There were a few days in Chocola when it was super windy, and I was a little scared the roof of my room was going to blow off.  There is a gap where the concrete wall of my room meets the sheet-metal roof, and so the wind gets underneath the roof , and the sheet-metal rumbles and it sounds like the roof is going to blow right off. During those few windy days, I woke up each morning with dirt and leaves strewn all over my bed, carried in by the gusts of wind. The table in my room and all of my books and things were covered in a thick film of grime. Some of our neighbors' houses suffered damage, as the wind tore off pieces of their sheet-metal rooves. There is one poor lady down the hill from us, whose entire house is made of sheet metal; the wind tore apart her house, and she was scrambling to gather the pieces and reassemble her home in the wind. One night during all this, I went with my host mom to the church. We rushed down the road to the church, with my host mom carrying a chicken in a basket to bring to one of the women (also named Juana) at the church.  We had traded Juana one of our chickens for two tiny puppies, and my host mom was bringing the chicken to the church for the exchange. We left the chicken, tied up in its basket, at the back of the church and went to take our seats. And as we sat in the church service, the gusts of wind were so strong that we really thought the roof over our heads was going to be lifted up into the heavens. Hermano Isaias was preaching that night, and we could barely hear his voice over the microphone because of the rumbling roof. He was preaching an absurd sermon that I was trying to tune out, about how we know when the end of the world is coming. And it was just so ironic and funny to me. At one point, a piece of the metal roof snapped, and was flapping above us in the wind.  The front door of the church kept blowing open, and the metal stands holding fake flowers at the front of the church would tumble over and crash to the ground with a bang.  Then someone would have to run to bolt the door shut again and rearrange the flower stands, only for the door to fly open again and knock down the flowers a few minutes later. Meanwhile, the chicken in the back of the church kept squawking and flapping its way out of the basket, trying to escape. And through all of this, Isaias kept preaching as if nothing were happening.  Then, the lights went out. But Hermano Isaias kept going - he pulled a flashlight out of his back pocket and shone it on his Bible, as he continued to preach without skipping a beat. My host mom, who had also brought a flashlight with her, shone her light on Isaias' face, so he could continue his sermon in the dark.  One of the elders of the church ran behind the church to start up the emergency generator, and soon the lights were back on, but the wind was still roaring and howling as fierce as ever. I was glad that the lights went out, so that no one could see how hard I was cracking up because of the absurdity of it all. I just thought it was so ironic how Isaias was preaching about the end of the world, and there we were, seemingly in the midst of it.  The lights had gone out, the roof was flying off, the decorations in the church were crashing over, a chicken was squawking in the back, and Isaias kept preaching without flinching once. Meanwhile, I kept looking over at my host mom and another woman Marta who was sitting next to me, and exchanging smiles and laughs.  I still laugh when I think about the absurdity of the whole night.  And I realized in that moment that only in Guatemala could I experience such an absurd church service.  And I thanked God for the laughter. 

When we returned to the house that night, I was scared to stay alone in my room because of the wind.  My room is in the front of the house, and slightly higher than the rest of the house, so it gets hit hardest by the wind.  I kept having images of lying in my bed at night, and waking up to the sound of the roof flying off, leaving me exposed to the open air. So my host sisters and I decided that I should stay with them in their room, in the back of the house.  My host parents and little sister Mindy slept in the back of the house, too, with blankets laid over the dirt floor.  I slept with Franci in her bed.  My host family had warned me that she was a crazy sleeper (sometimes she wakes up with her head at the foot of the bed and her feet on her pillow), but I decided to take my chances with Franci rather than be left alone in my room under the rumbling roof. Part way through the night, I woke up gasping for air, because Franci was hugging me so tight that I could barely breathe.  She had snuggled up to me and thrown her arms around my waist. At other points during the night, her feet were on top of me, and I was pushed up against the concrete wall, because Franci was sprawled out across the rest of the bed.  It was quite a ridiculous few nights, and I was glad when the wind finally calmed and I was able to return to my own room.  

