Category Archives: Guatemala

Guatemala Success Story, Spring 2020

April 15, 2020 Michael Sabrio

Maria Isabel Luna Salazar graduated from Perito Contador high school at 18 years old. She has a 13-year-old son named Juan Daniel. She is a single mother and lives with her 62-year-old mother since her father passed away when she was 24. Since then she had to take care of her mother and her two brothers. In February 2000 she started working at FIDESMA, keeping the accounts of the Foundation. She has been in charge of delivering credits and giving training to women’s groups in rural and urban areas, and also working in the sale and repair of bicycles. In 2019 we received our 20th container from Pedals For Progress, and Isabel completed her 20th year of working at FIDESMA.

Daniel at 3 months with his aunt while
Isabel inventories Container Guatemala #6

It is incredible how the donation of a bicycle can change the life of a person, a family, and an entire country. Isabel has had the opportunity to work at FIDESMA and thus has been able to support her family and pay for her son’s studies since second grade. Now that he is a teenager he volunteers to fix bikes at FIDESMA in his spare time. Isabel’s son has been growing along with the Bicycle Project.

During these twenty years the progress of Isabel and her family has been thanks to all those people who donate bicycles, resources no longer used in the U.S. There are many single mothers like Isabel who struggle to support their families doing decent work, and there are many more stories of how bikes can change lives. Isabel has shown that with a good attitude and teamwork it is possible to achieve dreams for both yourself and your family.

That is why Isabel wants to thank with all her heart Pedals For Progress and especially President David for this support, as well as all those who donate their bicycles in the U.S. We know that everyone makes a great effort to collaborate, and the results are very satisfying in the end. THANK YOU!

bicycles, Guatemala

2019: Hard Times in Guatemala

November 14, 2019 Michael Sabrio

Fall 2019 Newsletter

FIDESMA, in San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala, is our longest-running partner. Our first shipment there was in 1999. Since then we’ve shipped them 10,333 bikes and 314 sewing machines.

Crime rates in Guatemala are high. Our partners at FIDESMA say that crime has hurt the local economy. Partly as a result, we’ve partly subsidized a shipment there for the first time.

Still, FIDESMA remains one of our most active partners, with programs in agriculture, health, conservation, special education, and job training, as well as bicycle and sewing machine programs.

Here are a few recent photos from FIDESMA and the story of a man who may be our oldest customer.

Vincente Chun

Vicente Chun is 71 years old. He travels by bicycle every day to the field where he plants and tends corn and beans. He also works as a night watchman. He gets his food and clothing at a senior center. On the weekend he attends church near his home.

Unloading a Container

We regularly post photos of our U.S. crews loading containers at our Glen Gardner site. Here’s a photo of the loading of P4P’s 150,000th bike, which went to FIDESMA in April 2017. Here are some photos of what happens when a container gets to Guatemala.

Guatemala

Kinship in Guatemala, 2019: It is so much more than bicycles and sewing machines

June 3, 2019 Michael Sabrio

By Scott Shreve
Spring 2019 Newsletter

So, you’ve been thinking about a project you could do to help someone across the world have a better life. In searching the internet, you come across the Pedals for Progress site and think, hmmm, maybe the youth group in your community would want to collect old bicycles and send them to others to help with getting them to a job or healthcare. This is exactly how my wife and I came to know Pedals for Progress some 13 years ago. A lot has changed since then. Our church youth group has collected more than 800 bikes and over $10,000 to support sending bikes overseas. There’s been a spin-off program known as Earn a Bike established in our community to give guys in the Rescue Mission, post-prison program, and substance use programs an opportunity to use some volunteer time to get a bike of their own. More recently, my wife and I traveled to Guatemala as we wanted to see first-hand what it’s like when the bikes and sewing machines “land” in another country, how they get used. Along the way we learned a lot about kinship, building communities, and gratitude.

There are a lot of do-gooders in the world, in all shapes and sizes. Some help for a day, others go on to make giving a part of their entire life. When you start a project, like a bicycle collection for your community, you will quickly realize there will be a mixture of excitement in your group, along with others who may be there more out of curiosity than anything else. Some will likely be there to remind you of why this initiative will not work. Have faith. All these people have a role in the success of your collection, whether their contribution is adding to the fun and energy of a new project or perhaps tempering the enthusiasm with the reality of where to store the bicycles and how to prepare for the scraped knuckles along the way. Welcome all to the project, make sure you include a healthy dose of fun along the way and say thank you to your group and contributors many times.

