Continuing from my last post...

With the new year has come a lot of new opportunities to get to know people. I returned back to Chocola after my family´s visit, and time seemed to pick up a little bit. A week after, I had the opportunity to preach at the convention of the Prebiterial (the women´s governing body of the churches in our Presbytery). The convention was a two-day event, with women from all the different churches in the area attending. I have found so much joy in working with women here - I have found that they are so strong and tough, hardworking and compassionate, so in touch with the simple joys of life, and quick to laugh. I was given the opportunity to preach the first morning of the convention, for the opening worship, and I was pretty terrified beforehand. The theme of the convention was ¨The Integral Growth of the Christian Woman¨(I´m not really sure what they were going for with that...), so I talked about the passage in the Bible where Jesus says that He is the vine and we are the branches. I used the metaphor to talk about how we need to be connected to the right source in order to grow, and how often times, we need to be pruned and cut in order to bear fruit, and sometimes it hurts. I was able to talk a little bit about my experience so far in Guatemala - how it was a very difficult decision for me to make to leave my home and my family, to come to a place where everything is new and unfamiliar. I talked about the difficulties of adjusting and learning Spanish, and how sometimes I feel sad and lost and unsure of myself. But I also told the women that I knew that if I didn´t come to Guatemala, I wouldn´t grow in the ways that God was inviting me to grow. Even though it has been hard at times (or perhaps because of the hardships), I have already learned so much from the faith and love that I have seen among the people of Guatemala. Sometimes God needs to prune and cut some branches so that we can grow. So, I was able to share a little of my story with the women there. And I encouraged the women to accept challenges, and do things that maybe they are afraid to do, because it is when we step out of our comfort zones that we grow.

I´m not sure how my Spanish came out, or how well people understood what I was saying, but I think enough of it came through so that I could share something meaningful. I got a lot of shouts of ¨Amen!¨ (which is usually a good way to tell how well a sermon is going), so I think it went okay. And after that, I was able to relax a little bit, and just spend time with the women at the conference. The day mostly consisted of a session meeting - discussing budgets, planning upcoming events, etc. - interspersed with meal time and chatting with the other women there. We had a worship service that night, and so many people came, that there weren´t enough seats and people were packed in the doorway. My old friend Manuel, who is the pastor at the church there, preached that night. He is about 90-something years old, and his health is deteriorating, but he is the most joyful and spirited man you will ever meet. He is always singing and praising God. That night, Manuel presented all the women from the previous Presbiterial board (the President, Vice, Secretary, etc.), as well as the incoming board members that had been voted to serve for the next year. As he called the names, the women came up to stand in the front of the church. He called me to stand with the group, too, since I will be working with these women and attending their meetings during the year. Except Manuel called me Berta by mistake, and I just laughed (he has trouble getting names right, and usually calls me AlejanDRINA instead of Alejandra, but it is really very cute and endearing).

I ended up staying over night in the Belen church, which is where the convention took place; I shared a room in the pastoral house behind the church with 5 other women, Noehmi, Cecilia, Paula, and Maria, from the church in Chocola, and another woman, Flor de Maria, who is a representive from the national church. I had met Flor on several other occasions, and she is wonderful. Sharing a room with all those women was so much fun! We didn´t get much sleep, because we were up late laughing, and had to wake up at 6 for the morning devotional the next day (which, we incidentally missed, because we were chatting and taking too long to get ready). Plus, the bed I slept on was as hard as a rock (I´m pretty sure it was just made out of concrete)...but it didn´t matter, because I got to share a fun experience with a wonderful group of women, and we LAUGHED a lot.

Actually, the women´s convention was not the only opportunity I´ve had to preach in the past month. On two other occasions, I was asked to preach a sermon, on the spot! (Guatemalan churches are famous for this, so I´m learning that it´s always good to have something prepared, just in case...) The first occasion was earlier that week, at a meeting in the church in Chocola. Manuel Pastor was as that meeting too, and while we were waiting for the meeting to start, he started leading everyone in songs, and then asked if anyone could give a brief Bible reflection. He looked at my host dad, who was sitting behind me, but my host dad regretfully informed us that he hadn´t brought his Bible to the meeting. So I made the mistake of reaching into my purse and pulling out my Bible to hand to my host dad. But, of course, he had also forgotten to bring his glasses, and therefore couldn´t see to read. So, Manuel Pastor decided it would be best if I gave the Bible reflection instead, since I was already prepared with my Bible. So I quickly searched for one of my favorite passages, and gave about a two-minute reflection. Next time, I´ll know not to whip out my Bible so fast. :)

The other occasion was a visit to the Canaan church in Xoajij, where I had been invited to talk with the church about giving an English class to some of the members. My host dad had warned me that I should prepare a brief sermon, just in case, but I was convinced that they would never ask me to preach on my first visit to their church, and if they did, they would at least notify me in advance, so I could prepare something. But my host dad was right, and luckily, I had at least picked out a passage and thought for five minutes about what I could say. In the past weeks, I think I´ve done enough preaching on the spot (in another language which is not my own!) to satisfy me for the rest of my life.

But anyways, I´ve had lots of new opportunities recently to get to know more and more people. I´ve been continuing to teach keyboard lessons, and my 10 or so students are slowly learning to read music. I´ve started teaching two Sunday school classes of young children, one in the church in Chocola and another in Santo Tomas (the next town over). I´ve really enjoyed teaching and playing and drawing with the kids. I´ve been teaching the kids some new songs, and we´ve been playing the little percussion instruments that my parents brought. The kids love it!