Soon after what I like to call the ''windy nights,'' it was time once again for a retreat with the other volunteers.  This time, we had to leave the country, since our 6-month visas were expiring and we had to leave from Guatemala in order to renew them. So, our March retreat was in sunny Plancencia, Belize! We all gathered at Marcia's house in Antigua, and from there, we took a long, long bus ride up through the Coban region and towards Puerto Barrios, picking up one of the volunteers from Coban on the way.  We spent a night in Puerto Barrios, although we really didn't get to see much there, since we were told to stay inside the motel compound after dark because the streets were dangerous. The next morning, we mounted a ''ferry'' (it was more like a small motorboat) across the bay to Belize, and it was a beautiful ride.  We passed through customs on the other side, which seemed way too easy, and boarded a van to make the trip to the pennisula of Plancencia. On the way,  we stopped at a home-style restaurant for some rice and beans, the national dish, which is cooked in coconut milk and served with fried chicken. It was strange to not have to speak Spanish (Belize is an English-speaking country), and we had to restrain ourselves from saying ''Buenos dias'' and ''gracias'' to the people on the streets and the waiters in the restaurant. After lunch, we continued our trip, making a brief stop at a small Mayan ruin to explore and take pictures.  We finally arrived to Placencia in the afternoon, and it was beautiful.  Placencia is a long penninsula, surrounded by bright blue waters and mangrove trees.  In contrast to Monterrico, where the mangrove trees are protected under the law, in Placencia, the mangroves are quickly being destroyed as developers buy up the land.  As we drove in, we could see areas where the sand from the lagoon is being dredged up to create more land on which to build houses.  There was one huge mansion we saw, on its own private, man-made island, that one of the locals told us had been built by a wealthy government minister. It made me so angry. There are parts of the pennisula that are so narrow that you can take a few steps from one side to the other, and there are houses built up on sticks that emerge from the water. I imagine that when a hurricane comes, everything goes under water. Mangrove forests help protect against flooding during hurricane season, but the mangrove trees there are quickly disappearing, gobbled up by developing companies and rich government officials who selfishly want to build mansions on their own private islands, at the expense of everyone else who lives there.  

The other volunteers and I stayed in a beautiful rented house on the pennisula, and the owner had a shed filled with bicycles and canoes, so we kept very active on our retreat.  We went snorkeling one day, and took a motorboat ride with guide out to a tiny island, with our rented snorkels and colorful flippers. It was incredible. From that tiny island (which is a world heritage site), we walked out into the Caribbean and plunged our faces under the water. Through our clunky goggles, we could see all kinds of beautiful fish, swimming through corals in deep red, orange, and rust color. At one point, our guide went down to the bottom to pick up a sea cucumber (a fat, blobby-like animal the shape of a cucumber) and we got to touch it.  It was amazing! We saw huge lobsters, coral fish in bright blues and yellows and greens, baracuda, trumpetfish, and even a striped moray eel. Another day, we saw a huge stingray swim by in the lagoon. We spent most of our time swimming in the beautiful, turquoise Caribbean, walking the beach, collecting coconuts (although Celeste and I didn't know how to judge when a coconut is ripe), biking, and canoeing in the lagoon.  For meals, we ate beans and rice, fish and chips, and fish tacos, and we were all excited to eat some seafood for a change. It was certainly a relaxing retreat - more like an exciting vacation - and I think we all would have liked to stay for another day or two.  But we had to travel back soon, because we had a long trip ahead of us back to Guatemala.  The ferry ride back to Guatemala was not quite as pleasant as the ride to Belize.  A storm was approaching, and the ferry conductor handed out huge black tarps at the beginning of the ride.  We were wondering what the tarps were for, until the water started spraying over the side of the boat and into our faces.  The bay was really rough, and we hurtled over the waves in our lancha.  Anna and I were huddled under the black plastic tarp we had been given, as buckets of water poured on top of us.  It was a fun ride. :)

After the long trip back to Guatemala, and a night staying over at Marcia's in Antigua, I returned back to Chocola once again.  The week I got back to Chocola was like a whirlwind, since the following Saturday was the Quinceaños (15th birthday) of my host sister Vivi and we were all frantically working to prepare for the party.  I had agreed to make the piñata for the party, a decision I was soon to regret.  Every spare minute I had that week I spent working on the nearly-life-size piñata, which was in the shape of a birthday girl (really, the piñata was huge - it was the size of my host brother Armando).  I made a frame out of wire, which we covered with paper mache and then with colorful tissue paper.  That weekend, we hand-wrote all the invitations for the party and set out to deliver them.  I went out with Franci to deliver a few invitations one night, and we took a detour to climb the cerro at the edge of town and enjoy the view from the top.  We sat down to rest for a bit at the top of the hill, and Franci started telling me all kinds of stories from her past.  She shared how her parents used to hit them when they were younger, but that they have changed and stopped hitting.  And she shared about how hard it was to grow up in such a huge family, how sometimes she wished for more attention that she received.  She also told me about a boy from Xela she had dated several years ago, whom she thought she really loved. After dating for three months, both he and her parents had decided that it was time for them to get married, but she wasn't ready.  Her parents had reprimanded her and pressured her to marry him, but she thought that the whole thing was too fast, too precipitous - she felt like she was being pressured into it.  When she told the boy that she wasn't ready to get married, he broke it off, and he later went on to date another girl and get married.  Franci said that she was just confused and heartbroken, because she thought she really loved him, but she wasn't ready to get married so soon. She shared a lot of things with me up on that hill, as we looked out over all of Chocola. And when she finished talking, she told me that she was telling me all these things in confidence, because she trusted me, because I am her friend, and because she doesn't really have many other friends. I felt so privileged to hear her story.  On the walk back home, I told her that sometimes I have so much that I want to say, but I can't, because of the language barrier. Maybe it's better, I told her, that I just listen. Franci told me that she has ears too, and that if I ever want to talk about something, she can listen.  It was a very beautiful moment, and I smiled the whole way home, walking through the streets together with my sister Franci.

