How to Build a Massachusetts Garage with Re-purposed Tires

Earthship/Guatemala completes a home for Maria and five children in Comalapa

What do a white couch and a murder have in common?

As it turns out, not much, especially a North American couch and a Guatemalan murder. And it is in their differences that my story unfolds.

An innocent white upholstered couch was deposited off a corner of my property over the weekend. And it wasn’t alone because a desk, two end tables and a large console TV had already been left to hang on the same corner.

At first I was a little excited because it seemed like it might be a local Occupy movement, especially when I misread the sign that said “Free” for one that I imagined to say “Freedom.”

But, after two few days of no coherent platform or set of demands issuing from the couch, I knew that it had little future and had to go. The desk, two end tables, large console TV plus a tacky wire reindeer had already been repossessed leaving the couch looking forlorn. Like an abandoned pet that scratches at the door, I was now the de facto owner.

I did what any US citizen does in a pinch and called my local police department. I explained to the skeptical clerk that I was not a criminal, not a polluter, just a responsible tax payer who had been the victim of a misappropriated attempt at recycling.

But what could be done? She reassured me that she would “talk” to someone and get back to me. After a six hour time lapse I called again and was informed that the couch had been removed by the Highway Department

I was impressed.  In America, the Highway Department takes abandoned couches. Who knew?

The next morning I woke early. I was still thinking about the couch and my good fortune. All that had been required to rid myself of an unwanted couch was a short phone call to my local authorities. All was right with the world, there was a run on American stocks, employment gains were mighty and the Dow had jumped more than 400 points in one day.

Still thinking about my local police department, I felt fortunate to live in a country where unwanted couches can be taken at no cost and speedily at that. Even though they barely knew me, in fact didn’t know me at all, they had been so responsive to my needs.

Yet, I had this persistent unease in spite of good local and national news.

My thoughts turned to some friends who live in a different country, Guatemala in fact, with a different type of government and a very different set of resources.

My friends are nice people, maybe even nicer than me. They had five grown children, a flock of grandchildren and happen to be indigenous Mayan. The mother is a weaver and the dad is an x-ray technician. They raised their kids in a concrete block and rebar house with one toilet and no hot water. They have no washing machine or dishwasher, let alone a vacuum cleaner, a dust-buster, a Mixmaster, an IPod or an IPad or…. Well, you get the picture.

Yet they have defied most odds of the economically and politically disadvantaged of their small village. All five kids had professional jobs with good educations. They had an accountant, a social worker, a non-profit manager, a physician and their oldest son became an indigenous rights lawyer.

From the nuclear family of seven their ranks swelled to 17 including all spouses and grandchildren. In traditional style most of the grown children still lived together with their respective families in a single room within the family compound. And all still shared one toilet and a central pila, (a large concrete sink that holds water for washing clothes).

Fausto, the oldest son, worked in the capital, married another indigenous woman, and had two small children on whom he bestowed traditional Maya names. At 32, he was rapidly becoming a shining star in a small galaxy.

All seemed well for this family. On any given Saturday, 15 women and children could be counted milling, breast-feeding and cooking in their tiny kitchen and dirt courtyard. The women clapping hands coated with masa to produce a mountain of tortillas. Talking together and firing off a combination of machine-gun Spanish and native Kakchiquel. Cutting chicken parts and adding them to a soup boiling in cauldron sized pots. The children would be cuddling and laughing with one another. To my outsider eyes the family epitomized small town harmony within a tranquil farming community.

Then on October 18, 2009 we received notification that Fausto had been inexplicably murdered. He had left home on a Friday evening and was found beaten by a blunt object, hacked several times by a machete, stripped naked and left to die in a river ravine less than a mile from their home.  Although Guatemala has a reputation for being a dangerous place, this was only the second murder in this quiet city of 40,000 over the past 15 years.

A keening and mourning erupted as this loving and close-knit family tried to process the news. They clung to one another and bravely buried their oldest son, gaining strength from one another and their deep religious faith and rituals. Fausto was eulogized by his father, Flavio, and oldest sister, Mirian, as his grey casket rested in the family living room next to the home altar ablaze with candles.

