Synopsis of Volunteer Team Trip, May 2006

by Deborah Simon

Once again a team has returned from Guatemala after a very productive and meaningful visit in Uspantan.

Team: The team for 2006 consisted of Dan Berry of Santa Fe, Paul and Rosmarie Fredrickson of Los Alamos, Bill and Laurie Lowen of Rio Rancho, Beron Brisco of Espanola, Glenn Brisco of Tucumcari, Kathy Eaton of Silver City and me.

Antigua (Sun, Mon): Our schedule was different from usual in that we started off with a couple days in Antigua. We did this because we wanted to attend the Nordeste Rotary club meeting on Tuesday morning. Beron organized a fabulous hike to an active volcano for the group.

Nordeste Meeting (Tues): Despite the best of intentions to attend the Rotary breakfast meeting, we arrived an hour late due to a driver getting lost. However, we did get to see Jose Orive and dona Isabel. I was honored with a Paul Harris award from the Guatemala City Rotary club. Then it was off to Uspantan with Santiago driving dona Isabel's suburban. The road there is nearly all paved. I sort of felt like the team was missing half the fun by not experiencing the old road.

Tierra Blanca (Wed): Our first day in Uspantan began with a special visit to the nearby village of Tierra Blanca, the site of our new Rotary water project. They took us to their spring and then had a big formal program to kick off the project at the site of their school house. It was an impressive program and we certainly felt like we were their honored guests. It was followed by a lunch of turkey soup. Rotary is donating $45,000 toward their $61,000 project.

Tesoro Chiquito (Thur): This day was devoted to going out to the remote area of Tesoro Chiquito to celebrate with them the completion of their water project. The first part of the road was much improved since last year. However, the second half was still pretty bad although we did not have the problems with the mud. Unfortunately for most of the men on the team, they had to ride standing up in the back of the pick up for the second half of the trip. We still had to go the last hour by horse or on foot. The village was all decked out for the celebration. Each home had decorated their water faucet with flowers. They had somehow managed to get a marimba band into the village.and had put together a soccer match with the neighboring villages. They even had turkey soup awaiting us for lunch. It was a joy to see them with their new water system and realize how much our partnership had meant to them.

Chijam (Fri): This is the sweet village scattered over the hillside above Uspantan where they herd the sheep. Most of you have been there to see a big spring that supplies Uspantan. Unfortunately, they have no legal rights to that spring. This village has been asking us to assist them buy water rights to another spring for the past three years but Rotary is not able to help with such requests. However, this is why United by Friendship was formed - to assist where Rotary cannot. We had a wonderful reunion with the people of Chijam at their school house. They put on a nice program and honored each of us. In fact, they gave each male team member a straw hat. The women were given small clay pots. Bill Lowed even got a machete. The partnership for their water rights are as follow: United by Friendship will pay for 50%, the muni 30% and Chijam 20%. This sort of partnership felt good to all concerned. The people of Chijam were elated to have the assistance and are determined to do come up with their 20% soon.

Lake (Sat, Sun): We had a couple days of R&R at the lake. Beron organized a bike ride down 25 miles of winding roads to the lake.

Tesoro Chiquito 2006