That Friday, the serious party preparations began.  I was scrambling to finish my piñata (which at that point looked like a mummy), while my host mom lugged bundles and bundles of banana leaves into the kitchen for the tamales we were about to make.  I went to the church with my host brothers Roky and Tony to help decorate for the special service the following night.  We glued up a sign in the front of the church, made of styrofoam and painted pink with glitter around the edges, that said ''Bienvenidos a Mis Quinceaños.''  A bunch of the men from the church were gathered there, having been assigned the task of climbing one of the coconut trees behind the church in order to cut down palm branches for the decorations. We all watched in suspense as my friend Emilio shuffled up the coconut tree, secured a makeshift harness out of rope, and hung precariously from the rope, with machete in hand, whacking down huge palm branches from the tree. The palm branches would fall with a crash, as we scurried to gather them up and drag them off toward the church. While Emilio was up in the tree, he decided to cut down some coconuts for us as well, and they came crashing down, some of them exploding and spraying out coconut water.  After Emilio made it down from the tree, we all sat for a while, enjoying the delicious coconuts. All the men, including my host brothers, had machetes with them, and were hacking away at the coconut shells to get to the flesh inside. We sipped the coconut water straight from the shells, and then feasted on the meat of the coconut too.  It was delicious - I could have eaten about twenty.  After fueling up on coconuts, we lugged the palm branches into the church to start decorating.  We made beautiful archways out of the branches, down the center aisle of the church, and we later hung crepe paper and pink balloons from the branches.  

A few hours of decorating later, we returned to the house to find about ten other women from the church gathered in the kitchen, amid piles of banana leaves. I helped them sort pepita (dried pumpkin seeds) for the tamale sauce, and then we started wiping clean the banana leaves, which were to be used to wrap up the tamales. We sat in a circle in the kitchen, surrounded by mounds and mounds of leaves, lost in a sea of green. In the next 24 hours, we made about 650 tamales - it was the most food I have ever seen be made in my life.  All the women from the church were there helping, working tirelessly all Friday afternoon, and then returning early in the morning on Saturday to start cooking once again. After helping clean banana leaves for a few hours, I scarfed down a quick dinner and returned to the church with my host sisters to continue decorating.  We had planned to be out of the house that night, because the pig was to be slaughtered at 10pm, sacrificed for the tamales.  I was so sad all that week, because against my better judgement, I had gotten attached to our fat, innocent little pig Chita. All week, I kept going up to her and giving her pats or holding up her ears lovingly.  My host family thought it was pretty funny that I was so sentimentally attached to the pig, although they told me that the year before, when they killed a pig, the whole family was in the street crying. I took my last photo shoot with Chita on Friday afternoon and gave her a pat goodbye. I didn't want to be at the house to hear the screeches when the pig was being slaughtered.  My host sisters, with the same idea, decided that we would go to the church to help the other kids from the youth group finish decorating. So we sat in the church, blocks away from the house, with music blasting, and helped blow up balloons and fold crepe paper to hang from the archways and ceiling. At one point, I went outside to go to the kitchen behind the church, and I could hear the screeches of the pig, which carried all the way to the church. It made me cry to hear the poor thing screeching so, and I decided it would be better if I went back into the church where the music would drown out the sound.   We returned to the house later that night, and I went straight to my room.  The man who had come to slaughter the pig was skinning her in the backyard and preparing the meat.  I brushed my teeth that night in the kitchen, instead of going to the pila in the backyard like I usually do.  I really had to use the bathroom, but I just held it in, so I wouldn't have to go out to the bathroom behind the house. I knew that if I saw the pig there, dead and being cut into pieces, I probably would never be able to erase the horrible image from my mind for the rest of my life.  So I went straight to my room to go to sleep, to the sound of hushed voices and knives being sharpened .  It was all very dreamlike, and the next morning, I woke up to find our beautiful pig converted into buckets and buckets of meat and chicharones. I cried.  