“This room, always a center for conversations and for celebrations, now holds the casket of our son, Fausto,” Flavio said, opening the service.

Mirian asked the assembled not to abandon the work that Fausto believed in, that of bringing greater rights to indigenous people. In their tradition of carrying the body of the loved one on the shoulders of those who remember him, there was no motorcade, just the crowd of the stricken, estimated to be over 1000, snaking their way the mile to the graveyard at the outskirts of town.

And that was over 2 years ago. We ask on every call to the family if any motive or suspect has been uncovered. The answer is always negative.

Although Comalapa is a tranquil city, Guatemala has one of the highest murder rates in the world and one of the lowest tax rates. With over half the population living below the poverty line there are few resources to fight crime.

In an article from the New Yorker in April 2011 the prospect of getting away with murder in Guatemala was addressed.

Reporter David Grann wrote, “In 2007, a U.N. official declared, “Guatemala is a good place to commit a murder, because you will almost certainly get away with it.”

In Guatemala it is possible to commit murder with impunity because roughly 97% of all homicides remain unsolved.

What do a white American couch and a Guatemalan murder have in common? It turns out to be very little. The couch can be handled by the North American suburban Highway Department within 6 hours but a Guatemalan murder may not be solved by the police for a millennium.

It is certainly tragic for any family to lose a child and to lose one to murder even more so. But to have one’s loss made immaterial by the seeming indifference of officials entrusted with one’s protection amounts to a cruelty. I am grateful on a daily basis for my town officials who believe in and uphold the rule of law.

Jewish Immigrants reach US seeking political asylum

A heart warming story of mine about a Jewish immigrant family arriving in the USA seeking political asylum after two years of “marching” with their infant daughter from Brazil was just published in a regional Jewish paper. The family crossed three continents and traversed 10 different nations to arrive in Allen, Texas in Feb 2010. Their story is one of courage and determination in the face of prejudice, physical hardship and homelessness.

http://www.jewishjournal.org/story/news_features/after_a_harrowing_journey_jewish_refugees_arrive_in_the_land_of_milk_and_mi/#.TuD9gdzP6yc.email

Was Benazir a feminist?

Benazir Bhutto, once, twice, almost thrice Prime Minister of Pakistan, died in the streets of her beloved Pakistan in 2007. As a woman prime minister of a Muslim country, educated in the west, and governing an entire country in the east plus a decorated Ivy League scholar, I expected Bhutto to fulfill my image of the über feminist. Therefore, I was surprised to learn that Bhutto, as decorated a career woman as she was, still  sought the institution of marriage through arrangement by her handlers.

Bhutto was educated at Radcliffe and Oxford in the 60′s and 70′s, elected to the post of Prime Minister, deposed, re-elected and then jailed in the 80′s, self-exiled in the 90′s and gunned down in 2007 just before taking office for a third time. Her life read like a “Shakespearean tragedy.” With all this going on who has time to get married?

That was her exact dilemma. Yet she sensed that without a marriage she would not be taken seriously by male heads of state who might prefer a dinner date over signing a treaty with her.

In this circumstance Bhutto did what any good princess would: She sent her handlers scouring the countryside for a suitable husband.

And, wow, what a husband they found. Initially part businessman, part playboy her husband became a domestic over-achiever, father-mother all rolled into one sensitive and responsible parent, a parent who conscientiously provided a sense of domesticity to both children and Bhutto. He was a parent who maintained domestic security for their two children when Bhutto was absent. He also provided the glue when she was present but way too preoccupied for dentist appointments and homework charts.

This was the greatest irony of Benazir Bhutto’s life. Bhutto was an independent, educated, pro-life feminist whose sphere of influence, as she resided and presided over a Muslim country, was world-class and yet she needed to reach for the structure of marriage to aggrandize her power on the world diplomatic stage. And an arranged marriage no less!!!