In addition, I´ve started getting involved with some women´s groups at the different churches. I´ve been attending a special weekly women´s service in the Iglesia Galilea (Galilee Church) in Ladrillera, and I just started leading a women´s bible study group in Santo Tomas as well. I´m hoping to use these spaces to encourage the women to think and express their opinions and feelings freely, without fear. In many of the Presbyterian (read: Evangelical) churches in the area, most of the sermons and bible readings (which aren´t the responsibility of the pastor, but rather are rotated responsibilities that church members share the burden of) are given by men. Often the interpretations and messages are through the eyes of a man. Women do share responsibilities in the church, such as leading the singing or directing the service from the pulpit, and there are even a few women who sometimes preach. But there are also many older women who don´t know how to read or write; these women are denied privileges such as delivering a sermon or reading a lectura, because they weren´t given the same educational opportunities. In many traditional homes, the women are responsible for cooking, making tortillas, cleaning, and caring for the children, while the men work in the fields or other manual labor jobs. While this trend is changing in Guatemala, it is still pervasive in some of the more rural areas. Many women end up getting married at a very young age, and consequently are not able to complete even a middle school education. There are some women in the church in Chocola who seem interested and excited about learning how to read and write, and I am trying to get together a group to teach. I think that would be very beautiful. Meanwhile, I am hoping, through my involvement with these women´s groups, to empower and encourage women to express their opinions more, to ask questions and to challenge what they are taught. In general, in the Guatemalan Evangelical church, people are not taught to question what they learn; rather, they simply accept what they are told about faith and God. I´m looking for spaces, within the youth group and women´s groups and church in general, to be able to have conversations with people, who maybe have questions, or aren´t sure why things are a certain way, or don´t agree with something that is being said in a church service. And maybe I can even stir some of these important questions in people´s hearts. With my bible study group, I am planning to read stories about women in the Bible who were important in God´s work in the world. And I am planning to ask a lot of questions, and to wait, however awkwardly, until someone bravely responds, and to LISTEN.

Yesterday, I also started teaching an English class at the Canaan church in Xoajij. The Canaan church, along with several other churches in the area, has a partnership with a church in Baltimore, Maryland, and sometimes receives visitors from the Baltimore church. Many of the church members are very interested in learning English, so that they can communicate better with their English-speaking partners. I had a really fun time with the class, although it was very difficult. Some of the people there did not speak much Spanish even (they speak in the native Mayan langauge Quiche), so I had to get some help translating. Elijio and his wife Isabel, who both teach at the school where I will be working, were both there, and helped a lot with translations. We ended up singing songs together at the end. I was trying to teach them the song ¨I´ve got joy¨ in English. I´ve learned the song in both Spanish and Quiche, and so we attempted to sing together in all three languages. It was very beautiful to be able to sing a song together in three different languages - what a wonderful cultural exchange! I´m hoping to learn more Quiche as I teach the group some English...

I am scheduled to start teaching at the school next week, but who knows, since the date keeps getting pushed back. I did get to visit the school again with Elijio (this time, not in the pouring rain) and I met some of the other teachers with whom I will be working. They were all so welcoming and friendly, and I can´t wait to start soon!

In other news, I now have a new family member living in the house. My 18-year-old host brother Pablo had gotten engaged with his girlfriend Denise about two months ago, and they were planning to have the wedding six months from now. But they decided that they didn´t want to wait that long, and so Denise came over one night and never left. We had to rearrange the whole house again, to make a room for the two of them. I didn´t realize it at the time, but Denise is only 15 years old. I can´t even imagine getting married at that age, and the whole thing seemed pretty rash and immature to me. I didn´t really understand how you could just move in, and that´s it - you´re married. Apparently it is not so uncommon for that to happen in a lot of rural areas of Guatemala. Denise hasn´t completed primary school, and she doesn´t want to, although she only has to complete one more year to get her 6th grade certificate, and my host parents even offered to help pay for her books and supplies. I feel sad that she is forfeiting the opportunity to go to school, but I don´t think there is anything I could have said to change her mind. I was also surprised at my host parents´ reaction to the whole situation. There was a big commotion the night that Denise decided to move in, and my host parents had to go talk to Denise´s parents to let them know that she wasn´t coming back to live with them. She went back her house a few days later to collect her things. Despite my host parents´ very conservative views, they have welcomed Denise into the house as their daughter, and she is now one of the family. It doesn´t really feel much different in the house with an extra person (there were already 12 of us!), except that I now have another host sister. I am not sure if Pablo and Denise are still going to have a low-key wedding ceremony or not, but the whole family and community already considers them married, although illegitimately. I´m not sure what to do with the whole thing - Denise is so young, and I feel sad that she is giving up her education, but at the same time, it is what she is choosing to do. I just wonder about all the factors that influence people to make such choices, and I am trying to understand. In the meantime, the only thing I can do is be a friend to her and listen.

I have been so thankful for the love of my host family in the past few weeks, and I´m starting to feel like I am really part of the family. I joke and laugh with my host siblings, and we sometimes annoy each other and get on each other´s nerves, but that´s how things are with family. Everything´s not always perfect. It´s nice that I can just be real, and be myself around them. One night, my host siblings and I were all crowded into my sisters´ room, and we were throwing pillows at each other, and it was so much fun. I laughed so hard that I gave myself a sore throat and I could barely talk afterward. Another day, we went together to Chichoy (spelling?), a nearby river, to take a swim; we walked back through town soaking wet. The younger kids, as well as my host sister Sonya (who is in vocational school studying to become a teacher), have all started school again. So it is a little quieter in the house during the day. We are all busier doing things, but it is nice to come back to the house and feel at home.

Meanwhile, one of the turkeys at our house has taken a liking to making her nesting place in my bed. I came into my room one day to find an egg lying next to my pillow. So I carefully carried it out to show my host mom, with a big smile on my face. The next day I found another egg. And the next day, I caught the turkey in the act, nestled on my blanket next to my pillow. Since then, the turkey has laid about 5 more eggs in my bed - apparently she won´t lay them anywhere else. Sometimes I´ll be sitting in my room, on my bed, and the turkey will come and peek into the doorway to see if I´m there, and I´ll shoo the turkey away, and she´ll come back two seconds later and try to dodge past me and flutter onto my bed. It is really quite absurd. I have given up trying to shoo the turkey away, because she simply refuses to lay her eggs anywhere else. So sometimes I find a surprise next to my pillow when I go into my room.