One sunny morning, as our bicycle collection was coming to a close, some people walking by our church stopped to ask if they could get a bike? We proudly shared with them that our youth group was collecting bicycles to be sent overseas for people needing transportation. The passersby shared that they too needed transportation, could we help them? “No, sorry, these bikes are to go overseas.” Having to share these disheartening words with our church neighbors didn’t set well with us. All kinds of thoughts were going through my mind. Somewhat thankfully, I got called away from this conversation when a youth group member called for help in getting the pedals off a bicycle. I helped with the pedal removal but the question about how to serve those in need of bicycles more locally remained.

The community of bicyclists has been described as being made of tribes. These tribes are made up of mountain bikers, road bikers, those who tour, messengers (in a class all of their own), commuters, and others. The intersection of these different tribes comes at bicycle repair shops, bike clubs, and perhaps coffee shops. Bicycle clubs put their activities on their websites where you’ll find a combination of races, rides, socials and advocacy events. On one of these websites I heard about a Recycle Bicycle program that operated in a nearby city. I volunteered there and was amazed at how many bicycles they gave out, how they connected with their community, helping guys in halfway houses, getting kids a working bike and helmet, and being a beacon for sharing in the fun of fixing up and riding a bike.

Hmmm … perhaps we could establish a similar program in our city. The head of Recycle Bicycle of Harrisburg jumped at the idea of expanding a similar program in our city and after getting enthusiastic approval to operate as part of the Lebanon Valley Bicycle Coalition, we held an Earn a Bike session in the parking lot of a local Rescue Mission. It was a delight to see the smiles on the guys’ faces as they fixed up bikes and realized their new found freedom to explore the area in ways that walking wouldn’t allow. Then a local businessman (Willie Erb) offered warehouse space for our Earn a Bike program and we’ve been up and running on the 4th Saturday monthly for the past 5 years. This Earn a Bike program works closely with the Lebanon Rescue Mission, the Jubilee post-prison, and VA substance use programs. This upcoming year, we’ll be reaching out to support students at the local community college as many of these students are at or below the poverty level and a bicycle can make getting to class or a part-time job a lot easier. All of these activities led my wife and me to want to visit Guatemala and see how others use bicycles to support their community.

After a dozen years of working with a youth group collecting bicycles for P4P, we wondered what is it really like to be on the receiving end of a shipment of bicycles. Is there a crowd of people waiting as a cargo container arrives at the village? What type of bicycles are most valued? How do they put the diversity of bikes to use? Are the smiles on the bicycle recipients as wide as those we were seeing with our Earn a Bike program? With guidance from Dave Schweidenback, we chose to visit Guatemala. It gave us pause to see that the U.S. State Department had warnings online for tourists about increasing violence in parts of Guatemala but we found some solace that the Guatemalan program had been working with P4P for many years.

For us, Guatemala was a blend of beauty, poverty, and guns. We landed in Guatemala City and barely traveled a few blocks in a taxi before we saw firsthand the pervasiveness of guns. While we were stopped at a traffic light, a pickup truck pulled up next to us with six guys in the back of the truck. Each of the guys had a rifle over his shoulder. When we got to our hotel, we realized all of the stores downtown had armed guards. I’d never seen a McDonalds with an armed guard before. Who would have thought the fries could be that good?

Our experience in the villages outside Guatemala City was much different. We were welcomed by just about everyone we met and did not see any guns. Our driver, Hugo, became a fast friend and took us to our destination, San Andrés Itzapa. Hugo had spent time in the states but delightfully shared the beauty of his home country, including the historical charm of Antigua and sites along our meandering path to San Andrés Itzapa. As we entered the village, we stopped to tour a convent. I had met some medical missionaries along the way and they graciously offered to show us their setup in the convent, where for one week, they serve the local community in any way they can. Interestingly, the convent happened to be “just across the street” from the dirt road we needed to take to get to the P4P bicycle program known here as FIDESMA. Thankfully our driver had a strong faith as we drove down a long and ever narrowing dirt road to finally come to FIDESMA. In this desolate village outpost we quickly learned about kinship.