So let this be a lesson to all women pushing the glass ceiling: Even filling a role of head of state will never erase or eradicate thousands of years of patriarchal rule. And the comforts of home and family will never transpose the achievements of work life. Even a female head of state needs to bake cookies once in awhile.

New article in Archives of Disease in Childhood links environmental risk factors and childhood disease

The British publication Archives of Disease in Childhood has published an original article which Ericka Temple and I wrote over the past year. The article connects the dots between environmental risk factors and childhood diseases. It makes a case that cleaning the environment will prevent children from contracting diseases with environmental risk factors. Children in poverty are more likely to contract diseases that have environmental risk factors and these diseases could be prevented through basic municipal waste practices. See full article: http://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2011/06/10/adc.2010.192641.full.pdf?keytype=ref&ijkey=H296iDicHHByoZ6

Tire garage is amazing. It can do all kinds of things like withstand the harshest New England winter since ’08.

The tire garage has multiple talents. Unlike this blogging program which can’t seem to download two pictures side by side without giving the author a temper tantrum. 

Thursday when the garage seems to be slipping away from view.

From Monday of this week to……

Get Fresh Crew will hold fundraiser on February 2, 2011

The Get Fresh Crew of Upward Bound UMass Boston wants to do a really good thing. They want to travel to Guatemala to help build a school for indigenous youth who otherwise have few opportunities. They are committed to take this trip, roughly 4,000 miles from their homes in Dorchester and South Boston, to help out some kids less fortunate than themselves.

The Get Fresh Crew is made up of high school students enrolled in Upward Bound,  an after-school program designed to help kids with few resources go to college. They don’t come from middle-class homes that could give a leg up for this journey. Their families are struggling in their own ways in this country. In fact, a requirement of being an Upward Bound student is that neither parent has attended college.

Yet the plight of the indigenous youth of Guatemala has captured their interest and their commitment. Posted on their YouTube video are some facts about the kids they want to help in Guatemala. They write “More than 75% of the population of Guatemala live below the poverty line” and ” Many girls can’t attend school because they have to carry water to their homes.”

Let’s face it, these are kids who are rising above their own circumstances. They are working hard to realize their potential in a country that has a ladder out of poverty.  And yet they have the interest and compassion to extend a helping hand to those with fewer options.

The Get Fresh Crew has published a coloring book to teach others about environmental stewardship. They will be launching their coloring book this Wednesday at the Ryan Lounge at UMass Boston between 5:30 PM and 7:00 PM. The Ryan Lounge is located in the McCormack Hall on the 3rd floor. Visit them and buy a coloring book for $5 and help them get to Guatemala.

To visit their website click here.

Coloring book drive to bring rainbow to Guatemala

An innovative group of Boston high school students  are truly practicing the meaning of the old adage “one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.” Although they are low-income students enrolled in an Upward Bound college tutoring program, they have looked beyond their own struggles and committed to helping others less fortunate than themselves.

When introduced to the plight of indigenous Guatemalan youth who rarely attend school beyond the sixth grade and have few ladders of success out of their impoverished communities, the Upward Bound students decided to help out.

They have formed a group called the Get Fresh Crew and are raising $19,000 to visit Guatemala to help build a vocational school now under construction using waste materials such as earth-filled tires and trash-filled bottles. The Guatemalan school, called Tecnica Maya, will also incorporate other sustainable building techniques such as rainwater catchment and composting toilets. When completed, the school will teach green building vocations to local indigenous youth who have few opportunities to develop new skills

The Get Fresh Crew developed a coloring book on sale for $5 to  raise their funds for their anticipated visit. If you are in the area be sure to visit their coloring book release party Wednesday, January 26 at 5:30 p.m. in the McCormack Building’s Ryan Lounge at UMass Boston. Stop in and see how compassion, commitment and  energy can produce results.

For more information on how to donate, contact Upward Bound Assistant Director Erica Pernell at 617-287-5846 or email her at erica.pernell@umb.edu

View a video that the kids put together about their plans.

