SUSTAINABILITY IS CASH COSTLY

ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 14
An intelligent man is attempting to design a cash-free sustainable living environment. He lives on the shores of Guatemala's most beautiful lake, Atitlan. He finds Atitlan deeply spiritual. He intends generating his electricity through solar panels. Solar panels are cash costly.

VALENTINE

ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 14
Erick and I visited the flower market early this morning: roses for Monica Smith and for Lucia. My youngest son, Jed, has organised flowers for Bernadette. I wish I was home and holding Bernadette in my arms.
Back home in England, I don't do parties. I don't do rooms with more than eight people. In the Americas I am working. Attending a party is only marginally more unpleasent than riding my Honda up a mountain in sleet.
We attended the opening of a painter's exhibition yesterday evening. The gallery was small and pleasantly empty but for the paintings. The celebration was on a large roof terrace and packed. Most of the packing was retiree North American. Erick and I arrived late. The wine had run out. People talked a great deal - mostly of each other.
Later we were seven for dinner at a Japanese restaurant. One of the seven was an early teenage boy. He wore a baseball cap. I am of a generation which considers wearing a hat indoors to be ill-mannered. Wearing a hat indoors is ill-mannered unless you are a woman. Baseball caps are a disease anywhere other than on a baseball field. Baseball is a disease anywhere other than North America. I suspect that North Americans wear baseball caps to bed and with the peak reversed so that they can nuzzle.
Yes, I know. I am an aged Brit Blimp...

AMONGST FRIENDS

manuel, building site


ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 13
I moved residence yesterday to Lucia's home in town. Erick is overseeing the building of a new house. Five pint-size Maya workers mix concrete for a terrace. A studio apartment for Lucia's son, Manuel, is complete. Manuel is in residence. A passionate and expert rock climber, Manuel graduated from University in Colorado and now works as a mountain, white-water and nature guide. He is more qualified than most and has a good Toyoto 4x4. He is also young and handsome which is no bad thing in a guide. Fluent in Spanish, English and French, he makes ideal company for an ascent of Antigua's volcanoes. He will also take clients to visit haciendas that are closed territory to the standard tourist. Call him on 50255269110 or check out his web site: www.wildguatemala.com

VISITING A PERSONAL HISTORY

the smith's antigua home, rose red on the right


ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 12
I visited Monica Smith today in Antigua Guatemala. Monica is 86 and frail. Monica's husband and my uncle Mark were business partners (both men are dead). My uncle Mark married Helen Rolfe. Helen's sister, Lilian, was a radio operator attached to the French Resistance during World War 2. She was caught and tortured by the Gestapo, sent to Ravensbruck and shot.
I found Monica rereading the Lilian Rolfe biography. We sat on a bench in the patio at Monica's Colonial home and looked at photographs. Lilian Rolfe was so young when caught, young and fresh and innocent and shared a remarkable beauty with her sister, Helen.
Monica spent time in Paris before World War 2. Her French remains fluent. Speaking the language brings back joyful memories. We sit together for an hour and admire the flowers and the changing sky above the patio and watch birds pick seeds from a bowl and chat in French of this and that – memories, mostly, and that we will meet next on a heavenly cloud...Though Thursday is Valentine's day. I will deliver roses.

BBC AND UNGLUED DENTURES

volcanoes at the end of the street



ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 12
I am to do a BBC live broadcast over the telephone at 1.30 AM – El Antiguo in La Antigua. I was in bed soon after 10 AM. I read a while, checked the alarm, turned off the bedside lamp. The alarm wakes me at 1.15 AM. I fumble for my spectacles; reach for the cup holding my dentures. Should I glue them in place? Surely there is no need?
The telephone rings. I answer.
Am I ready?
“Absolutely,” I reply - too late for glue.
I can think of nothing other than my teeth. Will they pop out in mid broadcast? Will I lose them under the bed? Or, while hunting for them, stamp them underfoot (something I have done in the past).
The interview progresses badly.
Obsessed by teeth, I lose clarity of diction. The interviewer blames a poor connection. The line is cut. I drop my dentures back into their bath and turn off the light. I am 75 and a failure. I can't sleep.

75th DINNER PARTY

ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 11
Lucia is a Guatemalan painter. Her husband, Erick, is French. We are friends of long standing. They are perfect companions for a 75th birthday dinner. My host drives me to their Antigua home. We drink a rum in front of an open fire, drive to a restaurant. The chef is French. The meat is excellent. So is the wine, an Argentinean Merlot Norton. We are served pastis on the house as an appetizer and anejo rum on the house to finish. My host is an habitual early riser and likes to be in bed by ten. End of party...

LOCUSTS WOULD BE PREFERABLE

antigua guatemala, first university in central america



ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 11
Spanish Conquistadors founded Antigua. It is a small compact town. Much of the architecture is 16th and 17th Century. Streets are cobbled. Bougainvillea spills over ochre and terracotta walls. Climate is ideal, permanent Spring. Three volcanoes surround the town. Though spectacular, volcanoes make uncomfortable bedfellows. They erupt. Added to which, Antigua has been devastated by earthquakes. Though rebuilt and lovely, the town now suffers a fresh plague. It is the number one tourist destination in Central America. In such quantity, locusts would be preferable.

