Un buen fin de semana

Well, two more days have passed, and another month´s worth of stuff has happened. So we went to the village, las flores (the flowers) Friday night and stayed yesterday until about 2:30. The village seemed like a different world from the Guatemala City, and definitely from the States. We got there Friday night (we were actually in different towns Friday night and Saturday morning... I´m not sure what the first one was called, but the second was definitely las Flores) and our first job was to paint the school that they had built there. Now I don´t love painting, but it was fun. But it was hot. The temperature here in Guatemala city is just about perfect because it´s almost at 5,000 feet of elevation: it gets up to the low 80s, and in the sun it can get pretty hot but inside or in the shade, it´s excellent, and there´s usually a nice breeze blowing. But in this town, which was definitely not at elevation, it was pretty hot. Especially on a ladder inside a building without windows that open. The people I was painting with said more than once: sudas mucho. That means: you sweat a lot. Si. But it was good, we painted the school and then they put on a movie, but Fabiola (David´s wife), Romeo (a guy with us), and I went back to Romeo´s house to sleep. So we woke up about 5 the next morning (the latest I´ve woken up yet is 7:30 today) and went to Las Flores. At 8, we served a breakfast of cereal with warm milk, fruit, yogurt, and granola. It went well, then me and another guy, Pedro, who is about my age, maybe a year younger, played with the kids for a few hours. Afterwards, we just hung out for a couple hours while we were waiting for other people to get there to take us all back to Guate (the city). While we were waiting, the people served us lunch. It was good, soup and tortillas (you can count on tortillas with every meal here) and a little pork as well. The only weird thing was that the fish soup had an entire fish in it. Fins, head, everything. It was a new experience for me. But it was excellent, actually. So we got back and went to church (they have church Saturday night and Sunday as well), then came back here. And then this morning we went back to church, then this afternoon I played soccer for a couple hours with about 15 other guys from the church at a park that has a TON of soccer fields. And when I say fields, I mean something more like marked dust. With rocks. I fell twice and managed to get 4 open wounds. Que divertido. It was a lot of fun, though, and afterwards they bought a bunch of bags of water (yes, bags) and we talked for a little bit, and now I´m here.

So that´s the main summary of what´s happened the last few days, but obviously my experience goes much deeper than just external happenings.

When I said the village was a lot different than the city, I meant it in a lot of ways. First of all, it´s a lot slower. We ate lunch then sat for about an hour and a half while we talked and they made fun of the gringo a little bit because of his camelbak. They said when I drank from the hose on the camelbak it seemed like I was sucking on a ¨chiche¨. The context clues should give you enough to figure that one out, but if not, think babies and milk. And not from a bottle.

The other thing that was very different from the city was the poverty. It´s certainly not that the people here in Guate are rich by our standards. It doesn´t take long to figure that one out. But they have enough to live fairly comfortably (and when I say they, I mean the people I´ve encountered so far. By no means is it everybody) and have a few unnecessary comforts, too. But this village, man, poverty was in your face here. I mean, the things you see on TV: kids without shoes, with torn clothes the pretty obviously haven´t been washed recently, things like that. But oh, how much happier than us they seem. And how much they share. I didn´t take too many pictures, but I have a few. I wish I had taken more. Does anybody know of a good picture-sharing site I can use to put the ones I have online? Just post it as a comment, if you could, and then next time I´ll have pictures to share. Muchas gracias.

But back to the point. I´ve already been thinking about this for the past year or so, but this visit definitely reinforced my thoughts: MAN are we greedy in America. It kind of puts everything in perspective when you see a place like that, and even more to know that the people there are happier, without doubt, than most of us. It´s pretty humbling.

Now on to something a bit happier. After feeling a bit lost the first couple days, and a little lonely, God sent me a pretty big blessing on Friday. A guy that came with us on the trip, Luis (not sure if that´s how you spell it, but anyway...), just came back from being in the United States for 8 years and he spoke perfect English. And obviously, perfect Spanish as well. He spoke English to me and I spoke Spanish to him, and when I didn´t know a word I´d ask him and when he said something a little off I corrected him... it was awesome. He´s one of the nicest people I´ve met here (and the standards are pretty high). I don´t know exactly how much he helped me with my Spanish, but I´m pretty sure it was a lot because now it´s a lot easier to understand everybody else when they speak. I even catch a good bit of the full-speed conversation. Speed is definitely the biggest difference between Spanish class and the Spanish-speaking world. It´s tough, but I´m catching on and learning new words and learning what´s wrong with my grammar and everything. It´s nice. So thanks be to God for Luis, and also everybody else here who is patient with my undeveloped Spanish skills. They really are an amazing group of people.

So by now I´ve grown accustomed to life here, I´m beginning to be more confident in my Spanish, and from experience I believe that God´s definitely not gonna leave me alone here. And the happiness and faith of the people, both in the villages and the city, is both encouraging and humbling.

In short, it´s been a good weekend.