In this hilly corner of a village, a handful of caring souls have made it their mission to empower others. Decades ago they received a shipment of bicycles and set up shop, fixing up and sharing these bicycles with others. The shop was clean, spacious and filled with a wide assortment of well-maintained bicycles. I have to admit, I was a bit envious as our Earn a Bike shop wasn’t as nice as theirs. Remember though, only the first container of P4P bicycles is shipped without charge to the partner, so the Guatemalan shop has been sustained by selling and repairing bikes to meet their customers’ needs since their first shipment in 1999. Bicycles are only one part of FIDESMA. The next room was a classroom set up with sewing machines used to teach sewing skills, perhaps a skill more readily converted to Qs (quetzals, the Guatemalan currency) than having a bicycle. But wait, there’s more. The next room over had a large workshop for teaching welding. I was beginning to think we had stumbled onto a homemade vocational–technical school, which it was in many ways. Aside from the empowerment of learning these trades or getting a bike, customers could also get much needed dental care in a room at the end of the building. In a country devastated with gang violence and poverty, we saw first-hand how Margarita, Arnulfo, Isabel, and others were able to create a sustainable program to care for others with a “hand up”, not just a “handout”.

We were honored to sit down with the crew from FIDESMA for snacks and a soda. I can’t put into words how kind and generous they were to us in sharing their program. We told them how our visit made it all the more rewarding for us in collecting the bikes that end up in Guatemala and elsewhere. The conversation at the table drifted in all sorts of directions including a desire by my wife and me to help Guatemalans in the midst of so much turmoil. It just so happens that there is a young woman in their village who is looking to go to community college and we have a spare bedroom in our home to support an exchange student. Perhaps through connections like P4P, Sewing Peace, and exchange students, we can do our small part to build kinship across the borders that separate us.

bicycles, Guatemala

Report from Guatemala, Spring 2018

June 10, 2018 Michael Sabrio

[We just got this short note from FIDESMA, our long-time partner in Guatemala.]

Maria Arecely Reyes Tala is an eight-year-old fourth grader.

She is a girl with dreams. She is a happy, playful little person. She used to see the other girls with their bikes, and was always hoping to have a bicycle of her own. Now she has one.

From the first moment that she got her bike from FIDESMA, she was very eager to learn how to ride it. She learned very fast and now handles the bike very well. She rides a little every day. She likes to run errands at the store and ride all around town making mischief.

Pedals for Progress and all their collaborators and volunteers bring smiles to Guatemalan and many other children.

Thanks to P4P for your support, which allows us to offer bikes at prices that everyone can afford.

bicycles, Guatemala, InGear - The Newsletter of P4P, Peace Corps

Pedals for Progress Bike 150,000

November 13, 2017 Michael Sabrio

Fall 2017 InGear

The Summer 2017 InGear newsletter has a partial report on bike number 150,000. The report was partial because at publication time we had collected, packed, and shipped the bike, but it did not yet have an owner. Now that it does, we want to tell the whole story in one place.

Collected on Long Island

On April 1, 2017, the Long Island Returned Peace Corps Volunteers collected P4P bike number 150,000. The Long Island RPCVs have been one of our most successful collection partners. They rotate collections around Long Island to maximize their reach. Their first P4P collection was in 2003, their second in 2005, and they’ve held collections every year since. The Long Island RPCVs are featured in this article from Summer 2011.

Shipped from New Jersey

On April 22nd, volunteers from the Warren Hills High School Chess Club helped us load 575 bicycles into a 40-foot container bound for Chimaltenango, Guatemala. The Chess Club and their faculty advisor, Daryl Detrick, are no strangers to P4P. Along with the Computer Science Club, they have run 8 collections and packed 4 containers.

This was our 18th shipment to our partners at FIDESMA, for a total of 9,460 bicycles.

Arrived in Guatemala

Our partners at FIDESMA report that bike 150,000 arrived in San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala, at midday, June 6th.

FIDESMA, our Guatemala partner, got our 100,000th bike in 2006. FIDESMA has been our partner since 1999. Besides their bike program, FIDESMA runs programs in health and special ed, job skills and training, and environmental conservation.

We are good friends as well as professional partners with the staff at FIDESMA. The summer 2012 InGear newsletter has an article about a visit to New Jersey from Señora Maria Margarita Caté de Catú, founder of FIDESMA.