SUICIDE RUN

plaza, antigua



HIGHWAY TO ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 11
All Guatemala's trade to the Atlantic passes through the port of Barios. I recall the road up through the hills to Guatemala City as a suicide run. The road has been widened and Guatemala City is bisected by a six-lane highway. I am a survivor of Venezuela. Guatemala is easy. I left Rio Dulce at shortly before midday, stopped midway for coffee and a bun, and am in Antigua soon after 5 PM.
My host in Antigua is a family connection. His house lies outside of town in a condo. He meets me in the plaza and leads me home in his Landrover.

MULATO LATINOS - WHAT DO THEY KNOW?

TO ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 11
Today begins with incompetence: I leave my passport at Hacienda Tijax. I realise my error as I pass the police post at the south end of the bridge over the Rio Dulce. Back I go to the house, set off again and race a rain squall to a road-side shelter. A dozen men sit on wooden benches beneath a thatch roof. Two have bikes, one owns a scooter. The remainder wait for a bus.
Sun strikes the rain curtain as it speeds towards us. Dry tar is grey. Wet tar is black. Trees bend and leaves point down beneath the rain. The shelter shudders as the squall hits.
“Five minutes,” comments a young man in jeans, red T shirt and white trainers.
A man wearing a white plastic Stetson asks whether I am from the US or am I German?
“Britanico,” I reply. “More or less from the US. We have been sold by our Government to President Bush.”
“Bush is an ignorant man,” says the Stetson. “He has no education.”
“With much arogance,” says an older man. “Much arogance.”
The others nod and murmur agreement. What do they know? They are country folk. Mulato Latinos...

ENDLESS SEPARATIONS

view from tijax tower
HACIENDA TIJAX, RIO DULCE, GUATEMALA: FEBRUARY 10
A 75th birthday is a biggy. I leave tomorrow for Antigua, first capital of Guatemala. Monica and Eugenio have offered a haven towards which I rode. Tonight we dine at the resort en famille. Eugenio's daughter has baked a birthday cake. Rather than a celebration, I suffer the sadness of one more parting. Such is this journey, seemingly endless separations, because of my age, probably final.
In the TIJAX BLOG, Eugenio claims that I have been an inspiration.
If so, I am humbled.
Eugenio is my inspiration.
Tijax demanded vision and is an ongoing achievement.

STUPID OR UNFORTUNATE?

leg - 2006
arm - 2008

HACIENDA TIJAX, RIO DULCE, GUATEMALA:
FEBRUARY 10
I rested at Hacienda Tijax on my way south to Tierra del Fuego in 2006 and burnt my leg on th exhaust pipe.
I have stopped at Hacienda Tijax on my way north to enjoy my 75th birthday amongst friends.
Eugenio says that he does his best to look after me. I fell on the walkway across the mangrove last night. The rope saved me from an involunatry mud bath. However, I have a friction burn on my right arm.

MAN AT WORK

HACIENDA TIJAX, RIO DULCE, GUATEMALA:
FEBRUARY 10
I am almost up to date with my writing. The bar at Hacienda Tijax is a good studio.

WHITE GUESTS ONLY

HACIENDA TIJAX, RIO DULCE, GUATEMALA:
FEBRUARY 10
I can't connect to the internet on this machine up at the house. I am writing at the resort bar. Odd guests turn up looking for a room - or a nest.

KIDDIES PARADISE

HACIENDA TIJAX, RIO DULCE: FEBRUARY 8
I am in Kiddie's Paradise. I have been driving Eugenio's crawler this morning. The crawler is yellow, as are the butterflies and the blossoms and the breasts of the small birds flitting amongst the red hybiscus.

ADVICE FROM A STUPID OLD TOAD

volunteer guideCASA GUATEMALA, RIO DULCE, GUATEMALA:
FEBRUARY 7
My guide is eighteen. She is born to parents who do good (adopting children with difficulties). She wishes to do good. She has an excellent and active brain. What direction will she take?
Working in an orphanage offers immediate reward.
Working to make such charities unnecessary is seldom rewarding...And yet you may make a minute difference...Yes, after years of frustration and boredom, years of keeping your mouth shut while striving to reach a position where you can make that difference.
Decision is never easy.
My only advice is to seek a qualification that enables you go in different directions.

CASA GUATEMALA

up river to hacienda tijax


CASA GUATEMALA, RIO DULCE, GUATEMALA:
FEBRUARY 7
I will carp again: the orphanage lacks direction, lacks planning, lacks management discipline. Perhaps this is partly reliance on volunteers who stay a month or six months or leave after a week.
The orphanage clinic is the exception. For coolness, it is built on stilts over the river. Everything is freshly painted white. Two lavatories are being installed. The pharmacy is well stocked and spotless. So is the doctor's office.
The doctor is Spanish and a recent arrival.
He has spent the past year traveling through Hispanic America.
He is imbued with endless energy and mental discipline. He is a rock thrown into a pool. His influence will spread each day.
How long will he stay?
He has no idea.
Pray, children. Pray...

