were crammed onto four computer desks, I moved it to another computer desk across the room. As could be expected, it ceased to work properly.

As the two new gringos at the school, Linda and I are the subject of much attention from students, teachers and visitors. Today we were visited by preschoolers, elementary students, the nun who teaches religion and a visiting priest. I did tell the priest, as I was working on the computers, "oraciĆ³n, por favor" (prayer, please). He smiled. Later the religious ed nun stopped by and laughed when I laid hands on the computer tower I was working on. I really hope that I can get something working. These are really nice, hard working people.

With three potential computers that could run Qimo, I began to tear them apart to see what parts might need to be replaced from several dead units in the room. After replacing the CD drive in the computer that originally worked, I was ready to try to install Qimo on it's hard drive. Wouldn't you know it, just as it was about to install, I began to get a multitude of disk write errors. At about 12:30 p.m., I decided to quit for the day (school is actually over at noon) and try installing a different hard drive on Monday when we go back. At the very least, I'll need to put all of the dead carcasses back together so that they're easier to recycle.

Our return bus, which was to drop us off at Pedro Molinas School, where Child Aid has their storeroom, arrived about 1:05 p.m. as expected. I told them where we wanted to be dropped off and was surprised when they pulled over just past the crossroads where the highway we expected them to take meets the Pan American Highway. On a positive note, they didn't charge us for that short ride. It seems that they had decided to take the faster route back to La Antigua, one that didn't go by the school. We walked back to the cross road and waited for a bus to appear. None did, so when a tuk-tuk (http://www.viajeros.com/fotos/guatemala-un-mundo-de-detalles/620203) appeared. I got his attention, asked if he could take us to the school and asked what he would charge. He would take us for Q10 each (about @$2.40). On the way to the school, we witnessed an accident. A motorcycle rider, who was wearing his helmet, collided with a rather large dog and wiped out. Our driver and several other drivers stopped to assist him. Fortunately, he seemed relatively uninjured, although I bet he'll hurt for a week. I have after my accident last Monday. I didn't notice, but Linda said that the dog was injured in his hindquarters. After the motorcycle driver had been determined to be OK, we continued on our way to the school.

The Pedro Molino School is a boarding school. The classrooms and dorms for the boys are on one side of the road, while the dorms for the girls and Child Aid's storehouse are on the other. Walking down the road to the storehouse, small groups of female students greeted us and smiled.

My job at the storehouse was to examine and set-up a computer that Kristen will use to keep track of inventory. Child Aid received a tremendous number of donated books that are then given to libraries and schools primarily serving indigenous students. I set up the computer Kristen wanted and discovered that the video card was not secured to the back panel of the case. If fact, there as no way to secure it. It just plugged into the mother board. This would be a problem, so I opened a less powerful second computer and decided to swap video cards. The second video card securely attached to the case and worked just fine. When I tried to plug the other card into the second computer, I discovered that it would only fit into the slot backwards. Very strange. Maybe I can find a usable card in one of the non-functioning computers back at the school.

With Kristen's computer working properly, we walked to the highway to catch the next bus to La Antigua. Soon, one arrived and we headed towards Parramos, about half-way to La Antigua. After arriving in Parramos, we learned that the highway from Parramos to La Antigua was closed for road work, so we had to backtrack past the school all the way to Chimaltenango and back towards La Antigua by the newer, faster highway. Note that the buses we take to Chimaltenango take the older route through Parramos because there are more people along that route wanting to ride.

We finally arrived at the chicken bus terminal and said farewell to Kristen. Next week we will be on our own as we return to the Melotto School, as Kristen has other things she needs to be doing. She's done babysitting the new gringo volunteers. Looks to me like we'll be getting us at 5:00 a.m. so that we can take the straight-shot bus trip to the school. Coming back, they can take any route they want, since we won't be needing to stop by the storehouse.

One of the things we've missed in our diet has been frequent salads, since it's so hard to avoid significant stomach issues when eating vegetables that can't be peeled. We have discovered that the salads at Pollo Campero are safe, so we stopped by for a side-salad and a beverage. Afterwards, we went to the Bodegana and Dispensa Familiar to pick up some items we needed. We then went over to the street where we can pick up our chicken bus back to our apartment. Once again, it was loaded like a sardine can, but we were able to get off somewhat near our apartment.

Back at the apartment, we prepared the remainder of our supper - vegetable beef soup (homemade, not canned), crackers, fruit and cold tea. It was then time to shower (I go first to heat up the bathroom) and I discovered that our landlord had turned up the hot water heater as I had requested. For the first time since we arrived I had to use some cold water to moderate the hot water. Previously, I just used hot water, although it was more like lukewarm.

Our final task of the day was to record our daily blog entry. As you can see, I'm almost done. Tomorrow we can sleep in, since we don't need to catch a 7:00 a.m. bus in La Antigua. Life is good. We have hot water for showering and the wireless Internet works. What more could a fellow ask for?