I only was able to sleep a few restless hours that night, since the kids from the youth group had planned to arrive at 3 in the morning to serenade my host sister Vivi.  It was supposed to be a surprise, but I'm pretty sure she knew about it, since we were all so obvious and not good at keeping the secret.  I fell asleep around 11:30, and set my alarm for 2:30, just in case I didn't wake up when the singing started.  At around 3am, the whole youth group arrived, singing the traditional Quinceaños songs to wake Vivi from her slumber.  We stood in the front of the house for a while, singing to Vivi, praying, and conducting a short worship service.  Then, amid all the sleepiness, we played a few games, directed by my friend Juanita.  My host mom had stayed up to make hot chocolate for the youth group, and we handed out pan (from a huge basket which we had hidden away in my room) and mugs of hot chocolate to everyone (Guatemalans can never have any sort of event without providing a meal, or at least pan and a warm cup of cafe). The youth group left around 4:30 or 5 in the morning, and I retired to bed for another hour of sleep, before having to wake up at 6 to start making tamales once again.

The mext morning was spent frantically decorating the house with balloons, filling the piñata with candy, cleaning the house, and of course, making the hundreds and hundreds of tamales.  The women from the church arrived bright and early to start making the sauce and to take the maiz to the mill to grind it up into masa (a dough of ground corn and water).  The sauce is made out of tomato, a special type of pepper, ground pepita, bread soaked in water, and spices, all mushed together and put through the mill as well. After preparing the masa and sauce, we started filling the banana leaves.  There were four enormous pots, the circumference of hula-hoops and a few feet deep, filled with masa, plus all the huge pots of sauce and buckets of pig meat.  (We had to borrow lots of cooking equipment from the church.) The women worked in pairs, one scooping a glob of masa, a ladle of sauce, and a hunk of meat into the banana leaf, and the other carefully folding the leaf into a pouch and placing the tamale in another huge pot to be cooked.  The women worked tirelessly all day - I only helped for a few hours here and there, in between decorating and cleaning and helping with other preparations - and it was a miracle that we finished all the tamales for the church service that night. It was one of the most fun things I have ever done - I love cooking with the people here, and it was like a huge community effort, with everyone working together and sharing in the special event. 

The young people started arriving at 2 in the afternoon for the piñata and cake celebration at the house.  We had bought a huge, three-tier cake, with pink frosting and flowers, for the party.  Teenagers were seated all around the yard, waiting for the activities to begin.  Myra and Pati (two leaders in the youth group) led a few games, and soon it was time to break the piñata. I was actually pretty happy to see my muñeca, as I liked to call her, be smashed into pieces and torn apart. I even got to give my own piñata a few good whacks before it met its tragic fate.  It took many good whacks before the piñata finally broke open.  One girl ended up tearing apart my muñeca at the waist, and everyone swarmed to gather up the candy and peanuts that fell to the ground.  After the piñatas and more singing, we passed out plates of cake and cups of fresco (a cool drink made of rice and cinnamon).   Soon the afternoon celebration was over, and everyone piled out, leaving behind a wreck of plates, torn crepe paper, piñata pieces, and chairs strewn about the yard.

But the celebration was only just beginning.  The service at the church was to take place at 7, and the tamales were to be handed out afterward.  My host sisters and I helped dress Vivi in her pink, frilly quinceaños dress (which she had borrowed from a neighbor who had recently celebrated her quinceaños) for the ceremony. My little sister Mindy, the neighbor's little girl Mishel, and another girl in the family, dressed in tiny pink dresses and frilly white socks, and hurriedly went across the road to have their hair fixed by Mishel's mom.   The service at the church was like a wedding ceremony - I'm telling you, Guatemalans take their quinceaños parties seriously.  It is a special birthday because it is supposed to represent a girl's coming-of-age, like a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. We arrived at the church, late as usual, and Vivi prepared to walk down the aisle arm-in-arm with her brother Roky.  Hermano Timoteo was directing the service over the microphone, and we had a CD of traditional quinceaños music for Vivi's procession into the church.  First came little Mishel, throwing flower petals from a tiny basket, and then adorable Mindy carrying a pink pillow with a quinceaños ring on it to the front altar. Last came Vivi and Roky, walking through the palm archways and pink crepe paper, to the front of the church.  I was up front, running back and forth from the keyboard to the front row of seats (I was accompanying the hymns for the service, but was also in charge of taking pictures of Vivi's procession and presentation).  The whole ceremony was fit for a wedding, and Vivi looked so beautiful in her pink girly dress.  After the service ended, it was time to hand out the tamales, and they were well worth the work and the wait.  I was quite satisfied to sit in the church, eating my delicious tamale (minus the pig meat) after such a long day. We only had about 50 to 100 tamales left over, after handing them out to everyone at the service and sending baskets home with family members and friends.  We were eating re-heated tamales for every meal for the next couple of days, and they were delicious.

