Culture Shock -- Relocating to San Tomas

Living With Yolie: Feb 14-18

There are three rooms in the house: A kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom. There are five family members. I sleep in a lumpy bed in the corner of the living room, wondering if perhaps the pillow is stuffed with rolled up nylon stockings. The back bedroom holds all five family members. I consider my Dad's snoring, and cannot fathom how they manage.

But this family is wealthy in comparison to others in the Guatemalan lower class. They have a dairy cow, a mule, and some chickens. Each morning, I wake at four to the crow of roosters, and cannot go back to sleep. I'll admit to morning crankiness as the stench of animal dung attacks the house... Yolie's husband is already busy milking the cow and mucking the stalls, err... driveway.

Yolie's cuisine is typically Latin, and I am thrilled to have a large plate of beans, rice, plantains and fresh cream. Each morning, Edgar, Yolie's 8 year old son, is sent down the street to the "Tortillarilla" to get a basket of corn tortillas from a gossiping trio of local ladies that make dough and pat pat the balls between their palms.

Unlike Antigua, no one in this little farming town speaks English. Out of neccesity, my Spanish is slowly coming along, but I am a little paranoid as Yolie's family talks over dinner, then laugh when they recognize the blank look on my face. Thankfully, the old Sony radio plays constantly on the kitchen counter, and I can both learn from the Spanish beat and take refuge in Debbie Gibson.

Antigua, DAY 5

It´s Day 5 and my stomach is finally starting to untie... if only I would stop eating mango, pineapple and tostado, I could avoid the Tums altogether.

I arrived in Guate City safe and sound on Saturday night. The Beenes´ picked me up, and, but for the armed men at the door of the airport, I wouldn´t have even known I was in a different country. We chatted late into Saturday night, then went to a HUGE church in Guatemala City on Sunday morning, where I listened to a translator with very nerdy earphones.

Sunday afternoon, we all drove the Beene Suburban a quick 45 minutes to the touristy colonial city of Antigua, where all of the buildings are yellow and pink, and the streets, though crowded with volkswagens and three wheeled ¨Tut tuts¨, are set with cobblestone. After lunch, I met up with Melanie, another missionary who works with the Beenes. Melanie arranged for me to stay with her in the sprawling colonial-style home of ´Carmen,¨a kind-hearted, if slightly frazzled South Carolinian expat.

So my first two nights were spent in an old room adorned with American navy medallions, old flags, and books on political theory. I enrolled at a Spanish school down the street, and ate three meals a day courtesy of Carmen, who frantically brought out salt and pepper shakers, napkins, and forgotten courses as we ate.

Of course, being the ultra-savvy traveller that I am, I decided to push my comfort zone a little more... Carmen´s place was comfortable, but with four American women living in one house, the atmosphere took on that of a discontent boarding house, and there was little hope of improving my Spanish when I had access to CNN, Fox, and a group of Americans to fall back on.

Enter Greg and Bucky, the ex-Peace Corps Volunteers (thank you for the reference, Elizabeth Mays!) who started a non-profit program in Guatemala, and invited me to a hygene presentation up the hill from Antigua, in a little town named Santa Tomas. After the presentation (of which I gathered ¨don´t poop in the river¨and ¨don´t drink from the sink¨) , they introduced me to Yolie, a native Guatemalan who gives talks to tiny Pueblitas throughout the area, and suggested I live with her and her family in order to get a real taste of Guatemala... sans running water, English, and a comfortable bed.

And so... to Yolie I must hurry! Dinner will be on the table soon, and my 15 minute busride is absolute chaos!
more later...love and prayers for all

La Busqueda: The Quest

I never deal well along the fault lines of change.

Here I go, Flight 2329. Arriving in Guatemala City at 9:05. I'm not particularly excited... just worried whether I should bring my sleeping bag. Will my camera work? I wish I had more music on my IPOD. What if this turns out to be a bad idea? I am defintely sweating the small stuff.

La busqueda de la certeza now ayuda a descubrir nuestras posibilidades.
La incertidumbre es la principal limitacion para que el hombre pueda desarollar sus poderes.

The Quest for Certainty blocks the search for meaning.
Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.
-- Erich Fromm