Anyways, this post is already getting really long, even though I feel like I´ve missed so much that has happened in the past weeks. It´s hard to sum up everything that has been going on in life and in my heart in just a few paragraphs. Hopefully I can update again soon!

Agghh, sorry for not updating in so long...There has been a lot going on here lately, and so there is a lot to catch up on.  First, let´s backtrack to Christmas...

Christmas was very different in the warm weather and away from home and family.  But it was also very beautiful, because I got to celebrate the birth of Christ in a new way.  In Guatemala, the big celebration is on Christmas Eve, not on Christmas day.  On Christmas Eve, I gathered with my little choir at the church to practice before the service that night.  We all wore white blouses to match (like a choir of angels), and we sang four songs during the service.  Two of the songs were already familiar to them - ¨Silent Night,¨ which is translated as ¨Noche de Paz¨ (Night of Peace), and is really quite beautiful in Spanish, and another called ¨Oh Santisimo, Felicisimo.¨  And two of the songs were new hymns that I taught the choir - the Spanish versions of ¨Joy to the World¨ and ¨The First Noel.¨ The harmonies that I tried to teach pretty much flew out the window, but I was just happy that we were able to sing the songs in unison and relatively on-key. I think the music added more joy to the service, and I was glad to be able to share that with the church.  After the service, everyone gave each other hugs and wished each other a Feliz Navidad. I felt like part of a big family, like I was part of something bigger than myself, that I couldn´t describe, part of a body of love and joy and hope.   After the hugs, we had a refaccion (snack) of pan and ponche (a warm drink with chunks of fruit in it), and it was delicious.  Later, I retired back to the house with my family, and we stayed up until midnight, which is when the big celebration starts. At midnight, we set off a row of firecrackers in the yard, and so did about everyone else in the town.  The night was filled with the screeches of firecrackers on every street, and the flashing lights of fireworks in the sky. The kids in my family were all very excited and happy, and it was certainly a fun (and loud!) celebration. We all gave each other hugs again, and I really felt like part of the family, being able to share such a joyful night with them. After watching some of the firecrackers and fireworks for a while, we turned on some blasting Christmas music (marimba-style) and ate a meal together. We had more ponche, and tostados (crispy fried tortillas) with refried beans, chopped beets and radishes, ketchup, chopped boiled eggs, and cheese on top (which sounds kind of gross, the combination of all those ingredients together, but it was actually pretty tasty).  And we had a basket of bread, and some apples and grapes, which were a very special treat.  The neighbors even came over later to wish us a Merry Christmas and give us hugs. By the time we finished eating around 1:30, we were all pretty sleepy (especially the youngest of my host siblings) and soon went to bed, but the celebrations in town continued pretty late through the night.  You could hear blasting music from the neighbors´ houses and lingering firecrackers until about 3 or 4 in the morning. It was a big loud party, which I guess is an appropriate way to joyfully celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus.

Christmas day itself was very relaxed, and we spent the day together in the house. One of my host brothers, Hector, who lives in another house with his wife Mikael and his one-year-old son Josiel, came over to visit, and we all had lunch together - fried fish, rice, and leftover tamales that Mikael had made for midnight the night before. We bought a watermelon and sliced it up, and it was delicious, although it was a little weird to be eating watermelon on Christmas. 

Christmas was filled with a lot of mixed emotions for me - I was excited and overjoyed to experience Christmas in a new way, with people I have only known for a few months, but with whom I could share such joy and hope and unity in the love of God. But it was also very difficult and sad to be away from family and friends, and the homesickness was pretty strong. But it made it easier to know that my parents were coming to visit less than a week after Christmas...

My family came to visit the first week in January, and the time with them flew by.  My mom and dad took a taxi out to Chocola to pick me up, and they got to meet my entire host family and attend a service at the church, where they were welcomed by everyone. It was a pretty overwhelming and dream-like experience, like a clashing of two worlds.  Plus, I had to try to be a translator, since my parents don´t speak any Spanish, and my host family doesn´t speak any English. So, it was pretty interesting and a bit awkward, but everyone was very excited to meet each other. I´m so glad that my family got to see where I´m living and working, and that they could meet my host family and understand more of what my experience in Guatemala is like. Plus, I miss them a whole lot! And as for my host family, they were all super-excited to meet my parents, and the night before they arrived, we did a massive house-cleaning and pretty much rearranged the whole house. We were up early, to make a special lunch of fried chicken (Guatemalans love their fried chicken...especially chicken from Pollo Campero, a huge multinational fast-food joint, that is everywhere in Guatemala.  The owners of Pollo Campero, along with the owners of Gallo beer, are the richest people in the country...but anyways, I don´t want to interupt my story too much with my rant on huge, exploitative corporations....).  So, we made a special lunch of fried chicken, refried beans and veggies, and of course, there were tortillas.  We had someone else help with the tortillas, since there just wasn´t enough time for us to make them with all the other preparations. My host sister Franci made me put on her traje,  the traditional Mayan dress that the women here wear, so that I could meet my family, dressed like a true Kiche Guatemalan woman.  I wore her guipil (the intricately-embroidered top), and she wrapped me in her colorful corte (the skirt, which is a long piece of patterned cloth that you wrap around) and secured it with the typical belt, called a faja, so tight that I could barely breathe. I finally realized part of the reason why Guatemalan women walk so slowly - the cortes are hard to walk in, and you can only take very short strides without tripping over yourself! So Franci and Sonya helped me get dressed, and I went out to the road to meet my parents and direct them to the house.