Here is the note and the inventory report from FIDESMA about Guatemala container #18 with the famous bike:

Good day David,

Thanks for thinking of us when you were ready to ship bike number 150,000. On behalf of our team and our community leaders, many thanks for your support.

Sincerely,
Margarita Cate
Arnulfo Catu
Isabel Luna
Pedro Catu
Roxana Cate
Paty Luna
Sebastian Quina
Jose David Catu
and all of us here at FIDESMA

Bicycles


Mountain bikes	179
BMX bikes	253
Road bikes	31
Touring bikes	58
Tricycles	1
Tandem bikes	1
Choppers	1

Total	524

Accessories and Parts


Water bottles	7
Baskets	10
Pumps	2
Bike bags	2
Helmets	6
Plywood sheets	8

P4P keeps track only of adult versus kids’ bikes. FIDESMA categorizes bikes in much more detail than we do! Also, we sometimes forget that plywood, which we use in the containers to separate rows of bikes, can also be useful to our partners. We translate the FIDESMA reports from the Spanish. In case you’re wondering, the Spanish word for chopper is ‘chopper’.

Delivered to Its New Owner

The owner of P4P bike number 150,000 is Noelia Chiquitá, a 17-year-old in her third year of high school. Noelia lives in Chimaltenango, Guatemala.

She plans to use her bike every afternoon to buy supplies for the family store, where she helps her mother in the afternoon after school.

The bike will also help her stay in shape and stay healthy.

Onward!

Recent collections have made a good start on our next 150,000 bicycles. Our trailers are full and we are waiting for the next opportunity to make a shipment.

bicycles, Guatemala

P4P Bike 150,000: the Whole Story

July 21, 2017 Michael Sabrio

The Summer 2017 InGear newsletter has some reflections and a partial report on bike number 150,000; the report was partial because at publication time we had collected, packed, and shipped the bike, but it was not yet at its final destination. Here’s the whole story.

Collected

On April 1, 2017, the Long Island Returned Peace Corps Volunteers collected P4P bike number 150,000.

Shipped

On April 22nd, volunteers from the Warren Hills High School Chess Club helped us load 575 bicycles into a 40-foot container bound for Chimaltenango, Guatemala. This was our 18th shipment to FIDESMA, for a total of 9,460 bicycles.

Arrived

Our partners at FIDESMA report that bike 150,000 arrived in San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala, at midday, June 6th.

Delivered

The owner of P4P bike number 150,000 is Noelia Chiquitá, a 17-year-old in her third year of high school. Noelia lives in Chimaltenango, Guatemala.

She plans to use her bike every afternoon to buy supplies for the family store. She also helps her mother in the store in the afternoon.

The bike will also help her stay in shape and stay healthy.

Report from FIDESMA

Here is the note we got from our FIDESMA partners about the container with the bike:

Good day David,

Greetings. We hope you are well. Here is the report on container number 18, which arrived on June 6, 2017.

Thanks for thinking of us when you were ready to ship bike number 150,000. On behalf of our team and our community leaders, many thanks for your support.

Sincerely,
Margarita Cate
Arnulfo Catu
Isabel Luna
Pedro Catu
Roxana Cate
Paty Luna
Sebastian Quina
Jose David Catu
and all of us here at FIDESMA

Here is the FIDESMA inventory report from Guatemala container number 18. P4P keeps track only of adult versus kids’ bikes. FIDESMA categorizes bikes in more detail than we do! And we sometimes forget that plywood, which we use in the containers to separate rows of bikes, can also be useful to our partners.

Bicycles


Mountain bikes	179
BMX bikes	253
Road bikes	31
Touring bikes	58
Tricycles	1
Tandem bikes	1
Choppers	1

Total	524



Accessories and Parts

Water bottles	7
Baskets	10
Pumps	2
Bike bags	2
Helmets	6
Plywood sheets	8

We translate the FIDESMA reports from the Spanish. In case you’re wondering, the Spanish word for chopper is ‘chopper’.

bicycles, Guatemala

A Guatemala Success Story

October 26, 2016 admin

Fall 2016 InGear

We regularly feature stories of our partners’ customers whose lives have been improved by a bicycle. Here’s a different kind of story: the story of a former employee of our good friends at FIDESMA, our partner in Guatemala, who hired a hard-working young man five years ago and supported him in a series of jobs of ever greater responsibility.