Snow blog from a mystery writer

The rail trail, or now officially called the “multi-use transportation trail”, was a cleared path that accommodated a railroad in the early 20th century.

Near our house is an open trail extending south to north between wetlands. In the 20^th century this straight swath was cut and leveled to accommodate a recreational railroad linking Boston with northern ruralities.

Today it is a long untangled trail of earth, periodically maintained by the utility company. It allows for excellent passage but it doesn’t exactly entertain. It is a basic path for telephone poles and any creatures that wish to pass. I count myself among this group and while snowshoeing there recently I sensed the presence of another fellow traveler.

But first, consider the path. Some might view this level swath of land and judge it harshly, call it lazy, a piece of underachieving earth in need of a real job. It has an obvious career but one that it chooses not to undertake. It connects points along its straight line and mimics a road but is not quite. Lacking actual pavement it remains a Bigfoot of transportation, part human yet still distinctly wild.

The civil world seems to abhor laziness and wildness in equal measure. And flat land without a topping can avoid detection for only so long. With the future of this “underutilized” piece of dirt already determined, this imposter of a road will soon receive its final OK and become a paved path extending from the southern town boundary to the northern edge. Parents with strollers and kids on skateboards will eventually traverse its 4.5mile surface along with other bikers, roller-skaters, runners and walkers.

A re-visioned swath of otherwise “useless” land is a brilliant idea and converts “dormant” land into a utilitarian trail that combines community and recreation.  This investment will support healthy activity that we all lack in our daily lives.

But it is the decision to pave the path (about $1 million/mile), which troubles me. A paved path becomes accessible to all, including the handicapped; clearly an argument without refutation, enough said.

But the argument for paving also neglects to acknowledge the important job this path already serves. In the words of singer/songwriter Joanie Mitchell we can “pave paradise, and put up a parking lot” but this underutilized path is in use everyday, just not in the way that we can easily see or in a way that we seem to value.

The path is a connective corridor now protecting wildlife functions such as mating, foraging and evolutionary change. When natural habitats are severely fragmented by roads, highways and intersecting non-permeable areas like strip malls and parking lots, animals and plants can’t travel freely on natural corridors in search of food, shelter and to mix up the gene pool through unrestricted mating. Conservation biologists have tagged fragmentation of habitats and destruction of wildlife corridors as one of the most significant “wounds” inflicted by us on the earth. For more on these issues I refer you to a summary by Teri Murrison here.

It makes little sense to pave this path. If the path is to be a recreational option for bikers and walkers, the two groups that will flock to the path, it need not be paved. And by not paving it we allow the earth to continue to breathe on its own, to take in nutrients and water and conduct natural decomposition. In other words, make dirt. Add a little permeable stone-dust to the surface and I would say we are good to go.

On Friday its surface was still the simple earth beneath 17 inches of new fallen snow. I imagined the jumble of plants, nematodes, insects and worms underneath.

Joe and I went snowshoeing which required us to lift both our legs and a shovelful of snow with each step. It was physically demanding but I felt strong while doing  hard work in just the act of walking.

The winter stood out with its stark contrasts and smooth edges and its’ feeling of isolation just a few hundred yards from my door. Absent were the summer sounds of the neighbor’s lawn mowers and the bass beat-beat-beat traveling with the roar of a loose muffler and squealing transmission.

Snow is the willing recorder of the unfolding drama always moving on the earth. Like an unwritten diary, an ethereal blog, the snow inscribes the history of the past minutes, hours and days.  Tracking in the winter means reading and translating the details of this story.  As we walked I read the blog of one other creature passing nearby on this trail.

At first we thought we were alone on this path but soon discovered the evidence of the smallest of creatures on the surface next to where we walked. With the aid of the extra 17 inches underfoot we observed that a family of mice now had unconsumed food sources within reach. We saw the evidence of feasting on seed supplies previously beyond their reach.

The small tracks show how the snow has acted as a 17" stepladder allowing the mouse to reach food sources it was too short to reach before the great snowfall.