Saturday, February 17, 2007

Waterfall

This is a waterfall we walked to last weekend. There is an even bigger (100m) waterfall right below this one that I plan to visit tomorrow. More photos are here.

I realized that there are some things that surprised me when I got here that I thought I would share:

-People often eat with just tortillas here (no silverware).

-People have metal around the edges of their teeth to keep the teeth from cracking. I thought this was pretty unattractive until I saw someone with their teeth broken. Luckily, nutrition is better now, and most young people have good teeth.

-Almost everyone washes clothes by hand here (only women wash). Machines are expensive here.

-Coffee is the main crop here. It sells for less than $100 per hundredweight. The main crop used to be sugar cane, but people can make more with coffee.

-You can eat mangoes green (with salt).
Something funny happened today--I had heard the refrain of this song (a man singing) "Estoy enamorado de un hombre (I´m in love with a man)." And I thought that was pretty liberal, considering I haven´t seen any openly gay couples here, but, there is a lot of Mexican music here, so maybe it was a Mexican song. Then I heard the rest of the song today--"Estoy enamorado de un hombre, y se llama Jesús. (I´m in love with a man, and his name is Jesus)." That changes things.


That is about all. I´m still working on the web page and the community maps. The goal is to have a comprehensive map with road type and condition, schools, churches, health centers, services, etc... Here are some maps I made to show where San Antonio is.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Water Project Inauguration


A few weeks ago, all of the municipal employees went to El Pajal, a village of San Antonio, for the inauguration of the water project. Click here for a (shaky) video of the mayor, don Oliver, giving the dedication speech.
There are also pictures here of the event, as well as the road construction currently underway in San Antonio (all work done by hand, including digging the trenches).