Byron Rodrigo Can Fernandez began working at FIDESMA at age 20. He rode a bike to work every day.

He helped at the bike shop, starting with simple repairs and maintenance and learning more and more with time: assembling, disassembling, and refurbishing bikes – all aspects of bike mechanics.

Eventually he was appointed manager of the shop, in charge of accounts and billing as well as sales and repairs.

Byron promoted bicycles through the use of social media, posters, and advertising. He promoted bikes for reasons that P4P and its partners have emphasized since the beginning: bikes provide cheap, reliable, non-polluting, efficient transportation and exercise. On a bike, you can go farther and faster than on foot, to work or to school.

Byron remembers how happy children were to be able to buy a bike with their own savings, how some of the riders became superb athletes in part because of their training on their bikes, how families were able to save money on transportation because they used bikes instead of taxis or buses.

Besides its bicycle operations, FIDESMA runs several other programs. In one of them, Byron taught computer skills to both students and teachers who had little or no previous experience with computers. He also helped with tech support for social projects, worked with rural communities, worked on medical outreach, and helped with job training for youth and the disabled.

Besides his work with FIDESMA, Byron continued his education in several different fields, earning credentials in industrial security, computer and industrial art, first aid, and natural and alternative medicine.

Finally, Byron attended the University of San Carlos of Guatemala, the state university of Guatemala, and in 2015 received his law degree, a most unusual and impressive accomplishment for someone from his modest circumstances. Among his areas of university study were criminal investigation, poll tax law, finance law, and protection of childhood and adolescence.

His current job is based on his law school education and is far removed from the world of bicycles. He now works for the municipality in the office of the mayor, conducting civil marriages, helping local residents negotiate government programs, and helping with municipal paperwork.

Thanks to FIDESMA for giving Byron a start in its bike shop and other programs, congratulations to Byron for his accomplishments so far, and good luck to him in a most promising future!

Guatemala, Sewing Partners

Shifting Gears: Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace Keep the Spirit of Economic Development Afloat

March 19, 2016 Michael Sabrio

by Patricia Hamill
Fall 2016 InGear

Adaptability, resilience and initiative. These are the key factors that define success in the world of the NGO and that are the very foundation of Pedals for Progress (P4P), a small, but internationally active nonprofit. Founded in 1991 by David this undertaking was not intended to be part of a charity effort, but a leg up for the economically disadvantaged. Over the last 25 years, P4P has searched out communities in the developing world and connected them with access to employment and self-sufficiency by providing them with sewing machines, bicycles and maintenance parts.

To date, more than 145,000 bicycles and 3,200 sewing machines have been shipped to P4P’s nonprofit partners in more than 40 countries including Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ghana, Albania, and Fiji, and the numbers continue to grow as collections are scheduled year round. The partners in these countries arrange the pick up and delivery of the shipments, and they often serve as an ongoing center of support and education for those who purchase the bikes and sewing machines.

It is important to our philosophy of self-empowerment that people maintain a sense of self-reliance and initiative. Recipients of the bicycles and sewing machines that P4P collects and ships are required to purchase them. While the amount may be minimal, we feel that paying for affordable and low-maintenance access to employment offers a long-term solution to poverty. The recipients can earn their own way and take pride in their improved lifestyles. But what are the challenges of such an undertaking? When dealing with the bicycles, there are large containers to ship, customs to navigate, delivery to arrange at the recipients’ location and reliable partners to connect with so that this endeavor remains untouched by mismanagement. These obstacles are among the reasons why P4P is now expanding its focus and putting sewing machines at the front of the list of shipping priorities.

Our sewing machine collections are under the auspices of Sewing Peace—still a part of P4P, but independent all the same. The shipping itself is less expensive and that enables Sewing Peace to allocate more funds towards outreach: We can stack the sewing machines on pallets and transport them in smaller vehicles once at their destination. Usually 20 or 30 machines are enough to fully supply a co-op or school without our needing to resupply. Sewing machines are practical because they are also technologically appropriate to the locations where they are distributed.

