Who wants to be a millionaire... of amoebas?

I finally set foot in the place I'm going to do my research, the Sierra del Lacandon National Park (SLNP), which is co-administered by an NGO, Defensores de la Naturaleza (FDN), and the federal agency for protected areas (CONAP) . Yesterday I went there with two fellows from FDN, a community outreach technician named Carlos and the driver named Rigoberto. The first community we visited, Manantialito, does not have a road connecting it so Carlos and I hiked an hour to reach it. En route, I was questioning Carlos about the kind of crops they grow, which is mainly corn, with some squash and beans as well. This is the golden three of agricultural production for nutrition and soil conservation, so I was asking if with this diet there was much mal-nutrition and Carlos said of course there is because the people in the village are millionaires... of amoebas. One of the goals is to get this place at least a minimum health post to treat these chronic parasite problems. Carlos went to the community that day for a meeting to discuss replacing the school teacher who took off mid-Februrary without warning. The community was like, 'when are we going to get a new school teacher?' and Carlos was like, 'well, you need to form a committee to organize to find one, with a president and a treasurer and a secretary and some additional members and then open a bank account and then submit an application...' and they were like, "when are we going to get our frickin' school teacher?!?!' And at a point in the meeting I got to take the floor and tell them what I was hoping to do, with their permission. Some of them remembered with my advisor David had been there in 1998-1999, so that was fun. We then visited 3 other communites, all with road access, though sometimes extremely rough, and all more developed than the first community. No meetings held in those other towns, but I introduced myself to some of the "mayors" in the towns, or failing that, their brother. This Saturday or so I'll probably go on a multi-day trip to this community with in the park but closer to the upper border with Mexico. You can refer to this map!

http://www.nature.org/aboutus/travel/ecotourism/travel/art996.html





School house in Manantialito, post-meeting.





Crazy cucharacha







Carlos on the trail from Manantialito

Final dentally themed entry

I'm now in Flores, Peten, the capital city of the northernmost 'wild-west' (but north) department of Guatemala. I happened upon a family here composed of an American man named Memo, originally from a Texas oil family but who came here to stay 3 years ago, by way of dot-coming in California, and his wife, Angelica, from the nearby town of San Benito. She has two kids from her previous marriage, Wilson (7) and Reina (10), and they have a daughter together, Paralee (11 months). They have a big place with lots of space, and Memo offered me a place to stay for free, and it's pretty sweet, t.v. and internet, if you can believe it. Such luxury is usually only to be had in zona 9 of GC.




Wilson and his friend Julian, who are twins with their missing front teeth.




Before I'd moved in, Memo loaned me a little bag so I wouldn't have to take my whole back-pack on our functional ATM search, nor carry my nude bank card in my hand since I lacked pockets. Later on back at my hotel I discovered I'd accidentally kept his bag, and also that he had failed to clean out the old dental bridge that he'd left in one of the pockets. I returned the whole thing to him today, and suggested that he'd probably want to get those teeth under his pillow asap for the tooth fairy.

As an aside, several family members are eating this kind of sweet potato that helps with de-worming. Memo just takes a veterinarian prescribed remedy every 6 months, but Angelica has to do a more mild treatment since she's still breast-feeding.