Cobán

On Sunday morning we had a nice breakfast at the small pension where we stayed. It was a little distance from the airport and the streets are a little rough and confusing so I don't know exactly where we were. After breakfast we went to look at a different hotel that Roger Capps group will be staying in when they arrive. It really didn't look very clean so then we went to another hotel that our guide from Medical Teams recommended. It was really much better and about the same price so I wrote to Roger and to the person from Child Aid who is in charge of his trip with that info.
Guatemala City is large and spread out like Mexico City but seems to lack attractive central areas like parks or plazas. At least I didn't see any as we drove through town on our way out to Cobán. Cobán is about 4 or 5 hours away in the mountains. The climate is cooler and cloudier, sort of like Oregon but with a few palm trees. We passed through an area known as a bioreserve where some species of birds and plants are protected, like the Quetzal, Guatemala's national bird.
Near the bioreserve is a hotel resort complex called the Park Hotel. It's where we are going to have my workshop on Thursday and Friday. It's very nice and upscale, the fanciest place I've held a workshop. It's a little intimidating, I hope we get enough people to justify the expense.
In Cobán we met up with Stan Withee my teammate. He's been here a week surveying water systems in the small communities. He's a water engineer and has been climbing up and down the hills laying out pipe lines and examining springs and other water sources. He has a number of water samples for me to test so that he can report back to the people he helped.
Apparently we are scheduled to go to a health fair tomorrow in a community. The first part is a talk from a health nurse about hand washing and I suggested that we bring a hand washing station – called a tippytap- to show. It's just a plastic bottle with a few holes in it, plus a soap in a nylon stocking, but it works very well and is a good demonstration. In Mexico I gave out small geraniums with the tippytap which made them much more desirable. I'd thought about including it in the Friday lecture, so I guess I can try out my speech tomorrow.
In the afternoon I'm supposed to take some water samples as a demonstration for the community and bring the results back the next day. The only problem is that it sometimes takes more than 24 hours so I hope I have some results to show.
I've still got a ton of unpacking to do to get ready for tomorrow, so I'll sign off.
Let me know if you're reading this blog, and what your opinions are.

tom