Random Acts of Kindness (part one)

The following photographs are of different needs I came across that I wanted to be a part of. It is a privilege to have the resources... i.e. such as money with which to step into someone’s life and make a difference. I believe that is the benefit of unequal wages between industrial nations and the developing world. Since I can’t fix the inequality of national economies it is nice to share the material blessing I have received.

Here is Gaspar, a part time teacher and carpenter planing a table top. In the last year his village has received electricity which has opened up new possibilities. Carpentry tools are about 30% higher in Guatemala and, with the local low wages, it is very difficult to buy enough tools. I bought about $1200 worth of tools and set-up an interest free loan for $800 dollars and gifted the rest. For three weeks his family fed and housed me and I tried to teach them a little carpentry. The next three loans that I made in this community have the added feature so that the loan payments will go to the school to help buy books for a reading library.

The most expensive tool I bought was this tablesaw. In this picture Gaspar is routering a table leg.

Here he is cutting some decorative diamonds into the table top.

The finished product: Total value $50 .Materials $15. Time to build, 3 days. A good profit in a economy that generally pays $3 -$10 a day.

Another entrepreneur I met had an ice-cream business. He would travel three hours to buy ice and then store it in a gunnysack of wood shavings to insulate it. It was a race in order to sell shaved-iced cones before his ice melted and then he would have to travel back for more. Now he has a freezer and can sell ice, bags of frozen fruit water and shaved-ice cones. Here he is with his new freezer and ice cream cart.

Enlisting the relatives to bag colored water

With the busness going great, Silvistre can rest in his office!

Once again, here is my friend Manuel. His son needed help with tuition. His son Maximino is in school to become a teacher and needed assistance with tuition, room and board. With a $300 scholarship and a $300 loan Maximino will be able to continue attending school and graduate this year.

Random Acts of Kindness (part two)

I met these two men while walking outside of Chajul. The were repairing the fence around their corn field. Each post cost 26 cents and was made from one log split three times by a chain saw. The post holes were being dug with a machete and each fence post would only last a couple of years. I left them with enough money to buy 50 more posts and thanked them for the their conversation.

Once again, here is Andres. I gathered rocks and packed them out on mules so he could rebuild his house. I visited with him several different times over a six week period. I could not find a real good way to help him so on my last day in Chajul I decided to give him 1000 quetzales... which is equal to two months wages for his house project.

When I arrived at Andre's home, I found his house gone and his wife cooking in a three sided kitchen. He is starting the foundation for a new house and is a real hard worker. I really enjoyed him and his family and it will be interesting to see at what stage I find his home next year.

Dominigo and his family gave me a place to stay in Chajul and I provided them with a concrete floor for their house.

I have a stack of “ solicitudes”- requests - for help on my desk. Many of these papers are stamped with the village seal and thumb prints of the community members. I have seen so many needs and had so many ideas of ways to help it will be an evolving process to choose which projects and when. There is a need for a trade school, a weaver’s co-op, chicken, sheep and beef production, a fish farm, a shop for school supplies, a bakery and on and on it goes. Here are a few photos that correspond with some of these requests.

This man told me of life during the civil war and their present need for drinking water. We had fried tortillas and a root for breakfast. I visited their community to look at the water situation and found it would be very difficult to solve. He asked for water tanks to help collect rain water until a solution could be found.

Here is some of the open pit storage that they presently use.

This system is better designed for mosquitos then people.

This school at Fatima needs desks. 40 desks cost about $600.

These two men came to me one night and asked if the could summit a request for help with metal roofing for their village. They had to walk two hours to make the request, then came back three days later with two copies of a proposal. One copy had twelve signatures and 8 thumbprints for me to keep and the other that I signed so they could show they village they had summited the proposal.

Mateo, a school teacher, was showing me his house one night and I asked him if there was only three in his family. The house was so small I didn't think there could be very many more living there. He told me yes, there were only three presently, but clarified that they had already lost two children, one at 6 months and another at 3 years. I think they could qualify for a Habitat House if we are successful in bringing Habitat for Humanity into the area. Very few people could qualify because of their low income.

This village has requested a kitchen where the mothers would be able to prepare snacks or a meal for their students. All the schools have needs for school supplies and books.

This is our sponser child through Christian Children's Fund , Anna Maria. She has the privilege of studying with personal work books, a rarity in Guatemala. In the municipio of Chajul there are 37,ooo people without a bookstore.