We returned home late that night, and woke up the next morning with a messy house and lots of leftovers. And the birthday celebration continued, because the next day was MY birthday.  When I woke up, my host mom gave me a big hug and told me she loved me, and then everyone else in the family gave me a big hug too.  We ate re-heated tamales for breakfast, and then I headed off to Santo Tomas to teach my weekly Sunday school class.  I hadn't planned anything for the class, so I just read a story to the kids and we played games, and it was really fun.  I mentioned at the beginning of the class that we had had a huge birthday party at the house the day before, and that now it was my birthday.  So Dina (the woman who teaches Sunday school with me) and one of the kids snuck out at one point, and they returned with a small cake and a bottle of soda to share in celebration of my birthday.  It was so sweet, and I really hadn't expected anything - I was happy just to have celebrated the day before.  The kids made me close my eyes as they brought in the cake, and they sang ''Happy Birthday'' and we divided it up.  I asked Dina to take a picture of me with the kids (who smeared cake all over their faces), and it is adorable.

On my way back home, I swung through the market to buy myself a coconut, which I enjoyed as I walked back. When I returned to the house, my little host siblings had nailed a bunch of yellow balloons to the wall in my room.  Mindy kept asking me for balloons throughout the day, and I kept taking them down, one by one, to give to her.  She would play with them for a little while and then pop them with a bang. She kept asking for more balloons, until all the balloons in my room we gone.  I told her that I didn't have anymore, because she had stolen them all, and we laughed.

That afternoon, we went to church, and all the decorations were still up, since everyone knew it that was my birthday too. The pastor made a presentation, and made me stand up front sothat everyone could give me birthday greetings.  The kids came in first, each giving me a hug and then standing off to the side. Pati led the kids in singing a few songs, and when they finished, they shouted ''¡Feliz Cumpeaños, Alejandra!'' in unison.  It was precious. Next, everyone came up to the front, filing in a line down the aisle, to give hugs and wish me a happy birthday.  Some of the older ladies slipped money into my hand after giving me a hug, and it was really cute.  I also  received a few cheesy ''Guatemalan'' birthday gifts - tacky ornaments and ''recuerdos'' that everyone here seems to love, but are the ugliest things I have ever seen. One of the gifts, for instance, was a snow-globe with a marlin fish inside, mounted on a plastic base with another huge marlin fish diving out from the top.  I don't mean to sound ungrateful - I was very touched by the outpouring of love I received from everyone at the church - but typical Guatemalan gifts are pretty cheesy and ugly.  I cried, as I was received hugs from everyone, because I was just so touched by the kindness everyone has shown me, and I was thinking about how sad it is going to be when I have to leave this community.   I was so thankful for such a fun and exciting weekend with my host family and community. And I thought about how I am building up such wonderful memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.  

So ended the marathon birthday weekend, and we were finally able to sleep that night and get some rest.  Festivities for Semana Santa (Holy Week) have already begun, so I guess the party continues.  Jeff is coming to visit (he's arriving in a few days!) for Semana Santa, and I'm really excited! We are going to spend some time here in Chocola and then head to Antigua to see some of the Semana Santa celebrations and parades there...I'm sure there will be more to write about soon!

 

I didn´t get to mention in my last post, but toward the end of January, I was able to participate in a convencion de los jovenes (a convention of all the youth groups in the area, with games, activities, workshops, and of course, food!).  We started out at the Igelsia Belen in Ladrillera, where everyone gathered to receive name tags and prepare for the annual torch run.  After a brief opening worship at the church, we hoared outside to light the torches (sticks with tin cans strapped to the top, and fuel for the fire inside the cans).  Most of the girls were gathered in their gym shorts and tennis shoes, having changed out of their cortes (the traditional Mayan skirts) and caites (sandals).  But a few ran in their cortes and flimsy sandals nevertheless.  With two pickup trucks following close behind, packed with more jovenes who didn´t want to run with the torches, we set out from Ladrillera to Chocola by way of Santo Tomas. The first pickup truck had a bullhorn and speaker strapped to the top, and my friend Rigo made obnoxiously loud announcements and commentary over the loudspeaker, as the group ran on ahead with the torches. The road from Ladrillera to Santo Tomas is pretty much a steady uphill climb, with some serious hills and a few steep drops, and then its mostly downhill to Chocola from there. The black smog from buses and burning trash along the side of the road, plus the smell of the kerosene from the torches, which blew back in our faces, added an extra challenging dimension to the run. I started out trying to keep a steady pace, but apparently no one else had any concept of pacing; everyone would sprint as fast as they could on the downhill slopes, and then tire themselves out and end up walking the uphill stretches.  And we had to continually stop to wait for people who were lagging behind, to make sure we didn´t lose anyone. I got the chance to meet one of pastor Manuel´s daughters, Rutilia, who is just about as sweet and joyful as her father. She befriended me at the Iglesia Belen, and we ran most of the torch run together.  We all laughed a lot, in between the panting and sweating, and we finally arrived proudly at Horeb Presbyterian Church in Chocola, where the annual convention was held this year. After quickly running back to the house to take a refreshing ice cold shower, I returned to the church to spend the afternoon with the other jovenes, playing games, joking, laughing, and eating together. 