There are several success stories from long-term and new partnerships formed over the years. One such fortuitous relationship is with the Foundation for the Environment and Sustainable Development (FIDESMA). Located in Guatemala, this organization runs economic development programs that enable locals to learn a variety of skills such as computer use and more efficient methods of agriculture. FIDESMA is able to make use of the bicycles and sewing machines in two ways. First, those who purchase these enhance their earning power by accessing employment in more remote areas or by setting up their own sewing businesses right in their own homes. Then the income from the sales enables FIDESMA to continue to fund its programs and keep the classes running. This system of reciprocity is much more desirable than the cycle of poverty that exists so pervasively in this region.

The Barrouallie Secondary School on the island of St. Vincent is the fortunate institution that welcomed a dedicated Peace Corps Volunteer who was familiar with P4P’s work. She arranged for 20 sewing machines to add to the school’s vocational curriculum. These particular machines are strictly for educational purposes rather than commercial, but the skills these Vincentian students take away with them will help them avoid work in banana production and the insecurity that comes with crop diseases and other negative effects on prices. Tourism is a growing industry on the island, but there are only so many jobs to go around. The sewing machines do not rely on seasons or market values to function reliably.

As bicycle donations dwindle in the face of a reduction in consumer spending and an increase in their value as scrap metal, it has become immensely important that P4P maintain its momentum and continue its mission uninterrupted. What Sewing Peace hopes to accomplish, in the spirit of P4P, is to connect with many more people who can provide and store unwanted sewing machines domestically and may have ideas and suggestions as to where Sewing Peace can expand their footprint in the world.

Making changes after 25 successful years can be difficult for some, but P4P was founded on challenge and filling a need. Pedals for Progress and Sewing Peace embrace the evolution that must happen to keep the spirit of economic stability alive. The needs of the poor stay the same but how they are met must evolve and this NGO is not losing any momentum shifting gears and running smoothly ahead. As the saying goes, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

[Patricia Hamill, M.A., is the founder of Heron Moon Press and an adjunct faculty member at Pace University and Southern New Hampshire University specializing in Composition Studies. She is a freelance writer and editor who regularly contributes to “InGear,” the newsletter of Pedals for Progress. Her blog on writing and mindful living can be found at HeronMoon.com.]

bicycles, Guatemala, Sewing Partners

FIDESMA report, January 2016

February 24, 2016 Michael Sabrio

by Margarita Caté de Catú, President of FIDESMA, Guatemala

From December 1999 through 2015, we have received from Pedals For Progress 16 containers with 8,160 bikes and 400 sewing machines, which have directly benefited more than 8,560 people and their families.

The program has brought important benefits to our organization, to our communities, and to the country of Guatemala as a whole.

In San Andrés Itzapa, Chimaltenango, Guatemala, we face many problems: lack of employment, lack of opportunities for women, lack of education about the environment. Children suffer from malnutrition and lack of education and job training.

But the FIDESMA/Pedals project gives kids and adults the chance to buy a bike to get around faster to school and to work, and to get some exercise, all without polluting the environment. As we have heard many times over the years, bicycles help people with their jobs. As examples consider the administrative staff of the foundation: a secretary, an accountant, a salesman, and a mechanic. With the help of their bikes, they all earn salaries that support their families.

Likewise our sewing machines benefit many families. Groups of women artisans work every day to earn a living and buy food for their children.

Besides its bicycle and sewing machine programs, FIDESMA generates funds for the maintenance and operation of the organization, for creating jobs, and for supporting social service projects. For example, we run one project for children and young people with disabilities, and another project that provides medical equipment, medicine, and basic food to the project’s medical clinics. Another project provides teaching materials to schools.

We also provide support groups for the training of women in areas such as these:

crafts
farming
participatory citizenship
dressmaking
baking
food packaging
welding

Directly and indirectly, FIDESMA has benefited more than 20,000 people across the country of Guatemala, which is why we are grateful to Pedals for Progress and especially its president David Schweindenback for the selfless support extended to us for the last 16 years.

[To see a recent photo album from Guatemala, click here.]

bicycles, Guatemala, Sewing Partners

2015 Guatemala Photo Album

February 24, 2016 Michael Sabrio

[Margarita Caté de Catú, President of FIDESMA, our partner in Guatemala, sent in a report on their recent activities. Click here to see her report. She also sent lots of great photos. Here they are.]