We made it to Uspantan, our first stop, last night after a 5 hour drive from Antigua. Since we´re trying to make it to a lot of places in a short amount of time, we hired a driver for the trip. His wife is the cousin of the host mom of a former Peace Corps Volunteer who is now studying hort and ag at UC Davis. (Thanks Cara!) I¨m really starting to believe all roads lead to Davis...
Anyway, Ovidio is from Uspantan, and he nicely made the very long drive to come get us in Antigua and then bring us back up to the mountains. Luckily for us, this meant we got an extra morning in Antigua! It was a beautiful day, with good views of all three volcanoes.
We wandered around town and checked out both the traditional textile center and the choco museo. The Choco Museo had a cool exhibit about cacao production (trees grow 40-50 feet tall, and produce for about 25 years!). When we arrived, a group was in the middle of a chocolate making workshop. It smelled amazing! To make up for missing the workshop, we decided to get fondue. Yum!
Ovidio picked us up around 2, and then we all got lunch and headed to Uspantan. The drive was beautiful! Everything is very green (especially compared to Davis) and there are lots of mountains. We drove by Lake Atitlan (picture to the left of us blocking the view of the lake), which we hope to go back to if we have a free day or two at the end of the trip.
We got into Uspantan around 8pm and checked into our hotel. This morning, we met up with a PCV who volunteer to help us connect with communities. We went with her to a small village a couple miles from the city center of Uspantan - she was planning to talk to a group about hydroponics, and then give us an opportunity to do our focus group questions.
Unfortunately, the meeting had been rescheduled from a week before, and nobody remembered that it was happening! We were able to briefly chat with one lady in town, thanks to some Quiche translation help from our tuk-tuk driver. It was an interesting conversation, as well as good practice trying to interview people in Spanish! I will hopefully be a lot better at talking by the end of this trip!
We are going to try again in another village this afternoon - fingers crossed!
Kelsey Barale, graduate student, International Agricultural Development
Elana Peach-Fine, PhD candidate, Plant Pathology
Anyway, Ovidio is from Uspantan, and he nicely made the very long drive to come get us in Antigua and then bring us back up to the mountains. Luckily for us, this meant we got an extra morning in Antigua! It was a beautiful day, with good views of all three volcanoes.
We wandered around town and checked out both the traditional textile center and the choco museo. The Choco Museo had a cool exhibit about cacao production (trees grow 40-50 feet tall, and produce for about 25 years!). When we arrived, a group was in the middle of a chocolate making workshop. It smelled amazing! To make up for missing the workshop, we decided to get fondue. Yum!
Ovidio picked us up around 2, and then we all got lunch and headed to Uspantan. The drive was beautiful! Everything is very green (especially compared to Davis) and there are lots of mountains. We drove by Lake Atitlan (picture to the left of us blocking the view of the lake), which we hope to go back to if we have a free day or two at the end of the trip.
We got into Uspantan around 8pm and checked into our hotel. This morning, we met up with a PCV who volunteer to help us connect with communities. We went with her to a small village a couple miles from the city center of Uspantan - she was planning to talk to a group about hydroponics, and then give us an opportunity to do our focus group questions.
Unfortunately, the meeting had been rescheduled from a week before, and nobody remembered that it was happening! We were able to briefly chat with one lady in town, thanks to some Quiche translation help from our tuk-tuk driver. It was an interesting conversation, as well as good practice trying to interview people in Spanish! I will hopefully be a lot better at talking by the end of this trip!
We are going to try again in another village this afternoon - fingers crossed!
Kelsey Barale, graduate student, International Agricultural Development
Elana Peach-Fine, PhD candidate, Plant Pathology
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