It was very strange, but when I met my parents out at the road, and they got out of the taxi, they both looked really pale and my dad looked like he was on stilts. My mom thought it was funny that she finally felt tall, because everyone in my host family is so short! My host sister Vivi had gone to the molino to grind a bit of corn so that I could show my parents my amazing tortilla-making skills, and my mom even got to try making a few tortillas, too. We had lunch together, all smushed into two tables (we had to borrow some plastic chairs from the church to fit everyone around the tables at the same time). The over-lunch conversation was a bit awkward (since no one could speak to each other, although I did my best to provide some loose translations).  My mom broke the ice by going around the table and reciting everyone´s name (which is a task, considering how many people are in my family, and how everyone has at least two names, plus maybe another nickname, that they use interchangeably.  It took me about a month to get everyone´s two or three names straight...). I had given my mom a list of all my host siblings names ahead of time, so she could study.  And my host family was so impressed that they all clapped for her after she had gone around the table saying everyone´s name.  After lunch, my parents had some small gifts that they brought, to thank my host family for taking care of me so well.  They had also brought a bag of music books and small percussion and wind instruments to use for teaching, as well as a beautiful keyboard (!) that was so generously donated by someone from my home church to be used in my work here. (Thank you so much to everyone who donated to the ministry I am doing - the instruments have been such a blessing in working with the children and youth here!)

When my parents took out the basketball and soccer ball that they had brought for the kids, my host brother Tito nearly jumped out of his skin.  We had all been talking about how we wanted to get a basketball to take to the cancha (court), because we had been borrowing a ball from my brother Pablo´s girlfriend, but we accidently popped it, and it was lying deflated near the pila (the stone basin sink) in the kitchen.  So of course, when my parents brought out the balls, we all (including my parents and my host dad) immediately started tossing the basketball around in the kitchen. My host siblings and I brought my parents to the bosque (the park) to play a little basketball, and we took them on a loop around town to see the streets and houses, the market and coffee-processing plant.  We came back just in time for the Sunday afternoon church service, where everyone welcomed my parents and I did a very poor job of translating the sermon (which just so happened to be delivered by my host dad that day).

After a whirlwind of touring and meeting my host family, I went back with my parents to a hotel in Guatemala City to meet my sister and her boyfriend who had also come to visit me. I had a relaxing and restful week with my family, and I took them touring around some sites in Guatemala.  We traveled to Antigua to walk around, look through the market, see some of the old earthquake ruins and cathedrals, and of course, eat.  We also traveled to beautiful Lake Atitlan, a deep craterous lake surrounded on all sides by volcanoes - one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life. We spent the day looking at beautiful handicrafts, jewelry, paintings, and traditional cloth hanging in the numerous stalls in the streets of Panajachel.  We also took a public boat ride across the lake to the other side, to meet my friend and fellow volunteer Anna, who is living and working in Santiago Atitlan. (Many of the locals from Santiago and other pueblos surrounding the lake have to take a 20min to half hour boat ride every day to get to work on the other side of the lake.  Others are forced to terrace farm on the precarious volcano slopes, pushed to environmental extremes because they have no other farming options.)  Anna took us on a tour around Santiago, and after eating a quick lunch, we hurried to make the boat ride back to Panajachel, so we could catch our shuttle from there back the hotel.  The combination of eating hurriedly, and then getting on a very bumpy boat (the wind was a bit strong that day), and then jumping right on the shuttle bus to travel over rocky, curvy roads (the main road back to Guate is under construction, and has been for a long time) was a little sickening, and I ending up throwing up when we got back to the hotel.  But other than that, it was a fun excursion to beautiful Lake Atitlan. :)  That week, we also got to hike Pacaya Volcano (which I had already hiked with the other volunteers, during my first few weeks of language school, but under very different conditions, in pouring rain and cold). Although we didn´t see any lava this time, the view was amazing, and we could see all the way to Guate.  At the end of the week, my sister and her boyfriend accompanied me back to Chocola, and got to meet my host family as well. It was a little less awkward, since they knew un pocito de espanol, and we ended up going back to the park a second time to play with the new basketball.  My sister even came with me and my host sister Vivi to grind corn at the molino, and then we made a few tortillas. Unfortunately, my sister and her boyfriend both ended up getting very sick for the ride back from Chocola, but they were still both very happy to meet my host family and see where I am living. I was very sad when my sister left, realizing that my family visit was over, and that I wouldn´t see them again for a long time.  My sister left me crying at the road, and my host family didn´t quite know what to do with me for the next couple of days. 

But January has been a bit busier, and I´ve started getting involved with more groups, which has definitely helped with the homesickness.  I´m starting to feel like my Spanish is improving, and I´m able to communicate much better with people, although I still listen a lot more than I speak. I feel at home with my host family, and they take care of me like a daughter and a sister. I´m getting to know more and more people and to build relationships, which I think is the most important thing I can do. Rather than just looking from the outside, I am living with people and getting to know them.  Often times, we (the privileged) are so disconnected from the poor; the gap between those who have and those who don´t have is enormous and growing, and it is so easy to live while ignoring the reality of poverty in our world. I think many times, people think that feeling pity or feeling sorry for people is the same as compassion. But feeling sorry for people only disempowers them more, as if there is nothing they can contribute or do to improve their life situations. I don´t feel sorry for any of the Guatemalans I´ve met, although many of them have very difficult lives.  On the contrary, I admire and respect them, because they are so strong and resilient and joyful through hardships. And I am learning to frame my world views, past experiences, and faith in a new way, because of the relationships that I have formed with Guatemalans.