That night, each youth group was supposed to give a brief presentation for the group - a short drama or song or whatever the group had planned. I had been asked to participate in a drama with the youth group from the church...or rather, I was assigned a part in the drama one day when I wasn´t there. And the role they had decided I would play was the role of Jesus. We had had several rehearsals in the weeks before to prepare for the convention. I had arrived at the first rehearsal, quite unaware of what I was getting myself into and the role I was expected to play. And when I heard the script of the play, I didn´t want to be in it. The drama had a very evangelizing message: it was a story of two construction workers, one of whom is a Christian.  The Christian talks to his friend one day about Jesus, and then his friend, who is quite rapidly convinced, decides to give his life over to Jesus, and then suddenly the house that they are building at the construction site topples on top of them and they die.  They wake up in heaven, to be greeted by an angel who holds the Book of Life, with all the names of those people who will be allowed entrance into heaven.  Jesus stands off to the side, surrounded by a crowd of adoring angels. And the one friend, who has just decided to give his life over to Jesus, is worried that his name won´t be written in the Book of Life, and that he might have to be sent down to Hell instead. Yet sure enough, his name is written in the book, and the two friends rejoice and walk off with Jesus and his angels into heaven. The whole message of the play was counter to the way I think about God and faith and the concepts of heaven and hell; I felt that it was a caricature of faith, which is so much more complicated than that. And I just tend to cringe in general when people try to evangelize in such a way, saying that if you don´t believe what we believe, you are going to be damned to hell, but if you do believe you will be rewarded with a perfect heaven of joy and bright lights and singing angels. I think that this type of evangelizing alienates people and inspires fear. People´s hearts don´t change in that way, and things are not so simple, so black and white. And I didn´t want to be in the play, but I didn´t know how to back out of it without offending the other jovenes in the group or having to enter into a deep theological discussion with everyone (I don´t always know how to talk about the complexities of my faith in English, let alone in Spanish). I tried to graciously back out of the part, saying that I wanted to give someone else the opportunity to be part of the drama. But then, some of the leaders of the group just thought that I didn´t want to play the part of Jesus, so they switched my role to the angel who holds the Book of Life (slightly better than playing Jesus, but not really...at least it was a silent part - all I had to do was nod). I felt a lot of turmoil in my heart for a few weeks, and had several discussions with my director Marcia about it.  I didn´t agree with the message of the play and I felt like I would be insincere if I didn´t say what I believed. But I also didn´t want the youth group to think that I didn´t want to be involved in an activity with them.  I didn´t want to jeopordize any of my newly-forming relationships with some of the jovenes.  So I decided to stay in the drama, partly because I don´t like confrontation, and partly because I felt that it would be more effective to have conversations about the complexities of faith with individuals throughout the year, rather than making a big scene in front of the entire youth group.  

While waiting for everyone to arrive for a drama rehearsal one night, I got to have a really good conversation with one of the young people; our conversation made me feel a little better about my decision to be in the play, because my participation in the drama at least gave me an opportunity to get to know some people whom I otherwise might not have gotten to know.  And I really enjoy spending time with the youth group and talking and laughing with everyone. The evangelical-ness of the church here is overwhelming at times, but I am continually looking for ways to encourage people to question what they are taught and explore some of the complexities of their faith. So, I was an angel in the drama after all, and my host siblings helped me make my angel wings out of metal wire and tissue paper.  The night of the convention, the drama went by like the flash of an eye.  I only vaguely remember standing in the bright lights with my angel wings and white garb, flipping through my book of names...

After the drama presentations at the convention, we had dinner together and sang around a bonfire.  I slept in the church that night, along with about 30 or so others, on the hard concrete floor, with just a blanket.  We stayed up until around 1 or 2 in the morning, and then woke up at 6 for a morning devotional and breakfast cooked by some of the women from the church. 

The next day was packed with more activities and games, but I was definitely exhausted from the lack of sleep. And about halfway through the day, after a very unfortunate incident with my camera, I was ready to go home. At one point during the day, I lent my camera to one of my friends in the youth group to take a picture - he only had it in his possession for about two minutes - and when he returned the camera to me, all of my pictures that were saved on the memory card had been erased! I had pictures on my camera from my first days in Guatemala up through January, and I stupidly hadn´t yet saved them to a computer or memory drive. All those pictures - pictures of my first host family in San Juan, my teacher at the Spanish school, Christmas with my host family, the choir that I directed, the women´s convention, pictures that I couldn´t just take over again- were gone! I cried when I realized that, although I had to try to put myself together so I could spend the rest of the day with the jovenes at the convention. I didn´t say anything to my friend who had accidently erased the pictures, because I didn´t want to make him feel bad about it.  So I just swallowed it, and later I cried to my family over the phone, and I cried to my host family too and told them what had happened. Fortunately, a few weeks later, when I met with the other volunteers for a retreat, I was able to take my camera to a photo shop.  Apparently you can sometimes recover deleted photos from a memory card.  So I took my camera to a shop and they were able to recover a good portion, if not all, of my photos. Needless to say, I was definitely ready for a retreat with the other volunteers after all the commotion of the convention...