DON'T SMOKE IN SCHOOL

CASA GUATEMALA, RIO DULCE, GUATEMALA:
FEBRUARY 7
Volunteerrs at the orphanage contribute US$180. This is a one-off payment. They can stay as long as they wish and return as often as they wish. Their food is free and they occupy the volunteers' house. OK, shack.
Why has no volunteer bothered to build a little comfort into the place?
Work is over for the day. Two volunteers sit on the small terrace. A third lolls in a hammock. They shouldn't smoke.
They absolutely should not smoke where children see them.
They should be particularly careful as to what they smoke...
Yes, I know. I am carping again.
I chat briefly with an elderly worker on the farm. The land is poor. Rains leach all goodness out of the soil.
A couple of kids hoe beans. They should hoe natural fertiliser into the soil. Chicken shit, pig shit, kitchen compost.
A boy leans against a wall to ease the weight of fresh sheets from his shoulders. I carry the laundry for him to the boys' dormitory. The sheets are required upstairs. I barely manage the climb and am twice the size of the boy.

FOOTBALL OR WITCHES

CASA GUATEMALA, RIO DULCE, GUATEMALA:
FEBRUARY 7
Break time, and I sit on a low stone wall. Boys play football. Girls gather in groups and giggle. Two girls lead each other to me by the hair - play pulling rather than painful pulling. Which of them is the most vicious. The smaller of the two. She is a witch. A real witch? Yes, yes, a real witch...the two colapse with laughter.
A smaller girl sits on my lap while I am interogated by the real witch and her friend. A small boy squats behind me and rests his chin on my shoulder.
A young woman with blond blond hair sits on the same wall and is happy for small girls to use her as a climbing frame.
Happiness appears abundant.
So does dedication.
Staff are volunteers. Of the teachers, ten are Guatemalan, four are Spanish.
Other volunteers build or work on the orphanage farm. Two are Israeli. The blond blond is Finish. An eighteen-year-old of Danish and Asian Indian parentage conducts me on a tour. The farm has excellent pigs. It has a non-functioning bio gas plant that requires cleanng and rows of non functioning hydroponics beds built recently by volunteers from the US. The farm has chickens in chicken houses, cows, grows vegetables and beans and fruit. Fish abound in the river.
Two hundred and fifty children are fed at the orphanage each day. This is an achievement. Well done, Dona Angie.
Many of the children are not true orphans. Their parents are unable to care for them. The orphanage clothes and educates them. Well done, Dona Angie.
A miniscule few from the orphanage go to University. One is studying medicine, another is an economist. A minuscule few is way better than none.
Well done, Dona Angie.

JACK, JILL AND ANNIE ARE UNSUITABLE

CASA GUATEMALA, RIO DULCE: FEBRUARY 7
Casa Guatemala is an orphanage. Dona Angie founded the orphanage. She owns the Backpackers Hotel on the river bank south of the road bridge. The hotel supports the orphanage. So do charitable donations. Local people complain that confusion or lack of clarity exists in the twin finances. Dona Angie is Honduran.
A launch delivers me from the hotel to the orphanage ($10).
I sit in a classroom built out over the river. The teacher is female, young, Spanish, charming, sincere, dedicated. Her students range from 12 to 15. They are remarkably well behaved. They are reading children's book translated from North American English. Characters in the books have Anglo names: Jack, Jill, Annie, Mollie, Robert.
Is this important?
Yes.
The message is clear:
Books are foreign.
Education is foreign.
Children with Maya names are unworthy of being characters in a book.
The teacher agrees. She shows me the library. Books in English fill the shelves.
The books are donations. The donors should consider what they give. Guatemala has its own writers. Guatemala has publishers and printers.
Donors, please. Guatemalan books for Guatemalan orphans...

A DUMP BY ANY NAME REMAINS A DUMP

HACIENDA TIJAX, RIO DULCE: FEBRUARY 7
Hacienda Tijax is 17 years in the making. I visited first from Cuba in 1992. What is now the town of Fronteras was tin shacks and a few buildings either side of a dirt track. Eugenio had completed a few thatched huts and was planting rubber, teak and mahogany. Now Fronteras is a tar main street stretching north one and a half kilometers towards El Peten. Latino machismo blocks the traffic. No Guatemalan gives way. Klaxons and curses are weapons of first recourse. Between the trucks whizz lunatic young un-helmitted on motor scooters. All five of Guatemala's major banks have branches. Hotels, restaurants, farmacies - all are new. Only the whore house remains the same – and that Fronteras is a dump with few redeeming features. Why do I feel such affection for a dump?