Christmas Season without the snow

So the holiday season has been pretty rough and lonely here, but I am trying to take one day at a time and appreciate the new experiences. Thanksgiving Day went by, and it really did not feel like Thanksgiving. I spent the day at a conference at a Presbyterian seminary in San Felipe. The conference, which was called "Caminando Juntas" ("Walking Together") was run by CEDEPCA (the organization that my director Marcia works for) and was designed to educate Guatemalan women about domestic violence and child abuse. It was a really awesome experience, because there were women there from so many different parts of the country and so from many different walks of life - some who had been victims of domestic abuse, and others who wanted to learn more about the issues so that they could help women in their churches and communities. It was a really powerful workshop, and it was inspiring to see so many women speaking out and stepping forward as leaders in their communities, since women here are so often marginalized and left without the same opportunities or access to education. It was also fun to see some of the dynamics of the group. Celeste and Callie (two of the other volunteers) and I had shared a room the night before with an eclectic mix of women, all packed into bunk-beds. As we were trying to fall asleep, there was one rather big lady who started laughing for no reason and couldn´t stop. An older lady in the room told her to quiet down and then tried to sing some lullabies to calm her down, but that only made her laugh even harder. Meanwhile, two ladies on the bunk beds below me chatted in Mam (a Mayan language), as the laughing and lullaby-singing continued for quite some time. The next morning, we were awoken at about 5am by more commotion, and the whole situation was really pretty absurd and funny, although I didn´t get much sleep that night. In the morning, Celeste, Callie, and I got to take a dip in the seminary swimming pool (in our pajamas, since we didn´t have our bathing suits). It was our defiant celebration of Thanksgiving, as we tried not to think of our families at home gathering together over meals of turkey and pumpkin pies.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, however, I got the chance to cook a "traditional American" Thanksgiving dinner for my host family. It was pretty interesting, since I had to cook over a fire (we don´t have a stove or oven) and was limited to the ingredients that I could find at the market in San Antonio. I only made stuffing and a few vegetables, since I didn´t want to see one of our turkeys be slaughtered. I´m not sure how it all turned out; it definitely wasn´t as good as my mom´s cooking, but at least I got everyone in my host family gathered around the table to eat together. Since there are so many people in the family, we usually don´t all eat at the same time or in the same place; everyone kind of eats when they are hungry, and wherever there is room (there is a table in the comedor and another small wooden table outside by the fire stove, and sometimes my host siblings just sit and eat while watching tv...). But for Thanksgiving, I was able to get everyone squeezed around the table, and we went around and each said what we were thankful for.  I told my host family that I was so thankful for the way they have taken me into their lives and welcomed me into their house.  I told them that I felt at home with them.  And then after dinner I went in my room and cried.  I really did mean what I said to my host family, but I was still sad and homesick, and the reality is that there are still many ways in which I will never completely fit in here. But I´m glad I got to share Thanksgiving with my host family, and they were all very grateful that I cooked for them and that we could share a meal together.

That week we also decorated for Christmas...with strands and strands of cheesy blinking lights that my host parents´ daughter Dominga had mailed from the United States. There is a strand of lights that plays one line each of Jingle Bells, Santa Clause is Coming to Town, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, over and over again, in a piercing high pitch and slightly off-key.  It´s pretty annoying, and conveniently right outside my room, but everyone else seems to love it, so I can´t say anything...I´m learning to tune it out. :)  As we were putting up the Christmas lights, my host brother Armando started to get sad.  He is the grandchild of Juana and Miguel, and his mother Dominga is currently in the US and has been since he was very young.  That week, I finally learned from Juana the story. After Armando was born, his mother decided to go to the US to find a job and send back money to support her son.  The plan was that Armando´s father was going to stay with him and the rest of the family, and work to help support the family. But Armando´s father ended up running away with another woman, and left Armando with his grandparents, while his mother was still in the US.  Armando´s mom still sends money and things from the US, and the whole family I think is hopeful that she will come back some day to live in Guatemala. She was supposed to come visit this Christmas, but now she´s not, and I think that she wants to stay in the US.  The whole situation is very mixed up and sad, although Armando is pretty well-adjusted, all things considered. There are so many broken families here, with fathers, mothers, siblings, and husbands who have gone to the US to find work, leaving their families behind in order to be able to provide for them financially. I could tell that Armando was getting sad as we were putting up Christmas lights, and that night we had a moment of crying together.  He told me that he missed his mom, and I told him that I missed my mom too, and we cried a little bit, sitting on his bed. It was very sweet, and I´m glad we got to share that special moment and cry together because we missed our mothers.

Meanwhile, at the church, I have started getting involved in some new activities.  A few weeks ago, I started teaching keyboard lessons.  I have about 11 or 12 students right now, and that number keeps growing - more and more people keep approaching me to ask if I can teach them.  I´ve really enjoyed teaching lessons so far.  I like seeing people nervous and squirming in their seats, with red faces and sweaty palms, trying hard to play a piece correctly...and then all of a sudden, their faces light up when they finally get a piece right, and they start to relax and smile.  It´s like a little moment of revelation, of overcoming an obstacle.  It´s also been interesting for me to learn all the different musical terms in Spanish, so that I can teach different concepts. 

In the past weeks, I´ve also formed a humble choir of about 15 young people to sing at the church service on Christmas Eve.  We´ve been having practices two times a week, and it´s been interesting to say the least.  None of the young people in the choir have ever had any musical training before, and a few are a bit tone-deaf. It has been funny trying to teach them to harmonize and sing without belting at the top of their lungs. But we laugh a lot, and it has been a learning experience for everyone, myself included. I´m not sure if it will all come together before Christmas Eve, but it should definitely be a memorable experience. :)