Our end-of-January retreat was at the beach, in sunny Monterrico, Guatemala.  It was beautiful.  We stayed in a bungalow-style house, a block from the long, black-sand beach there.  We got to swim, see the amazing sunsets over the water, and collect shells from the beach. In Monterrico, there is also a tortugeria - a place where people are working to protect the sea turtles that live there.  During breeding season, baby sea turtles are released a few times a week, to plunge into the deep, scary sea. You can pay a few quetzals to release your own baby sea turtle.  The tiny black turtles, so small that they fit in your hand, race from a line drawn in the sand to the edge of the ocean, where they are tossed about and swept away by the ferocious waves. They seem to know instinctively that this is their destiny - the ocean. They flap their little fins in a slow crawl to the edge of the water, until they are swept up in the current to face ocean life head-on. It is amazing to watch.

While in Monterrico, we also got to take a boat ride with a guide through the protected mangrove forests there.  There are several different kinds of mangrove trees that grow there, with roots that spring up out of the water and branches that support a multitude of wildlife.  Mangrove forests are some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the earth, supporting hundreds of species of birds, fish, and vegetation. They are extremely important in helping prevent flooding and providing other natural ecosystem services. Yet due to environmental degradation, mangrove forests are quickly disappearing from the earth.  In Monterrico, the mangrove forests are protected by preservation laws, but in many places, mangrove trees are quickly being bulldozed over, as the land is taken over by developers. We had the opportunity to go with a guide on a boat ride through the mangroves, and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever done. We left just before sunrise, and got to see the sun come up over the water and trees, as birds swarmed overhead in their majesty. We saw hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of birds, waterlilies, and even a fish that has FOUR eyes and skims over the water like a flash of lightening. There we were, just drifting over the water, as beautiful white cranes and egrets flocked overhead and perched in the mangrove trees. It was incredible.

After a weekend of relaxing on the beach, exploring Monterrico, and debriefing with the other volunteers, I returned to Chocola, refreshed and ready to face the challenges once again. Things have been really busy here lately, but I am really enjoying what I am doing, and it helps the time go by quickly. I have started teaching two days a week at the school in Xojola (pronuciation almost exactly like Chocola), and it has certainly been challenging. The days when I go to the school, I have to wake up at about 5:30 in the morning, so I can leave the house by about 6:30 for Santo Tomas.  My dear host mother has been waking up early to make me a hot breakfast that she packs in a tupperware, so that I can eat it at the school when the kids have recess. She sends me off early in the morning, and I mount a bus to Santo Tomas, where I have to walk a few blocks to catch a pickup truck the rest of the way to Xojola. The ride to the school is beautiful, through fields of corn stalks, coffee, and banana trees.  The craggy mountains sit in the backdrop, smoky dark blue against the light early-morning sky. It is pretty breathtaking, from the back of a pickup truck, with the cool morning air blowing in your face. The ride would be quite refreshing if it weren´t for the fact that you have to hold onto a metal bar for dear life, as the truck makes its way over dusty roads covered with rocks and holes.  Plus, the dirt whips up into your eyes (it has been so dusty here lately, because it hasn´t rained in so long...you can´t take five steps out of the house without your feet being covering in a thick brown film).  But I still enjoy having time to think and take in the beauty of the mountains from the back of a pickup.  

The school is in an area that is even more rural than Chocola, where the people speak primarily Quiche.  Nearly all the women and girls are dressed in the traditional corte, which in that area is a deep navy blue, with a single horizontal stripe and vertical stripe of brightly colored embroidery. Sometimes the navy backdrop of the fabric is interwoven with faded gray or silver patterns, and it is beautiful. The language barrier makes teaching difficult, since some of the students don´t speak very much Spanish at all - their first language is Quiche.  And I am supposed to be teaching English, which is a third language for these kids.  I have started out teaching two sections each of fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, and it is exhausting.  I spend an hour with each section, teaching songs and games and English vocabulary.  I am currently trying to work out a new schedule with the director, in which I can concentrate maybe on just one grade level, so that I can get to know my students better.  Each section has about 25 to 30 kids, and so I have been working with hundreds of students.  I am hoping to be able to concentrate just on sixth grade (these students need to learn English more that the younger students, because they will have to study the language if they go on to junior high school). I am also hoping to get a group of students together to teach music, using some of the instruments that were donated by my church.  I am learning a lot at the school, and the kids all seem to be very excited that I am there.  I am still figuring out how to teach and interact with the students in a meaningful way; it has definitely been exhausting and challenging, but I´m hoping it will get easier as I gain more experience there. 

