We have arrived.  The medical brigade to Pop-Wuj has landed. We arrived on different flights but managed to coordinate being in the same part of the air terminal.  Customs went very smoothly although one of the bags with the primary server didn’t make it; it will be found an delivered soon (probably a mix up at Miami-Dade airport).

Out goal. Set up FreeMED for use in the Pop-Wuj Clinic.  The crew this week is here to work the medical clinic, assist Dr. Meg Sullivan, the clinic director and install and fire test FreeMED as well as transfer as much of the medical records as possible.

Our bus met us at the airport and quickly loaded the crew and luggage. Its a four plus hour trip from Guatemala City to Quetzeltenango, more often referred to by its K’iche’  or Quiche name, Xela.

Many of you may have read of mudslides in the Guatemalan Highlands The roads show evidence of the slides with many washouts of the roadway.   There were active drops with the busdriver, doing his usual Monte Carlo style driving weaving in and out of one way and two way highway areas on CA1-WEST.

We stopped to eat lunch along the way at a small restaurant nestled in the highlands. There I have my first coordinated pictures of the the team, minus me at this point. The lunch was a variety of foods common in the region, a bit more that we would normally have done for an interim meal, but satisfying.  Back on the bus for the last 2 1/2  hours into Xela we arrived about 6pm local time.  Most of us are at Casa Manen, a local bed and breakfast.  Shelley chose, as I will next week, to live with a Spanish family.  We dropped Shelley at Pop-Wuj and will rejoin with her in the morning.

Because of the two hour time shift to Guatemalan time, although we’re all a bit wasted from the trip and the planes and leaving New York at 4AM its only 8 local time.  The crew goes to a local restaurant over looking the Plaza for some sit down and group building.   We’re all pretty revved about the morning and the week to come.

Bed time, well room time about 10pm in Xela.  These blogs will be about 1 day off because of the local time changes, but I hope to have more pictures and more local interest shortly.

The first was with GM diesels. In the late 70′s there was a gas crisis and my dad decided that the best way was to go diesel. The local dealer sold not one but two impala diesels. One never worked all that well costing before its well earned retirement 0.72 cents per mile.  The dealer never really got it right, going through one battery after another.  Finally the car spit out its transmission parts, the torque of the engine far greater than the transmission design. The dealer offered to repair the transmission splitting the difference so that ‘no one would get hurt’… 1300$ would be my share.  I went to the local transmission fixit place who completed the entire repair, 340$.  Ahh well. The war of the batteries continued burning out one battery then another, the dealer only charging me the 75$ swap charge each time. Finally the dealer fessed up; he was only and oils and lubricant’s fixer for diesel and had no idea what was going on.  Several weeks later the car gave a groan,  spit out many parts on the ground. I gave the car to the local trade school.  They could not understand why I would give them a car with a working radio.

I swore off GM.

Recently I read that GM had made a V-6 2.8L engine with a firing order 1-2 3-4 5-6. The crankshafts reliably cracked around 30K miles. The solution. Wait. Most of these cars have only 5oK warranties.  Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Some years later I buy a Chrysler PT cruiser. I did the research which suggested that the repairs were more than average. Little did I suspect it was a plan on the part of Chrysler.  I got a plan with the car which included oil changes. The oil change guy at the dealership must not have been part of the dealership plans.  He never saw the leaky high pressure lines and in doing the oil change managed to rip another line under the car.

Some time later, my mechanic, not at the dealership, goes to change the timing belt, a necessary repair. To do this requires complete disassembly of the right side of the car. Success. But now it needs adjustment. The plate to adjust this is located directly behind the front motor mount. One of the local dealerships suggests “cut it off and weld it back” REALLY!

None of that is as pertinent as the words from the leadership at Chrysler. As they were marching down the road to bankruptcy, one of their fearless leaders, who no doubt will be reinstalled and highly bonused and paid by the American taxpayer in the name of saving his job, announces that “we put a bad engine in that car (the PT Cruiser); but, we’re not making them anymore”.

Words of comfort, direct from the mouth of Sauron!

Some years ago a tile fellow did some work in a bathroom. I said at the time ” Perhaps we should use mud (concrete)?”

“Naaah,” he replied, “use the mastic, it will last you a lifetime….”

About three years later, through no fault of mine, he dies. Shortly there after the tiles came loose on the wall — prompting the question — whose lifetime?

Some many years later I bought a product a car remote, guaranteed for a lifetime of use. The thing had troubles but the installer was local and very helpful with the twists and vagaries of the system.  About 90 miles from home one day, the system failed, on a Saturday afternoon. About the same time an ex of his walked into his shop, double taps him in the head leaving him quite dead. The local dealer folds.  But– not to worry this is a national franchise. Uh huh. A year later, no service, no ability to fix it and no ‘other dealer’ willing to work with it, I ripped it out of the car to solve a panoply of problems. Lifetime hmmmm.

And yet once more into the breach.  I find myself drawn to an automobile. Its comfortable. Consumer’s report says that it has some repair problems but I chose the engine and model with fewer. You guessed it Chrysler. As I’m listening to the litany of demise from the mouth of marketing at Chrysler – he says “we put a bad engine in that car. We knew it but it sold well. We’re not making it any more.”   Ahh yes the full circle. Not only NOT forever but not even partially.

I always liked the City on the Edge of Forever  on StarTrek. But even there she dies. Its not forever.

Disposable people.

Why is it then that we love them so? We have a car Czar, a Drug Tzar. Czar this and Tzar that. Its the same intellect that brought back ‘crusades’. Perhaps the most monstrous human losses were suffered in the crusades expeditions from West to East, jihads of an earlier time, most all doomed to failure.

So, why Czars?. The Russian’s loved their Czars, hated them and in the end they killed not only the Czar but his children, childrens children, household workers, horses and anyone who could pronounce the name. So why are WE in love with Czar’s for drugs and Czars for cars?  Given the mounting success of the war on drugs (actually a war on the American people, but more of that later) and the apparent success of the Car Czar (bankruptcy of the two of the three major US car manufacturers), we seem to be approaching the Russian ideal.

I’m old enough to remember Nikita Khruschev

Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe at the UN

declaring they (USSR at the time) would bury US. (yes yes its double entendre).  We recognized at once the value of shoe pounding and within a few years here we are, appointing Czars.

The Jews of the Pale, knew well that the Czar was no friend but as with all things they had blessings for everything.  Teyve in Fiddler on the Roof coughs up a blessing, ” God bless and keep the tzar — far away from us!”  Indeed.

As of old, Czars were not elected, nor even chosen by some lady emerging from the lake with a flaming sword, but chosen. We insulate them from possible rational commentary.  New sources flock to them for information. As of old, they stand apart.