Dios de la hueva

This past weekend, I had the fantastic opportunity to go to the Mayan ruins of Tikal in the state of Peten. Tikal, in its day, was perhaps the most important city in the Mayan world, meaning that it was huge and they built quite an impressive city structure of plazas, living areas, and of course the famous, massive temples. It was pretty fabtastic.

We left Friday morning for a mission near Rio Dulce, and got to our destination about 1 o`clock or so. We went swimming in el Lago de Izabal (lake Izabal) for the afternoon, went to the church in the village to eat dinner (hen soup (mine had the liver, I think) with roasted hen and tortillas) and then we went to sleep. The morning was like all the missions: we fed breakfast (cereal, bread, eggs, and more of those nasty vienna sausageish things), some gave Bible classes, some played with the kids, and me and Raul gave a class on health. We showed a video with a song, and the song was stuck in my head the rest of the day. Para crecer, debemos comer... poco de todo y masticar bien. In order to grow up, we should eat a little of everything and chew well. Musical and lyrical genius.

Then some of the group returned to the city and Santa, Jaime, Marisol and I went to Tikal, which is quite a drive. If you look at a map of Guatemala, there`s a big part that sticks out the top sort of stuck between Mexico and Belize... near the top of that is Tikal. Guatemala City is in the South Central part of the counrty, and Rio Dulce is to the East of the city where the big lake narrows before making the final journey into the sea. Quite a bit of driving this weekend.

Anyway, we got to Flores, Peten, and walked around a little bit and took a boat ride to a little zoo there, then we headed on to Tikal. We camped Saturday night in the park and then Sunday woke up early to head into the ruins. We walked around and enjoyed the ruins for about 5 hours, then rested a bit before beginning the LONG journey back home. I won`t tell you much about the actual ruins, since words couldn`t really explain it. I`ll put up pictures in the next few days, and those should suffice as an explanation.

As to the name of this post... ¨Dios de la hueva¨ means something like God of the slackers. When you have ¨hueva¨ it means you`re a little lazy and sort of sleepy all the time, kinda like a sloth I guess. Anyway, at times I was such on this trip. Riding in the car for hours on end and getting minimal amounts of sleep does that to you. But I think most of the time, when my mood was being mistaken for ¨hueva¨ it`s because my thoughts were elsewhere. My friends who are abroad right now have all said sort of similar things: there`s an odd mix between loving the place where you are and yearning for what you miss about home. I got an e-mail from a friend the other day (she`s studying abroad in Argentina this semester) that said she went camping in one of the most beautiful spots she`s ever been and the whole time was thinking about how much she thought her Dad would enjoy it. That was my experience in Tikal. I was amazed at the work of the Mayans, that their huge structures that have lasted all these years (the site was populated a couple hundred years BC then rose to its greatest glory around 500 AD or so), amazed at the beauty of the jungle surrounding the ruins, enjoying myself completely climbing these ancient and mystical structures, yet the whole time I was thinking, ¨oh, Salem would really enjoy this,¨ or ¨Brent would think this is sweet,¨ or ¨I`d love to come here for family vacation sometime.¨ It`s an odd mix of gratefulness for where you are and yearning for home. It`s like I want the world to fold over so the two places can run together.

So now, once again, it`s back to the joy of teaching here in the city. Every day I enjoy the teaching more and more... as the kids get to know me better, as I get better at communicating with them, it gets more fun. It`s fantastic when the kids tell me they don`t want me to go or they`re glad I`m here to teach English. Makes my day.

Watch for new pictures in the next few days.

Daniel