Here is part of the community of Xesalli. There are 22 families without drinking water yet there is a nearby spring that could be bought and developed for under $10,000. Another $3500 would also provide 2 sheep for each family. The posibilities are endless. Is our vision to help others equal to the opportunities?

The chidren of Xesalli. The next generation's future is in the hands of today's people. I want to make a difference with "planned" acts of kindness in this community and others. Adios y Dios te bendiga!

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OPERACION BENDICION

Well I had another excellent day today! I recovered 117 photos that had been corrupted and so now I get to share this story in technicolor. The most expensive project I was involved with was a project I called "the cow project". I heard the leaders in Chel talking about Operacion Bendicion and asked my friend Miguel what they were talking about. He said that the leaders had named my "cow project" the "Operacion Benicion" Well I have to admit it sounds better then “the cow project” so “Operation Blessing” it is.
Here is a brief outline of what we offered.:
I would buy 22 cows that would be about a year old. The leaders would select 22 families with enough pasture to raise them for 18 months. The families would give 1 vaccine every 6 months and provide vitamins and feed their cow. After 18 months they would sell the cow and buy two more. One of these new animals they could keep and the other they would give to another family selected by the community leaders. There were eight to ten leaders in this committee and the families submitted applications to help determine whether they had the capacity to raise a cow and also that we were reaching across the community and not just within a select group. This is a seed project that could grow to help 66 families in 3 years. One cow equals a little over 1/3 of a year’s income. The committee then sent two teams of two looking for cows. It is easy to buy one or two cows but to buy 22 meant that we would have to travel to one or two communities that raised lots of livestock. The team that went to Uspantan had success and a round up was planned. Higinio contacted a business for transportation, I transferred funds, and 6 of us from Chel would head to Uspantan in 10 days. The night before we left, I was in a village called Santa Clara and it had one pickup that carried people out each day. That was the good news. The bad news was that it left at 12:30 a.m. and I had only just gotten to bed at 11:00pm. There was only enough room in the pickup for one of my legs to touch the pickup bed and I couldn’t have fallen over if I tried. Three hours later we switched to a bus in Chel, and then at 7:00 we changed again in Nebaj, and at 3:00 in the afternoon we arrived in Uspantan. Transportation is a real issue and expense in this region .

Here is the Saturday livestock market in Uspantan. Uspantan is a drier and more open region then Chel. This market was described as very big with all kinds of animals but it was not at all like a stockyard in the U.S.. The team had made arrangements with a rancher to bring about 35 cows to a field about two blocks away.

We had inspected the cattle the night before and after agreeing on a price, called for two trucks to meet us at 6:00am and started the round up. It was obvious we had some new cowboys in the group.

The first truck loaded easy but the second took three times as long. This is the easy one.

Meet Juancito and Higinio. Higinio has been my main contact in Guatemala and we have been e-mailing ideas back and forth for a year. On this day it dawned on me that this was not simply an idea anymore but a flesh and bones reality. The animals were good, the people grateful, excited, and I was getting to live out a precious dream. I couldn’t have done this without his help.

The cows looked heathy and ready for some good pasture.

The ride back was more direct but the last 2.5 or 3 hours was a low geared crawl. Here is one of the corners that trucks and buses must back up on because it is too sharp. The second truck broke down on this road and we had to hire another truck to replace it but it did not arrive until 9:00 at night. The owner of both of the trucks we hired had worked in the U.S. and started a trucking business with the money he earned. His son was driving the truck I rode back in and told me that the people in Chajul were saying that when I died that I would go straight to heaven. I didn’t understand the Spanish very well and when I asked him what he meant he said that anyone that did so many good works would go to heaven. This statement made me aware of what impact we have the opportunity to make. A small amount of help and most of it hours away from Chajul was the subject of talk ,hope and prayers of blessings. For me this whole trip has been humbling to be embraced with such appreciation.

We arrived to people waiting and fireworks and started unloading the first truck.

A sign of thanks and a day for fiesta.

Finally a long awaited drink

Who benefits from programs like this? Whole families and whole communities. Later that night the second truck arrived and there was more fireworks with scared cows running up and down the road. When things settled down Higinio read the rules of the program and then Manuel read the list of selected families(see above). This was my last picture of the night because the memory card in my camera was full. We tied cards with numbers around each cow's neck and then men and a few of their sons picked a number from a hat. They were smiling like little kids and the whole family was excited when they found out which cow was theirs. That night they gave me a hat that is typical for the Ixil men to wear and I felt that life is good .