I´ve also started getting involved with the Presbyterial (the women´s governing body of the churches in our Presbytery), and my time with those women has been one of my favorite things that I´ve been doing lately.  I attended a session meeting about two weeks ago, and it was nice to see some familiar faces there.  I recognized some of the women there from the Caminando Juntas conference, as well as from another presbytery meeting that I had attended several weeks before.  I feel like I am starting to build relationships with these women, however slowly, and I´m excited to see what develops from these relationships. At the session meeting, the women asked me to preach a sermon at their convention in January, and I was completely terrified.  But I said yes, because I didn´t want to regret not accepting such a challenge and an opportunity for growth.  So, the second sermon I will have ever given will be in Spanish.  I figure I have several weeks to prepare, and to look up the necessary vocabulary, and practice my pronunciation...I´m still pretty terrified, but hopefully I will be able to say something that will resonate with the women at the convention, that touches at least someone there.  It is going to be interesting...I´m sure there will be stories in my next blog entry. :)

After the Presbyterial session, I went with the women on a visita (a visit to the house of someone who is sick).   We went to the house of a pastor named Manuel, who is very old (I think in his nineties) and has been suffering from joint and leg problems.  He is the sweetest old man, so friendly and warm and funny.  He was very happy that I was there, although he couldn´t get my name right and kept calling me Alejandrina.  It was very endearing.  We sat and talked with him for a while, and prayed for him, and sang a few choruses of some hymns.  We also brought a basket of food staples, such as sugar, rice, and beans for him and his family.  When we arrived, Manuel had his daughter bring out vases of soda for us, to receive us into his home.  I´m really glad I went to visit with him, and it was nice walking back with the other women in the group and futilely trying to find a bus back to Chocola, only to be smushed into the back of a tuc-tuc (a three-wheeled, death-trap vehicle that serves as a taxi).  

The women from the Presbyterial invited me on another visita with them about a week later, to a nearby town called San Miguelito.  The ride there was quite long, since we had to take a bus, and then another bus, and then a pickup truck, and then walk some more to get there.  San Miguelito is further up in the mountains, and the view from the back of the pickup truck was breathtaking, as we passed green mountaintops, with crystal streams flowing beneath in the valleys.  On the ride back to Chocola, I sat smushed in the back of a pickup with about 15 other women, with one of the women holding onto my knee for support and another gripping around my legs for dear life, as the pickup manuevered over the rock-covered roads. We joked and laughed most of the ride back, tossled around in the back of the pickup.  One of the woman told me at one point, ¨This is the life of a Guatemalan, and you´re living it.¨  And I smiled and thought to myself, ¨This is why I´m here: to be smushed in the back of a pickup truck, swerving over bumpy roads, and laughing with a group of women, as we hold onto each other desperately.¨ 

I´m looking forward to working more with the Presbyterial and the women´s group at the church in Chocola. I´ve already found lots of joy and laughter in the time that I´ve spent with many of them.  I still feel like I am in a period of waiting, but I think God is teaching me things slowly, and I have to be patient and wait for some things to grow inside. I feel like there is so much more to say, but this blog is already very long.  I will try to update soon!  In the meantime, Feliz Navidad and Feliz Año Nuevo! 

500 Tortillas Later

Things have been pretty slow here lately...My teaching position at the school hasn´t started yet, since the school is on break until January, and my work at the church is very informal and unstructured.  I am still looking for places where I fit in and can offer some of my gifts to the people here. Sometimes it is frustrating, because I´m not sure what I´m supposed to be doing or what my purpose is. I am able to understand a lot more Spanish than I did when I arrived, but it is still difficult for me to speak, and I often feel insecure and unsure about what to say or how to say it. I have had to trust a lot in God to bring me up out of my insecurities and fears, but it is a slow process. I have been able to do lots of Bible reading lately (I´m hoping to get through the entire Bible this year) and I have been very encouraged by story after story of God´s steadfast love; time after time, God chooses the most unlikely people to be great leaders and messengers of His love to His people.  I just recently read the passage in Exodus where Moses tells God that he is not an eloquent speaker.  He begs God to choose someone else to be a messenger to His people.  Yet God uses Moses anyway, and he becomes a great leader of the Israelites. God tells Moses not to worry about the words that he will say, because the right words will be given to him at the right time.  This passage has been very encouraging to me; I am learning to trust more and more in God´s power to use me, whether I think I can do it or not, or whether I think that it´s happening or not.

Although things have been slow, some of my favorite moments have been when I´m just ¨being¨ with people, whether it is talking to my host mother after dinner, with the glow of the fire lighting up our faces, or laughing with my younger host siblings as we run around the house trying to spray each other with water on a hot day. I have had a lot of time to practice my tortilla-making (and tortilla-eating!) skills, and a lot of laughter and wonderful conversations have taken place over the dinner table or while making tortillas. I think that an important part of my ¨work¨ now is to observe and listen, to learn what life is like for people here, what joys and struggles they face, how they understand God and express their faith in this different context.

I did get to visit the school where I will be starting to teach in January.  A man named Eligio came and took me on the back of his motorcycle up the hill to the neighboring town of X´ojola (which is pronounced almost exactly like Chocola - it is very confusing). At one point, he made me get off the motorcycle and walk up a steep and rocky hill. He said that the road was very treacherous, and I guess he didn´t want me to fall off the back of the bike, so he rode up the hill on the motorcycle, while I huffed and puffed my way up the hill to meet him at the top.  We finally got the school in X´ojola, and although we didn´t get to go inside (Eligio didn´t have the key), it was good just to see the place where I will be teaching and to talk with Eligio for a bit.  Eligio is a teacher at the school, and he is also the secretary of the plenary (the governing body of the Presbytery, which consists of 8 Presbyterian churches in the area). We also went inside the communal health clinic which is next door to the school, and got to chat with a man named Manuel who works in the clinic. While we were inside, it started pouring, and we could barely hear each other over the din of the rain on the metal roof. Since Eligio and I had come by motorcycle, we decided to wait out the rain before heading back. So we waited...and waited. For about an hour and a half. And the rain didn´t look like it was about to stop anytime soon. So Eligio finally ran outside and hailed down a pickup truck (he knew the driver, who was one of his former students).  He stuck me in the front seat of the pickup, next to the driver, and told me he would ride ahead of the car in the motorcycle, to accompany us back to Chocola. So off we went.  In the back of the pickup, a group of people huddled under a plastic tarp (pickups are used as a form of public transportation here), while I sat in the front seat perfectly comfortable and dry.  By the time we got back to the house, Eligio´s clothes were soaked through from the rain. He got off the motorcycle and ran up to the house to bring an umbrella for me, so I could walk from the pickup to the house without getting wet. And he told my host parents that he had returned me, safe and healthy, back to the house, just as I had left.  I felt terrible.  I didn´t want to be treated special. I just wanted to fit in, to ride on the back of Eligio´s motorcycle in the rain and have it be horrible. There have been many moments like this, where I have been so humbled by people´s acts of kindness toward me. I am realizing now that what Eligio did was not to make me feel like I was different, but to make me feel cared for and loved, like a sister in Christ.  I came to Guatemala hoping to learn how to be a better servant, and I have found myself over and over again being served by other people.  I am learning to be more gracious and to accept help and kindness from people.  I certainly do need lots of help at times, in a new place, where everything is different and unfamiliar and often lonely. God is certainly showing me how to be servant - and it is through the way that the people here have received me and loved me and welcomed me into their lives.

