I’m continuously impressed by the ingenuity of the people living here. Both Guatemalans and Gringos alike. If you walk around town, there are several places that you can see pieces of railroad rail being used as telephone and electrical line poles. Most of the funnels that I’ve seen here come from cutting the top off of 600ml plastic soda bottles. Plastic grocery bags are useful for everything from carrying groceries to rain bonnets to serving as makeshift galoshes.

But the things that really struck me and made me start thinking about it were twofold today. First when I was walking by the lake, I saw two young men rowing around in a funny looking canoe. I immediately recognized that this was no ordinary canoe, but rather, it was a gutted jet-ski.

Back in the states, this thing would have been relegated to the scrap pile, here, plug the holes, grab some oars, and we’re good to go fishin.

Later on, I was given a pair of earrings to give Rachel that had been made in a local village. The interesting thing about the earrings was the origin of the materials used to make them. They are quite colorful, and they’re made of the aluminized mylar packages from potato chips. This is the ultimate recycling, if you ask me. Potato chips cost 2-3 Q for a small bag, eat the chips, and have the material to make at least 5 pair of earrings that sell for 20 Q each. And everybody who saw them loved them and wanted some (the women for themselves and the men for their wives). Man, I’m in the wrong busines.