A few days later I shot these pictures of the new cowboys. Juancitos corn field is some distance away from here and he arrived covered with sweat but proud and happy to be carrying feed for his cow.

WITH FEED IN ABUNDANCE THESE COWS WILL GROW!

EATING AND CONTENT

GRACIAS Y ADIOS

cost per cow including transportation --$350 the experience -- priceless!

LAS VIUDA DE CHEL

THE WIDOWS OF CHEL
After I had chosen all the programs that I could afford to support but before we went to buy the cows I was approached by one of the local pastors who asked, "the people are asking me what kind of help you are offering?” I explained that all my money had been committed to the cow project and a few micro loans but he offered me the opportunity to visit some local widows and assess their needs. Although I was very interested, I made it clear that I would not be offering help but just gathering information. To me, it is a privilege every time I can enter the houses and lives of these people.
So, off we went. Mateo is a local pastor and manages a health clinic in Chel. He knew of 8
widows he wanted to introduce me to and so we began our journey. There seems to be two parts inside of me. One part that wants to dive into areas of need and poverty, and the other part that cries out "Enough! I can’t or won't be able to help...so, let me keep my eyes closed and not see the need that exists around me!!" Knowledge, especially personal knowledge of such poverty, is hard to live with without a clear way to help.

This pic is of Mateo and one of the widows inside her home. Mateo built this house for her. None of the widows I met had running water or a wood cook stove. Some own the land that they are living on and others only own their house.

The different houses vary in constuction from tin to small poles, to planks or bamboo lashed together for the walls. All measure about 10'x12' to 12'x16', with dirt floors and no windows. Windows and concrete floors are rare here anyway. This widow(above) is in her eighties and works a small plot of coffee for income. Some of the widows raise a few sheep or chickens and most can still weave. All these occupations could be enhanced to help them live a better life.

(Above) This woman was said to be 110 years old and was not much over 4 ft tall. She said she was having a little trouble with her knees and some breathing problems. I was having breathing problems with the smoldering fire in her little house as well. The picture doesn't show the threadbare condition of her clothes.

Here is the kichen. None of these three widows have immediate family that can help. Nor do they have wood stoves and they must live alone. I didn't say anything but knew that I would not be able to walk away without determining in my heart to help a little. Later I was able to purchase some bulk staples and then distributed it to the widows at Manuel's house. (See Pics Below) This day has given birth to a great idea but I will write more on this later.

These are my friends Manuel and Mateo. Manuel had just recently built this house and it was one of the three nicest houses I had been in there. He has ten children, three beds ,a one room house,and a big heart.

We baggged up #200 of corn #30 of rice and #30 of beans, some vegtables and a few pounds of sugar.

I am impressed with the pride and abilities of these women.

Youth and the elderly are active partners in this society

Here is two of Manuel's girls helping carry food home

A balancing act. It is amazing how nonchalante thiese women can carry large bulky objects on their heads. The bag she is carrying represents about one third of the food that we will be able to provide in the future. More about this later.

Heading home. The church in the background is where Mateo is the pastor.

Since I do not yet have good command of the Spanish language, this barrier exists to good communication. But at the end of the day Manuel used simple words to comunicate clearly, "Hizo un buen dia." or "It was a good day. "

A very good day!!

Asi que pasa ahora --So what is happening now! Two friends have donated $700 and I have added another $140 that will fund the food program for the another three months. I asked for a survey of the Chel community thinking that we would find about 22 -24 widows in total. The survey results found 50 widows! We selected the 20 based on the criteria of age, need, lack of family members to assist them, their ability to work, and their housing conditions. For $15 per month we will provide #33 of corn, #10 of rice or beans #2 of sugar and $2 of vegetables, i.e. onions, cabbage, or carrots for each widow. 100% of this money would go DIRECTLY to these widows. As we hear in the International News, we all know that the world's poor are struggling with rising food prices. This is a simple and direct way to make a difference. This represents my first request for funds. I am trying to develop a non-profit organization which would be audited by a third party with the intention of enlarging our impact upon the Ixil people of this region. Please contact me if you are interested.

This is just a beginning.