Still Mulling...

It has been almost a month since I said goodbye to my parents in Antigua and they headed back home to the States. It has been a busy month, so I haven't had a whole lot of time to really ponder their visit, but I have been mulling over some conversations we had while they were here.

It was fun to see Guatemala through their eyes... there are so many things that I have just gotten used to--like cows in the road, lots of trash, the beautfil volcanoes, latrines, Spanish--that was neat to see through their eyes again. Not that I'm quite considering myself Guatemalan... there are still a lot of things I definitely haven't gotten used to, and I am still definitely a Gringa here, but I have grown accustomed to some things over the past 8 months.

One, thing, though, that has stuck with me since my parents' visit was their response to seeing some of the communities we drove through on a day trip to the coast from Xela. When we got back Mom said she had been surprised/taken aback by the "abject poverty" of some of the communities we drove through. It got me thinking, because I didn't see what I would have described as "abject poverty," and I wasn't sure and still am not sure of the reason for our different responses.

What worries me is that maybe we did pass through communities living in "abject poverty" and I've gotten used to or numb to seeing that. I try to think back to what I might have thought eight months ago, but I have changed so much that it's really hard. I do remember being somewhat shocked when I first saw my home stay house and realized that there was no indoor plumbing, no shower, and concrete floors. But now I'm used to it, and I like it. I like feeling like I'm living a lower-impact life (although I do miss being able to walk around barefoot on carpet sometimes!).

I have also had the privelage of seeing lots of different homes in different communities through work visits that we do, and so I think that I know what some of the families in the houses that my parents and I passed might be like on the inside. Of course, I can't be sure, but I feel like I have a fairly good idea. I'm just not sure if I'm being realistic because I do know more how people can live and live happily but simply or if I'm becoming numb or complacent to other people's hardships.

Not that a life in any of the houses we passed would be easy, but I think my definition of what I/we need to be happy has changed some already this year, and I'm just not sure whether my mom's response or mine is closer to the truth or closer to what Jesus' response might have been (although I feel sure Jesus would not have been in the air conditioned car drinking bottled water with us having a semantic discussion about whether the people we were passing were living in "abject poverty").

Mango Fiasco

So I've been really enjoying the past six weeks or so, because it is mango season. Or at least I was enjoying the fresh, juicy, sweet and tart mangos til about a week ago. Then I found out that I'm really allergic to that sticky stuff that was on the outside of the peel of a mango I ate Saturday morning.

So I thoroughly enjoyed my mango on Saturday morning, then left for my retreat at the beach with the other YAVs, feeling like I had the startings of a cold sore on my lip. Then I woke up Sunday morning at 4:45 to go on a tour of the mangroves at sunrise and found that my lip was HUGE! I could hardly even talk. I also had the startings of some nasty sores on the corners of my lip and all over my top lip. So, not wanting to miss the mangrove tour I popped to Benadry (thanks to the always-prepared YAV, Dana) and set out on our little excursion. Did I mention I had also only slept about 3 hours that night because it was SOOO hot we couldn't fall asleep, even with a fan on?

So I don't remember much from the tour, but there is one picture that I apparently took for the 2 seconds I wasn't worried about falling asleep and pitching over the side of the little boat. The other picture is of the ocean, which you can't swim in because of reall dangerous rip tides.

But anyway, we actually left the retreat a day early and all traveled to Antigua so Dana and I could go to the doctor (turns out she had parasites!). When I walked into the doctor's office and he saw my swollen, pus-ey lips and rash all over my face (which cropped up on Monday), he said "aye-yai-yai. Have you been eating mangos?" We're still not positive that's what it was, since you never can be with allergies, but he said lots of people are allergic to this sticky stuff on the peel. It's not the fruit itself (I've actually already had a mango smoothie since then!), so thats a relief, although I'm still a little wary about eating them.

My face is much improved today than it has been the past few days, thanks to any number of medical remedies... from steriods my dad recommended, to the cream made from cammomile the doctor gave me, to special teas and rose-water baths prepared by my host mom. And it probably didn't hurt, either, that lots of people were praying for me and my face at the office and in my family.

I, thankfully, have not had any major illnesses this year, but I have had some ailments I never had to deal with before--ongoing digestive issues, a cough in Nov and December that bruised something in my rib area that still bothers me, I stuck a dirty nail in my finger trying to make an Advent wreath, and now this crazy rash on my face.

