more on the flooding in Guatemala

more on the flooding in Guatemala, originally uploaded by Levi Waldron.

This article was written by Megan Hyslop, who was working at Maya Pedal in San Andrés Itzapa at the time of the Hurricane Stan. She is helping out with the transfer of $720 of the money folks sent to me for redistribution to people displaced by the hurricane. As the article relates, there was very good community support for the victims in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, and this money will be going towards helping them rebuild for the longer term. I will continue posting what I know about what is happening.

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Rebuilding in San Andres Itzapa - by Megan Hyslop

The rain began the night of Sunday, October 1st and didn't stop until Thursday morning. Today is Saturday, October 8th. The town is San Andres Itzapa, Guatemala, the land of friendship and the guaque chile, as its entrance sign proclaims, and one of the many communities afflicted by the recent floods and mudslides brought on by Storm Stan in the Gulf of Mexico.

I came to Guatemala a month ago as a CIDA intern with the GAIA project. My original assignment was to work with Maya Pedal, a local NGO that builds pedal powered machines such as corn grinders, from recycled bikes. However, this week bikes take a back seat to more pressing needs as all of the staff at Maya Pedal are out helping the community. Samara, a Maya Pedal volunteer, and I visited one of the shelters in town Wednesday night. Since then, our role has evolved to include serving hot atol, a warm corn drink, to the people in the shelter and playing with the children now living there. Approximately fifty indigenous families lost their homes and land to a swollen river that only now has begun to recede. The community support has been incredible. Bags of used clothing, beans, corn flour, toilet paper, and diapers are piled along one wall of the shelter, in this case, a public hall/gym. Hardworking volunteer women cook meals for the group. Each morning, women living in the shelter enter the makeshift kitchen to tortear, or slap corn flour dough between their hands for the day's tortillas. An equally devoted group of men bring drums of water to the shelter daily, as ninety percent of the pipes in town broke during the storm. Others shoulder picks and shovels and walk up to the mountains to work on the momentous task of fixing the water system, a project that the town leaders estimate will take five months. There has been a loss of corn and bean crops, the staple foods here in Guatemala. In a sense, San Andres is lucky. There was no loss of life and the town remains uncovered by mud. The roads into the town are unblocked by dirt and uprooted trees. It is worse, the newspapers tell us, in other communities. As is often the case, the people most affected by this disaster are those with scarce economic resources.

There are approximately one hundred children staying in the shelter. In the mornings or afternoons, Samara and I, with the help of the older girls, take a small group down the cobbled streets to the basketball and soccer courts beside the town square for games and fresh air. The view of the green hills surrounding the town and the sunshine is welcome after the stuffy air of the albergue, or shelter. The boys invariably start a soccer scrimmage; the girls play their own match or other group games. Pato, pato, ganso (duck duck goose) has become a new favourite; the children in exchange have taught us "In the patio of my house", a circle game that involves a lot of crouching and yelling "CHOCOLATE!" in the ears of the child in the center of the circle. My strange name, my country of origin, and my nose ring also provide endless entertainment. The children cling to our arms but seem to be facing their predicament with bravery. On the one hand, it is inspiring to see the webs of support woven by the people of San Andres Itzapa and the rest of the country. On the other hand, it's hard to look at the people in the shelter and wonder where and how they will rebuild their lives.

It is raining again, but this time only an afternoon shower typical of the wet season in San Andres. People stop on the street and take cover under the eaves of the blue and green cement homes and store fronts. Rain on a tin roof is thunderous. With any luck, this time the water water will stop before dark.

written by Megan Hyslop, from Maya Pedal

more cyclist-haters

The following letter was written to NOW Magazine this week, in response to this article about the death of a 31-year-old cyclist riding his bike home to help his daughters with their Halloween costumes, not 5 minutes from my home. I hope I am not giving any sort of credence to the letter by reprinting it, but I'm feeling a need for some sort of release.

Cyclists make good hood art despite your furry-headed sense of entitlement, city roads were not made for cyclists, but for a little invention we call the automobile. If you want to play with your bicycle, go to a park, ride along a bike path and ring your little bell. Have fun just leave the streets to people engaged in adult pursuits such as earning a living.
Bicycling Luddites at play in the 21st century are destined, nay begging, to become hood ornaments. Dingaling. Andrew Matheson Toronto

At first I felt angry, as in Andrew Matheson had better hope I never meet him in an alleyway or identify his car somehow. But the anger passed quickly as it usually does on the rare occasions when I feel personally threatened or insulted, especially once I realized there are many Andrew Mathesons and there's a good chance it's a pseudonym anyways. As I finish writing this note, I just feel that the most productive thing to do is ignore Andrew and his likes when they open their mouths or expose their ugly thoughts, and stay as far away as possible when they are behind the wheel of an automobile. You can't reason with them. One good thing to come out of this, at least, is that I immediately feel a little more solidarity and closeness with every other cyclist. Ride on.

My response to an irate motorist. ***oops, corrected version***

(I had some cutting and pasting issues originally, and some paragraphs were duplicated) On 11/8/05, ***name cut to protect the, er, innocent*** wrote:
In over 25 years of driving, I can count on less than both hands, the number of times, I have seen cyclists stop at red lights. But, I have lost count of the number of times I have been inconsiderately and thoughtlessly cut off, hit and intimidated, while walking, by cyclists blasting down a sidewalk, a path. They are always careening through intersections, sliding between lanes, without signalling, up and down sidewalks, regardless of pedestrian traffic. Cyclists generally display a flippant arrogance for basic road safety, driving rules, and thoughtlessness for the safety of the public that surrounds them. EDUCATE CYCLISTS and hold them RESPONSIBLE and ACCOUNTABLE for going through red lights, making illegal turns, and negligent riding-Maybe then, cyclists will have the respect they are demanding.