So I´ve been in Chocola for about a week and a half now, and a lot has happened already. Sorry for not updating in a while, but it´s been hard to get to the internet in the past weeks. I tried to update earlier this week, but the internet here is painfully slow. I have moved in with the Menchu family, and I think I´ve finally mastered everyone´s name. My host parents, Juana and Miguel, have eight children (Franci, Sonya, Tony, Roky, Pablo, Ludwy, Tito, and Mindy) and one grandchild (Armando) living with them in the house. Plus, there are two dogs, a fat pig, six turkeys, several chickens, and a hen with about ten baby chicks that also make their home here. The chickens run freely through the house, and it is quite funny to see the children shooing them out of the kitchen sometimes. Juana keeps saying what a shame it is that I don´t eat chicken, because their chickens are delicious. My first night here, it was very difficult to sleep - the pig makes all kinds of snorting noises through the night (sometimes it sounds like he´s dying), and the roosters start crowing at about 3am (what I like to call the bewitching hour). But I am slowly adjusting to my family, my new home, and the strange noises at night. It feels good to finally be settled in one place, and (somewhat) unpacked, although I am still living out of my suitcase.

My first full day in Chocola, my host sister Sonya, who is my age, showed me around town. We walked to the bosque, which is a big park with a basketball court, tables, and benches, and we sat down and talked for a while at one of the tables. We walked through the streets, past brightly colored houses, tiny tiendas, the big coffee processing plant in the center of town, the market where vegetables, fruits, and meats are sold, and the camioneta stop outside the market. We wove through groves of banana trees and coffee plants, following some of the unruly dirt roads in town, which are spotted with puddles and lots of rocks. We sat for a while on a big rock, watching a group of children outside their school, doing excercises for phys ed class (they enjoyed putting on a show for the onlooking foreigner), and climbed a big hill from which you can see all of Chocola.

After touring the town, we returned home for a lunch of fried fish (it was pretty much a whole fish on my plate), vegetables, and of course, tortillas. My family cooks everything over a fire behind the house. I have been trying to help Juana, Sonya, and Franci cook meals, and I´m slowly learning to make tortillas. It is a lot harder than it looks (actually, it looks pretty hard)! Juana can make about three perfectly round tortillas in the amount of time it takes me to make one, thicker and somewhat oddly-shaped tortilla. But I am learning, and it certainly is a thrill to eat tortillas that I made with my own hands. I told Juana that it is a good thing I have all year to practice...maybe by the time I return home, I will be able to make my own tortillas for family and friends!

I spent most of my first afternoon playing hopscotch with Mindy (the youngest in the family, five years old), Armando (the granson), and Ludwy. Ludwy drew lines in the dirt with a machete, and we used rocks for the markers. Mindy just hopped and spun around without paying any attention to the lines. :) Mindy is so cute, and she has already become very attached to me. Juana told me the other night that Mindy has been praying for me before she goes to bed! How sweet! Mindy is very curious, and she always comes in my room to investigate what I have out on my desk. The other day, she made me show her all my photos of my family and friends, and she had many questions about everyone.

So far, I have been spending a lot of my time just getting to know my family and the town. At times, I´m not really sure what I´m supposed to be doing, because my work isn´t really delineated for me. For now, I am just accompanying my host sisters and brothers when they go out to different places, whether it be to the market, or the panaderia (bread shop) or to grind corn for tortillas at the molina. I am slowly figuring out Cholcola, and meeting people at the church, and finding opportunities to be present to people here.

I have been going to the church quite often (they have services every night), and attending different events with my family. My host father Miguel is an elder at the church, and the whole family is very involved in the life of the church. The congregation is fairly small (the Menchu family makes up a good percentage of the attendees), but there is a lot of life and energy there. My first night in Chocola, one of the elders from the church gave me a hymnal with the music to all the hymns (all the other hymnals just have the words, no music, because everyone knows the hymns by heart). The church has an old keyboard, but it has gone mostly unused, because no one knows how to play it. The music at the services is led by a single man or woman who sings acapella over a microphone, at the top of his or her lungs, and often out of key. The elders of the church are all very excited to have someone who can play the teclado (keyboard). I have been going to the church some afternoons with Sonya to learn some of the hymns - she sings while I play the teclado.
Last Thursday night, I had my first music gig at the church. About an hour before the service, the singer for the night (Carlos) gave me about 7 or 8 hymns; I quickly learned them, with the help of Sonya, and was pretty much expecting to be a rock star at the service...for there to be applause and cheering, and a big parade afterward. I prayed to God before the service that my music would be for His glory, and not my own, and He certainly answered my prayer, in a very humbling and funny way. About halfway through the service, the keyboard stopped working (I think it shorts out when it is on for too long), so I told Carlos to sing the next song without me. So he started, and then halfway through the song, the keyboard came back on, but by that time eveyone had already started singing in a totally different key, so it was useless to try to join in. Also, different people kept coming up front to sing different hymns that were not on my master list, and that I had never heard before. So I just let them sing without me, as I sat up at the keyboard smiling and laughing to myself a little bit. Nevertheless, all the church elders were still thrilled to have someone at the keyboard, and I´m afraid they are going to expect me to play every night. I am excited to bring music to this church, and I am hoping that I can teach some people lessons, so that when I leave, someone else will be able to accompany the services on the teclado. I have to adjust and improvise a lot, because the congregation sings a lot of the hymns in a different rythym than is written in the hymnal...It is quite interesting at times. :) But in many ways, I think the music is so much more sincere- unrehearsed, raw, and from the heart. It doesn´t matter so much if the notes are perfect.