All of this, though, has made me realize how much I take for granted accesible and basically reliable health care that I enjoy in the States. I realize that even among US citizens I am extremely blessed to have not only a father who can give me free (and usually trustworthy) medical advice, but that I also have amazing insurance and parents that help pay for whatever costs come up. Here, not only do I not really know good and reliable doctors, but there is a much wider range in quality of health care. For example, the national hospitals, which is what most Guatemalans can afford, are so overrun they would have laughed me out the door with my rash and swollen lips had I gone there as an average Guatemalan citizen. So many things I took...and still take... for granted.

Thinking Ahead

Since I arrived here in Guatemala, I knew I would only be here for about a year. So I knew this time would come when I would have to make plans for... the FUTURE. I kinda tried to put it off, but here I am thinking about what to do when I return in three months.

At first I thought I would go on to grad school or divinity school when I got back, but I don't quite feel ready for that, and plus, I don't really have the motivation to write essays at this point when I'm in the middle of so many other experiences that feel so far away from academia in a lot of ways. Then I thought maybe I'd get a job and save money for school like a responsible young adult... but nah.

So maybe I'd work some temporary jobs... like some environmental education program in the fall, some time working on the US/Mexican border with No More Deaths or some other organization that would let me use my Spanish still and that would relate to newfound interests. But I'm a planner. So the floating around-ness of that kinda made me crazy.

So, I've finally come full circle and have decided to do another YAV year in the US. I have interviewed with the site coordinators at both Nashville and Atlanta, and tomorrow I will send in my form to the YAV office saying how I feel about each site... whether I
a) feel called by God to go there
b) would like to go there
c)will go there if they send me there or
d) will not go no matter what
Or it goes something like that at least.

I'm really excited about this opportunity to do another YAV year, especially because I think the transition back to US life may be more difficult than I can anticipate at this point. And all of the YAV sites in the US have a strong emphasis on intentional Christian communitiy living. I also hope that this will help me discover how to use what I've learned and experienced and how I've changed this year in a US context. This year in Guatemala has been so different from my "normal" life, that it might be easy to compartmentalize it and say "well that was good year, but now I'm back here with my AC and indoor plumbing, etc. phew." Which is not what I want to do. I feel like I need to start putting into practice some of the changes I want to make in my life as soon as I get back to the States, and I think and hope that a national YAV year will help me do just that.

Bring on the Rain

Last Wednesday, the rains began here in the Highlands of Guatemala. I have never lived in a place that marks the cycle of the year by "dry" and "wet" seasons until this year. I have to say, I had been missing the springtime of East Tennessee, but with that first week of hard rains here in Xela I feel much of the same excitement over the newness that I feel in an East Tennessee springtime.

The rain brings with it a welcome relief from the dust that settles on and in everything here during the winter a.k.a. the dry season. It also brings a visible hope of new life, as the earth gives almost spontaneous birth to sprouts of corn from seeds my family planted about a month ago.

This rainy season that has come seems a timely reminder of the Easter story that Christians celebrated only a week and a half ago...a reminder of the hope and new life that the resurrection represents.

So although I know that the rainy season brings its own problems...muddy rivers of trash flowing through the streets, downpours in the late afternoons when we're walking home from a community visit, and new obstacles for laundry day... I'm enjoying it now, and am feeling very grateful for this new season and the new life that it brings to the earth.

Thoughts on Easter

So I used to be really uncomfortable with the whole Holy Week and Easter part of Christianity. Too much blood and guts. And I was never (and still am not) quite sure what to do about the whole theological significance of the crucifixion and resurrection. I often feel like too much of Christianity is centered around this part of Jesus' life, and it keeps us Christians looking up to the sky--waiting to go up, or for him to come back--at the expense of looking around us and seeing the world we live in--both the beauty and the pain of it.

I'm still uncomfortable sometimes with this whole part of my faith tradition, and I still don't quite know how to understand the theology of this week, but being in Guatemala these past few months has significantly changed my perspective on the Holy Week story.

A big part of that change was reading a few books about Padre Stanley Rother, an American priest from Oklahoma who served in the Santiago Atitlan parish for about 13 years during the time of the armed conflict here until his assassination by a Death Squad in July 1981. One book I read about him was a collection of letters he wrote to people back in the States called "The Shepherd Cannot Run," and another is by Henri Nouwen called "Love in a Fearful Land." Padre Rother wrote in several letters to family and friends back home that although things weren't exactly safe in Guatemala that "the shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger."

