If you really want to experience Guatemala, hop on a bicycle. With the wind in your face, you’ll admire dramatic blue skies and towering volcanoes. You’ll pedal through fields of corn and coffee, discovering sprawling outdoor markets full of enchiladas and tamales, bright textiles, and friendly locals. You might even pass a high-school marching band playing salsa tunes. Yet having done all these things myself, I found that an even better way to experience Guatemala is by building bicycles.
I set out for Guatemala in August 2006 for a two-month stint volunteering with the nongovernmental organization Maya Pedal. Since 1997, Maya Pedal has been refurbishing and selling used bicycles as well as designing and building bicycle-powered machines, or bicimáquinas. In a region beset by poverty and pollution, Maya Pedal champions pedal power as a sustainable source of energy, and promotes the machines that use it as tools for rural economic development. With ties to MIT’s D-Lab and a steady stream of used bikes from nonprofit organizations in North America (including Bikes Not Bombs in Boston, Working Bikes in Chicago, and Pedal Energy Development Alternatives in Vancouver), the organization serves communities throughout Guatemala from its modest headquarters in San Andrés Itzapa, a small town in the country’s central highlands.
The bicimáquinas, made almost entirely out of recycled bicycles, are ingenious in their simplicity and efficiency. Bicycle-powered devices such as water pumps, coffee depulpers, washing machines, and blenders have the potential to make a real difference in Guatemalan society. They can boost the economy by helping people complete their agricultural and domestic tasks more efficiently despite limited access to fuel or electricity. The devices are also made from recycled materials and powered by renewable energy–an important benefit in a region plagued by contaminated waterways and both indoor and outdoor air pollution. Bicimáquinas can even aid in processing corn, the most important food staple in Guatemala. Bicycle-powered machines are three to four times as effective per person-hour of effort as hand-crank machines, giving the bicimolino/desgranadora (a bicycle mill and corn dehusker) a big advantage over other human-powered machines currently used to prepare corn for consumption.
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