Other highlights from the week:

1) There was an earthquake here last Thursday! Actually, it was just a tremor here, but apparently it was pretty strong in other parts of the country. I have never felt one before, and it was very strange to feel the earth moving under my feet!

2) I got to ride on the back of a motorcycle with my brother Pablo to Santo Tomas! We went to go buy bread, but the shop was closed, so we just rode around a bunch to see the town. It was kind of scary, especially on some of the windy and rocky dirt roads!

3) I think there was a scorpion in my room the other day...I saw it on my door, and tried to swat it out of my room with a notebook, but it scurried under my bed and disappeared, never to be seen again. I slept very restlessly that night.

4) I am still afraid to get up in the night to go to the bathroom, since I have to walk around the house in the pitch dark (the bathroom is sort of like an outhouse). Also, a huge cockroach and the biggest spider I have ever seen live behind the toilet.

5) I think I might have eaten shark the other day for lunch! We had this broth thing, with fish, crab, and shrimp, and there was an unidentified piece of something, with very thick and slippery skin. I thought it was a fish I had never seen before, but after I ate it, I heard Juana tell Miguel that it was shark!


6) It has been raining quite a lot here lately, and the roof over my bed has started to leak. :(

There is so much more to write and not enough time...Hopefully I will write again soon! Until then, que les vaya bien!!

Visit to Chocola

So much has happened since my last (very exciting) post...let´s catch up. Last Sunday we visited Chocola, which is where I will be heading off on my own in two weeks (!) to live and work for the rest of the year. The whole day was amazing, and I was so encouraged and excited and overwhelmed all at the same time. Before our visit to Chocola, I was feeling a little discouraged and struggling to understand why I´m here and what my purpose is in these first few weeks. My main purpose and goal right now is to learn Spanish - I´m in sort of a preparation stage for what is to come. It has been difficult to feel like I haven´t quite started my "work" here - I´m ready to go out on my own and start building relationships with people and truly becoming part of a community. It seems like Chocola is going to be the perfect place for me to do this.

Everyone in the community was so welcoming and gracious and kind, and I was so touched by the open and loving hearts that met me there. When we first arrived in Chocola, we met with some of the elders from the Horeb Presbyterian Church (where I will be working), and they were incredibly warm and welcoming. They kept calling me their hermana (sister), and talking about how we are all one because of the love of Christ - we are all part of the same family and same body. There were so many moments throughout the day when I was just so overwhelmed , overjoyed, and grateful for the outpouring of love I felt - tears welled up in my eyes.

After being welcomed by some of the elders from the church and talking about some of the possibilities and responsibilities I will have during the year, we ate a delicious meal together that was prepared by some ladies from the church. Then, we went to meet my host family!!!! They are wonderful and were so excited to have me there - I feel like I am really going to be accepted into the family as a daughter and a sister. The parents, Juana and Miguel, have 14 children (!!), although I think only 8 or 9 are currently living in the house. I´m so excited to have so many brothers and sisters - I think I will never be without someone to talk to! My first challenge is going to be learning everyone´s name...

I also got to see my room - it is painted a bright, cheery blue and has a big window that opens to the outside. On the bed is a red, shiny beadspread, with a heart in the center, that looks kind of like it should be in a honeymoon suite...haha. I think I am going to feel very much at home here, and I am so excited to become part of the family. I can picture myself really coming alive here...I was imaging myself making all these drawings and covering the walls of my room with artwork, and singing each morning in my room, and playing music at the church, and feeling like part of the community.

Ahhhh, also, my family has a PIG and chickens and two turkeys...I´m super excited! Except I don´t want to become too attached, since they will probably become dinner one night...

After meeting my host family, we went back to the church to go to the afternoon service. Just as the service was starting, it started downpouring, and the rain was so loud on the metal roof that we could barely hear anything. The woman who was leading the songs was singing at the top of her lungs over a microphone. It was such a genuine way to be praising God - I think that if it weren´t raining so hard, we wouldn´t have had to listen so intently or sing our praises so loudly, straining to lift our voices up to God.

I´m so excited to head off on my own to Chocola in less than two weeks!

New Discoveries

So today, I discovered two things:

1. If I jiggle the shower nozzel several times and position it just right, I get about 30 seconds of (luke)warm water - it is amazing.

2. Yesterday my friend Celeste said that she bought a ball of soap (jabon en bola), and she loves the smell of it and wants to just carry it around like a baby all day long. Since then, I have been trying to take note of different smells, because these are the things I am going to remember. I´ve noticed that the bathroom in my house definitely has a distinct smell ( I know this because I have spent a lot of time in there recently...) - it´s not really a bathroom smell, but it´s a smell nonetheless.

Also, it has been raining for the past three days and probably will never stop. I washed some of my clothes by hand yesterday in the pila (a stone basin divided into three sections) and hung my clothes up to dry, but I think they are just going to grow mold instead. It is very wet; I live on the top of a hill, and there is a river of water running down my street.