Jason Scott Pielemeier served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala from 2001 to 2004 on an environmental management project. He was assigned to the town of Chisec in the department of Alta Verapaz in the lowlands of north-central Guatemala. Pielemeier worked with the municipal government to increase the benefits that the Mayan communities received from eco-tourism in the region. Despite initial community skepticism of outsiders, he was able to work with the locals to improve access to lagoons, caves, and archeological sites in the area. This led to an arrangement whereby the government of Guatemala gave local communities exclusive rights to manage tourism at cultural patrimony sites. Pielemeier also helped foster a youth group into an NGO, unionized the town's shoeshine boys so that they could attend school, and undertook a GPS project to help communities plot their land use. He discusses two bouts with dengue fever and the challenges of working in post-conflict communities. After the Peace Corps, Pielemeier worked for an additional six months in Chisec with Idaho State University and then pursued a career in law and human rights. Interviewed and recorded by John Pielemeier, August 7, 2019. 3 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).