Rother wasn't particularly political...in fact, he tried to stay out of politics, which was hard for me to accept at first when I was reading about him. It was hard for me to accept that someone would be consciously a-political in a country that needed him to be a voice for the people there (at least the way I saw it as a 20-something American looking back almost 30 years later). But I guess there are many ways to live the gospel, and not all of them include being political activists.

In the end, though, I think he couldn't help but be a little political--How could he stay quiet when his very own parishioners--his sheep--were being taken away in the night by the government? People speculate now that he was assassinated for things he said when he did return to the States for a few months after he found out that his name was on one of the government/military's "lists." But when he did return to his home in Guatemala after a few months in the States, he was assassinated in his bedroom one night in July.

He may not have been at the front of the revolution, but he did sacrifice his life for his people in more ways than one. Nobody speculates that he was suicidal, but he had to know the risks in returning to Guatemala--he even wrote about it in his letters.

This story, along with thinking about this season of Lent that is coming to a close and Easter that we will celebrate tomorrow made me thinking a lot about the story of Easter and the martyrdom of Jesus. I'm not squeamish in real life, but when it comes to religion, when I hear about blood I tend to turn tail and run. But this story of Father Rother, along with the stories of other people here in Guatemala willing to sacrifice their lives to fight for their people has made an impact on my thinking about the events of Holy Week. (I also realize that there are martyrs from my own culture, but something about my time here, maybe because it's new to me or because it happened so recently or because Guatemala is still an "underdog", has made a much bigger impact on me than stories I've heard from my own country's history).

I still don't know what to do with the "died for our sins" theology, but I do know that Jesus felt strong convictions to live the way he thought was right and that he continued living that life of service and love even when he found out his name was on a "list." Theology aside, the sacrifice of martyrdom that is a huge part of the Christian faith is pretty incredible, and I can live with just that for this Holy Week.

Semana Santa festivities

I've been spending Holy Week (Semana Santa) in Antigua this year... which is kinda like being in Dublin for St. Patty's Day or something. It seems like pretty much the whole world is here. And for good reason. It's really cool.

First of all, there are HUGE processions (not parades) that each of the major churches here do. And, actually, last night there was a procession that came from a church in a neighboring town that walked their huge float things all the way to Antigua. Float isn't the right word. I don't really know what you would call them, but there are these huge wooden platforms that the people of the church carry around for 11 hours. They work in shifts carrying them, but each big wooden float thing requires 40-100 people to carry it. The one we saw last night that came from the neighboring town had 100 men carrying it. The men carry the bigger ones with the Jesus on them, and the women carry the slightly smaller (but still huge and really heavy) platforms with Mary. There are also Roman Centurians running around on horses and reading decrees to crucify Jesus.

The whole town also participates in the processions by making carpets in the streets for the processions to walk over. They're called carpets, but they're made out of either pine needles, flowers, or colored saw dust, or a combination of any of those, and they're gorgeous.

my two families meet each other!

My parents (my biological ones) came to visit me here in Guatemala. They got here about two weeks ago and stayed for ten days. I was actually a little anxious about them coming... it wasn't really like any travel they had done before. I was also nervous about being a translator by myself for ten days, but everything went pretty smoothly. It was a little strange, though, because in the past when I've traveled with my parents they've been in charge--they've planned the trip, they make reservations and such when we're actually on the trip, and all that. But this time, I had to do all the talking (it's been a while since they had Spanish classes). I also taught Mom how to wash clothes by hand in the pila (the big sinks) and taught them both how to make tortillas with my host mom. So there were some role-reversals on this trip...

We ended up staying with my host family for 3 nights in the middle of our trip. I'm really glad that both my moms know each other now :) The kids all loved my parents too... we went to a pool one day with the whole extended family and my dad threw the kids around, a few of them even learned how to swim that day, and other kids hung off of my mom while she swam around the pool.

It was also nice to get to relax and spend my birthday with Mom and Dad on Lake Atitlan in a hotel I wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford on my volunteer stipend :) It wasn't expensive, but it was more than my $9 per night hostels I usually stay in. It was also gorgeous and peaceful and calm (and had a really nice bathroom, which I was really grateful for one day when I got sick).

All in all it was a really fun and relaxing vacation. And I know my families loved meeting each other.