Dear Denise,

I am sorry that you have such a negative view of cyclists. It may interest you to read the city of Toronto's 2003 report on bicycle - motor vehicle collisions. Interestingly, "cyclist failing to yield at intersection" accounts for less than 3% of all bicycle - motor vehicle collisions, while the 7 main accident types which account for 72% of all collisions and are the only ones which individually account for more than 3% of all accidents, are ones where the driver is partially or entirely at fault (these are: drive out at controlled interesection, motorist overtaking, motorist opens vehicle door, motorist left turn - facing cyclists, motorist right turn (not at red light), motorist right turn at red light, drive out from lane or driveway).

This corresponds with the experience of many cyclists, that our roads and rules were designed for smooth flow of automobile traffic with little to no consideration cyclists. Pedestrians, although still marginalized against cars, at least have sidewalks in most areas. There is no comparable study of cyclist - pedestrian collisions, because although I am sorry you have had some frightening experiences, the danger pedestrians face from cyclists pales in comparison to the danger both pedestrians and cyclists face from cars.

When the infrastructure is illogical and dangerous for a whole class of road users, why should one expect them to have arbitrary respect for aspects of it that do not even help anyone\'s safety? (remember the less than 3% statistic) When our infrastructure has been modernized to account for the safety and convenience of cyclists as much as it now accounts for that of motorists, you can expect to see cyclists fitting within the system better. One analogy that may help a driver to understand is this: if the government were to put stop signs every 100 metres along highway 401 to make it safer for cyclists, how many motorists do you think would obey? None. I assure you, cyclists are not "meaner" or more "reckless" than an average segment of the population.

Cyclists, unlike motorists, are vulnurable and a small minority of road users. Like other vulnurable and minority groups, it is tempting to consistently blame the victims and occasionaly blame the motorist for violence against those victims. Although this allows one to focus on the individual and blithely ignore the systemic problems, it unfortunately does nothing to actually reduce the death, suffering or inequality. You may not realize that cars and trucks kill several cyclists and injure thousands more in Toronto each year. If despite the statistics you still think this is all the fault of the cyclists, then you should try getting around by bike for a while, using all of the skills and knowledge of traffic rules you\'ve learned while driving, and feel perfectly safe.

Finally, I find the assertion remarkable that if cyclists would only obey all the rules of the road, we would achieve respect. I experience disrespect as a cyclist almost every day, but it invariably occurs not when I am breaking a law but when I am inconveniencing motorists: when "taking the lane," a legal manoevre required when there is inadequate space to share a lane, when cars are parked in the bike lane, or when a driver is inattentive (which is extremely dangerous and disrespectful, but not exactly illegal).

In closing, however, I only request that you drive safely and attentively. A car is a deadly weapon, and should be treated as such, every time.

Sincerely,
Levi Waldron
Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists

grocery shopping, the modern way

The other evening it was raining out, a cold, drizzly, fall rain, and my roommate and I were starting to make dinner together. We had everything we actually needed, but the salad was going to be a little bare so he suggested we run over to Dominion to pick up some more greens and a pepper. I was still wondering where the local 24-hour Dominion supermarket was, for those spur-of-the moment, middle-of-the-night purchases, so I agreed. I grabbed my jacket and tuque to prepare for going outside, thinking how cozy I would be, all bundled up in the rain, and how the Toronto air always smells the freshest during and after a rain. But when he hit the "basement" button in the elevator, I realized he was planning to drive to the store, an idea which hadn't even crossed my mind. I guess I was too surprised to protest too strongly, so the next thing I knew we were making the 5-minute drive to the grocery store. So we never had to step outside at all, except for the few steps between the parking lot into the large, sprawling supermarket. I hardly needed my jacket, much less the tuque. We picked up a bunch of spinach and a green pepper, grown with fossil fuels, then stepped up to an unstaffed checkout line! That's right, you check out your own groceries. Just scan the packaged items, and tell the touch-screen what your produce is before you put it in your grocery bag, which it weighs as you add each item. Dominion has managed to unemploy supermarket tellers, and in a way that requires you to use their disposable grocery bags as opposed to your own reusable bag. We took our well-packaged produce to the car and drove back home, then took the elevator back up to our 24th floor apartment. Amazing, the amount of excess energy one can consume to acquire food. I wish I had an easy way to calculate how much energy that little trip required. The 5-minute drive from a "cold" start emitted about half of what a 30-minute drive would have. I bet that the "incidental" energy consumed by the elevator, the drive, the agronomical inputs to grow the food, and trucking of the food, outweighed the calorie content of the food itself by many thousands to one. Not many things are more ordinary than a trip to the store, but on further examination it sure can seem extraordinary.

packed into a bush plane

packed into a bush plane, originally uploaded by Levi Waldron.

Continuing the canoeing slide show after a bit of an absence, here is our group packed into a twin engine Otter, along with our 3 canoes and 1500 lbs of food and gear for the 2-hour flight to our put-in point. When I receive our group journal, I'll start posting some entries from it.