I am now also leading three different women´s bible studies, and it has been one of the most rewarding things that I have been doing.  I mostly ask a lot of questions, and sometimes there is awkward silence for a long time, because no one knows what to say, or they are afraid to say it.  But it is all worth it, when you can see someone´s face light up, as she gathers the courage to share an idea or thought, or talk about an experience of God working in her life. I am learning so much from these women, and it has been such a blessing.  Sometimes someone will say something that I´ve never even thought of before, and it´s awesome. I was giving a bible study with a group in Santo Tomas one week, and we were reading a story about Martha and Mary.  In the story, Jesus comes to visit at the house of Martha and Mary, and Martha is busy in the kitchen cooking and cleaning, preparing food for their guest, while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to him speak. Martha starts to get angry that she is doing all the work, while her sister Mary is just sitting there, and so she tells Jesus this.  But Jesus replies, ¨Martha, you are worried and occupied by many things, but there is only one thing that is necessary.  Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her.¨  I was trying to ask the women in the group how they thought Jesus was freeing Martha from her worry, and what he was freeing her to do. One of the women responded that Jesus had freed Martha to be able to listen to the word of God and to speak about all the miracles that He has done. And I thought that that was just amazing.  Later during our bible study, one of the women thanked me for giving them a break from the worries of housework and caring for their children, for giving them an opportunity each week to study, think, and speak about the miracles that God has done.  She was so grateful, and I was so grateful for the women in the group that I nearly cried. These women work so hard, and their work is never finished - they are always cooking, cleaning, making more tortillas, caring for their children, and attending to their husbands.  They work continuously and selflessly for their families. And some of them have never had the opportunity to go to school or learn to read.  Many of them have never had the opportunity to do anything for themselves, and they´ve had to sacrifice their lives and dreams for their families. So I am very happy to be able to sit with these women each week and hear their stories, and to give them a break from housework. There is one older woman in the group, Lorenza, who can´t read, and doesn´t speak very much Spanish (she speaks mostly Quiche), but she is there mostly every week.  Sometimes she falls asleep while we are talking, but I don´t mind or take offense, because at least my bible study gives her a chance to rest for a few hours.

This past week, we studied a story about a woman with a blood disease, who came up behind Jesus in a crowd to touch his robes and be healed. I asked the women what types of diseases and sicknesses (not just physical, but also things like sadness, desperation, worry...) that they face in their own lives. One woman responded that she is continually worrying about how she is going to put her young children through school, how she and her husband are going to find the resources to support her children´s education.   Another woman named Berta began talking, saying that she´s had so many diseases and problems in her life that it would take days to recount.  And she started sharing about how she was so in love with her husband when she was younger, but that he was unfaithful and cheated on her repeatedly.  She suffered heartache for many years. Her husband didn´t like her going to church, so she gave up her faith for him, because she was so in love. When her husband would return to the house late, she used to ask him where he had come from, and he would get angry with her and not respond.  So eventually she just stopped asking, and she suffered quietly, knowing that her husband was cheating on her but that there was no way out. Yet one day, after coming home to find her husband in the house with another woman, she had the courage to leave, taking her children with her.  Berta shared how God transformed her mess of a life, and gave her hope and worth and a sense of value.   She found support in women from the church, and they helped her gain her dignity and confidence back.  She left behind her troubles and pain, and traded them in for the hope that God had given her.   And now she is a leader in the church, president of the feminil (the women´s society) and a representative in the synod (a larger governing body of the church). Berta talked for about a half an hour straight, sharing her story, and it was amazing.  I saw her face change from anguished, teary eyes and trembling lips, as she talked about the pain her husband caused her, to a glowing smile and bright eyes, as she spoke about the newfound hope she now has in her life.  I was so thankful that she had the courage to share her story like that.  She just kept talking and talking, bursting over with stories about the amazing ways in which God has transformed her life.  It was a moment when I was sure that I was exactly where I was meant to be.  I´m not sure exactly why, but I think that a huge reason I am here is to hear stories like this, told from the voices of Guatemalans. I believe that it is important for these stories to be told out loud, and it is important for me to hear them and learn from them. I have made some wonderful friendships with many women, and I am looking forward to spending more time with them each week.

I still haven´t caught up on the last few weeks, but I will save that for my next blog, which I hope to post soon.  This weekend we celebrated my host sister´s quinceaños (15th birthday) with a party that was fit for a wedding, and my birthday followed the next day.  The marathon birthday weekend deserves a post in and of itself...  Hope to update again next week!