I came home from Guatemala, unpacked my suitcase- laundered everything – repacked and headed up to the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship to teach for a month. I have been waking up every morning with a dream about Guatemala in my head. Through e-mail Jenn said she is waking the same way. Our lives have been altered. We stepped out of our safe comfortable American lives and saw how it is in the rest of the world. Someone told me that only 1 percent of the population on earth lives a middle class life style. I wonder if that is true. When you compare your life to people who live in huts –have no health, dental or eye care –eat limited foods and rarely leave the acreage they work everyday, it makes you think of your own life in a new way. Jernn and I were both moved emotionally by the spirit and generosity of the people. We would like to go back and work on more projects. We are trying to figure a way to make a lathe powered by bicycle and containing inexpensive parts, I know would be a successful project in Vera Cruz.

It is weird to have just spent two weeks teaching people with cast off hand tools how to do simple woodworking and then to come to this school and see the sophisticated pieces done with custom made hand tools that might cost several hundred dollars each. I am assisting Aled Lewis in his 9 Month wood class. We are teaching production pieces, also called multiples. We have a group of talented students.

I realize the human drive is the same in the jungles of Guatemala and Maine, how can you make something to sell to make your quality of life better.  In Guatemala the difference being no one had any furniture and very few possessions so all the work went into peoples homes first and future pieces will go to the market.

Here is some work from the students in Maine:

table base

cabinet

Table

Table

Tool cabinets

Cabinet laying on table

Mock up of table

Beth Writing

Chapusero is a Spanish word that refers to someone who makes what they need from what they find or have laying around. This word describes part of my experience in Guatemala. When we arrived in Vera Cruz there was no store to buy materials if you needed them. Jenn and I adapted the projects we did to what we could get. There was a small amount of wood to use the first couple of days, but the table saw blade was burnt out and fused to its shaft, so we had no way to process wood after the first two days. We turned our eyes outward and looked at the environment. There was a ton of bamboo. By the time the kids came for a lesson we had figured out how to make a variety of flutes and marimbas. All these project just required hand tools. Later we took all the left over bamboo and made small containers for pouring salt or holding candles. Jen took all the small pieces of wood we had left and designed a candle stand that was quite popular with all our students. I made knives with some students that were well received. When women in the village saw the knives they started sending their kitchen knives with broken handles up to our shop (porch) to fix. We taught a young man named Luis how to fix them and he did two and then taught Horhay who taught Juan …….. This is how Jenn and I had envisioned this project. We teach you and then you become the teacher. This is what Turning Around America is to us, Empowering people to empower other people. We hope to go back in a year and see the chain reaction. Matt understands the word Chapusero. He and his family all drive cars, which they repair, from parts of other cars. Matt found an old lathe made from a car deferential, but it was in pieces, so jenn and I made a stand for it and Matt chain sawed a tailstock to fit the metal parts. Between all of our efforts we made a lathe powered by a hand crank. We all played with it and one community member used it to make tennon joints for his stool. His wife cranked the handle for him while the baby bounced on her back. I was very aware of how people joined things together, the bamboo walls of their homes, the foiled cover wire birdcage shapes they used for ovens. The strips of tire inner tube   used to tie pieces of pipe, bamboo and metal. I started thinking about waste. I had just seen The Story Of Stuff before I left on this trip so it was in my head. In the last two days I have been looking around my house thinking about the objects in it and how they could be used

Working by candle light

concentration

Jenn fixing Lathe in San Lucas

Lathe in action- one person cranks handle, and one person turns

© Jennifer Moller 2011

WOW! Where do I even begin? Our experience in Guatemala was so intense it is difficult to know where to start my narrative. We arrived home last night. Jenn has gone back to the Cape and we have decided to both post our pictures and thoughts independently. It will take many posts. We have basically been off the grid for ten days in the village of Vera Cruz, in San Juan Bautista. We camped in an abandoned house that is being fixed up to become a guest house for people interested in having a real Guatemalan adventure, an Eco B&B. Our goal was to teach some basic woodworking hand skills that will be useful in both the renovation and in the development of products for the village to make for income. I will say that I think we were totally successful. We really had no idea what to expect when we arrived, both in our living situation and our student population. We stayed fluid and open with both. We lived without electricity cooking most of our meals on a fire that was set up on the porch. Our water came from a spring that was gravity fed up the hill to our location. We did have bathrooms, but nothing worked yet so we had to use buckets of water to flush the toilet and bath in our tub. We were unable to access the computer or even charge our phones (unless the generator was running and an outlet was free) that is why we will be telling our story after the fact. Our support was staff was wonderful, their names are Pilar and Tyson (both 23) and they have been working with the village for a year. Although they had a small living space down the hill they stayed in the house with us. They kept us safe, translated, helped teach, cook, and were wonderful comrades to live with. Jenn and I admire them both for their incredible work ethic, maturity, character and values. I also am glad I got to have this adventure with Jenn. We have worked on many projects together and this one topped them all. She was translator, documenter, teacher, mechanic and friend.

Our ride to Vera Cruz was with Matt Creelman. He is the force behind this project. He was only with us for two days due to family needs, but his time at the house was like being with the Tasmanian devil. He is a whirlwind of energy and knowledge. After spending time with him, his daughter Pilar and her boyfriend Tyson, I am sure the B&B project will be a total success. They are all doing this work for nothing but their belief in humanity and desire to help the down trodden. The road to the community is a couple of miles long and can only be accessed by walking or 4 wheel drive vehicle, as we drove into the jungle I wondered what I had gotten myself into. We arrived at the house in late afternoon, Matts wife Gladys had helped us shop for some essentials and sent mosquito netting with us. Our first job was to carry everything up the hill. This included beds, tools, food, and kitchenware. Matt recruited some kids to help, so Jenn and I set up the beds with netting quickly before the sun went down. We completed this project with Bamboo the kids cut for us, and some string. This set the tone of the week, how do you do something with the resources around you. The first thing we noticed upon arrival was the extreme loud buzzing all around us. We learned that the sound was coming from a cicada like insect called a ChuChara, (my spelling might be wrong). These bugs were about 2 ½ to 3 inches long. We had arrived in the middle of their season – at night it was like buzz saws running. I will admit at this time that I have a little bug phobia. After two days of constantly looking all around me and under everything I picked up, I just had to let go of it. By the third day if a giant cockroach walked across the counter I said hi and let him go his way in peace. I did have a hard time accepting the Chuchara, they were big and clumsy and too much like a sci-fi film I once watched. Children started showing up immediately. They love Matt and were curious about what was happening.

More later

Volcanoes everywhere

The house we lived and taught at

The view from the porch to the truck (everything came up that hill)

Two wonderful helpers

Bianca (she is a demon with a hand saw)