Having a little vacay time has given me a chance to do many of the necessary overdue blog updates.
Barroom Wisdom had been updated…
Having a little vacay time has given me a chance to do many of the necessary overdue blog updates.
Barroom Wisdom had been updated…
The proyectos page has been (hastily) updated. It’ll at least give you an idea of a few of the things I’ve worked on here. A more formalized update will come at some point…
So about 2 weeks ago Otto and Mia came to the GT. Since it was only for a long weekend, I unfortunately did not get to see too much of them. We did however have an awesome dinner at Posada Don Rodrigo with Marty, Carlos, and the rest of the gang. We then made our way to Kafka and discussed a little of this and a little of that over some liters of Gallo with Milton and Ricardo.
I wish I had more pictures of their times here, but Otto has yet to send me more and I have somehow misplaced the ones I have.

brian in front of fancy restaurant where he works.
So in addition to all of the random creative endeavors that I have been partaking in at Kafka, I`ve recently started working on a “real project”. The decision to introduce a pooltable into the multitude of perks that Kafka has to offer has spawned a whole series of projects that must be done in order to accomodate for it… This is good news for the resident architect who is no longer a resident.
The only room in all of Kafka that is suitable for a pooltable is the current downstairs bar. This means that the current bar must be moved into the current lobby/wasted space that is directly next to it.
Morgan (my boss) and I are heading the project. What this basically comes down to is long, vague, and about 70% of the time, unproductive creative ADD brainstorming sessions. We are making progress though… and we have to, he wants to be done by next Saturday.
I will post pictures of all of this in the near future (when the internet cafe that I am using has a card reader that actually works). Anyways, it feels good to once again be covered in construction dust and drafting out CD`s…
It`s been a while since I`ve consistantly updated. Things have been crazy busy with finding a job and getting things going here. Since I now have both jobs going at once, I`ve been putting in alot of hours… especially at Kafka. At Kafka we`re getting heavy into ADD mode and working on about 10 things at once. Once we get our first initial ideas off the ground, things should get a bit more manageable…
Since working at 2 bars wasn`t enough, I`ve decided to begin living at one…
I`ve worked out a deal with the owner of Kafka and am now living in the hostel gratis (don`t worry, I`m getting paid too). It actually seems like it`ll be a good deal, I get to live there for free, and in addition, whenever I`m working at either of the two bars I can eat for free.
And for those of you who are thinking of visiting, have no worries, there`s enough room for everybody… I now have my own personal room with a bed for almost every day of the week. I have a room with 3 bunkbeds and a window. I`m going to have to work on getting a shelf up or something so I`m not litterally living out of a suitcase, but for the time being, I`m happy with just having a private room.
Unfortunately, this all means that I will no longer be staying with Stella and the fam. Though it was great and some of the best times of my life, I really can`t afford to continue living there. Fortunately, Kafka`s is only about 4 blocks from Stella`s house, so I`m sure that I`ll be running into them all of the time.
So after my extensive job search, I have found a few gigs to pay the bills. (As a side note, let me just say that unless you are are beautiful girl in her mid 20`s, it`s almost impossible to find a bartending/waiter job in Antigua. I`m pretty sure I visited close to every bar in Antigua and heard from at least 5 or 6 of them that they were only looking for a woman bartender. I lost two jobs to girls too)
So anyways, I have started working at two places, one is called Kafka (http://kafkahostel.com/Kafka_Bar+Grill/HOME.html) and is a bar/restaurant/hostel. I`m going to be working there as a bartender/designer. The owner is a 30 year old guy who is really cool and laid back. When I`m not working behind the bar, he basically wants to go through the entire place (which is actually really big) with me and work on the image of the place. He`s really open to whatever and has really good ideas. We`ve already had a few brainstorming sessions about all of the possible things that we can do (as long as its cheap). He just opened a new entryway to the place and we`ve started by painting KAFKA in giant letters on the wall (which I will post pictures of after we`ve finished).
The second place I`m working at is a fancypants restaurant called Bistro Cinq (http://www.bistrotcinq.com/). I am currently being trained as a mixologist…. seriously, “mixologist”… I can`t help but be excited about this. This`ll be cool because I`ll be making all kinds of drinks rather than just opening beers for people. The other plus is that everybody else there (other than the owner) is Guatemalan, meaning that everything is in Spanish. I`m being taught mostly by a 19 year old kid named Jonathan who, from what I`ve seen up to this point, really knows what the hell he`s doing.
More to come…
So Friday was my last day at Familias de Esperanza. It`s been about 3 months since I began. The work was great and great for my Spanish too…which led me to apply for a fulltime paid position about a little over a month ago. The only catch was that I`d have to commit to work there for a year in order to be on the payroll. Since I really didn`t want to be banging nails for over a year, I originally asked if I could work for only six months (especially since I had already recieved all of the training I`d need). Mario, the bossman, told me that 6 months should be ok, I`d just have to talk to the people in the office about it. I went and talked to a girl in the office and told her what I was interested in doing. She told me that she`d ask the higher-ups and let me know. After ALOT of waiting (vacations for people in the office, my own sick time, interviews for other people interested in the position, etc) she got back to me and said it was only possible if I`d commit to a year. I said that I would and we had a full-fledged interview…
I was pretty sure I was going to get the job, I had already worked in the shop for 2.5 months and more or less knew what the job was about. In addition, all of the other applicants to the job were in the US and had to be interviewed over the phone. I figured I`d have the upper hand.
Although I wasn`t totally excited about the idea of doing construction for a year, I figured that it`d be a good thing to be involved in and would be good for my Spanish. The office then got back to me this past Wednesday and told me that they had gone with somebody else. My initial idea of working for only 6 months had led them to be skeptical about whether I`d really be there for a full year… Although I had been banking on getting the job, it wasn`t earth shattering news that I didn`t get it, I had been having second thoughts about the commitment and the tiny amount of money that I`d be recieving.
So anyways, where does this leave me… unemployed. Needless to say, not much has changed. This is ok, but`ll require a bit of a change of plans. Up to this point I`ve actually been really busy between working and on and off Spanish classes . However, my current situation with dinero has lead me to end my classes and to the realization that a job is a job and that money is money. Since I`m not at all excited about working in Guatemala City (I have my reasons… but this is unfortunately where all of the jobs are), I`ve started looking for a restaurant/bar job here. I`ve had to consider what my priorities are… and Spanish is first… in order to get Spanish I need to be able to stay here… this means I need to be makin`the moneys. I`ve walked to just about every restaurant/bar in Antigua at this point and should be hearing back from people this week. It`s about power positive thinking…
We`ll see how it goes. If nothing comes through I`ve considered adding a paypal donation box to the site…
One of the projects of Familias de Esperanza is to build houses for poor families in the pueblos surrounding Antigua. It is unbelievable, the majority of the families that Familias de Esperanza helps do not even own the land that they are living on. They are squatting; and when the government/landowner tells them to move, they have to move.
There are two kinds of houses that the organization builds. One is a fixed house with 2 rooms and the other is a moblile house with 1 room. The mobile houses are able to be dismantled if/when the families are forced to move.
Keep in mind that these “houses” are just rooms with a roof. There is no running water or even a bathroom. However, in most cases its a big improvement compared to what the families had before.
Last Thursday we built the larger 2 room fixed version. The process of construction between the two houses is more or less the same, the only difference is in the foundation, the mobile house uses concrete tiles while the fixed houses use a poured slab.
So here`s the work crew:

Charlie - Team leader. He`s good times. He`s a longterm volunteer and has been working for the organization for over a year. Unfortunately he`ll be leaving in about 3 weeks. This was his 45th house.

Felix. He grows his own coffee (he has a bag of it in his hand). He is always good with the bromas. On the first day, when I was leaving, he said (in Spanish) "Ok, bye... say hi to your sister for me"... There`s alot of this kind of thing that goes on around here...
These guys are the main workers in the shop. Felix and Pablo have been working for the organization for over 10 years.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O6LPRdVovs[/youtube]
Charlie giving everybody a rundown of what needs to be done.
The amazing thing is that the house went up in only 1 day (not including the poured foundation).
Ok, so as far as design: When I first saw the houses, I felt that there was easily alot of room for improvement. I`d have to admit though, after building one, I came to the conclusion that they are actually designed really well. They`re about as simple/cheap as they can get and can be put together by a bunch of volunteers with no prior experience.

The chopsaw. Note that there isn`t one. This is a guide for the circular saw to ensure (+/- 25% of the time) perpendicular cuts
Familias de Esperanza is a private organization that has been around since the mid 80`s. Before beginning work, they require that you go on a tour of the surrounding communities that they are helping to educate you on what exactly you are helping to better. The state of some of the schools and living conditions is pretty unbelievable. Some of the schools don`t even have a roof nevermind running water (or books). Tomorrow I will be going on a house visits with a social worker to check in on certain families to see how they are doing. I`m sure it`ll be pretty eye opening…