Today I am staying at the mission house while the rest of the team goes out. I asked Don, the guy in charge, if it was ok, and he said yes. I feel fine, but I have regretted other trips I have taken when I do not have some time to myself. I think it is because I am one who likes to "smell the roses" as they say. And I like to see the big picture and understand how everything fits together. That is hard to do when we are focused only on the task at hand.
As soon as the trucks and vans, loaded with people and supplies, pulled out, a car with cleaning women pulled in. Since then they been cleaning, sweeping and mopping, just like Veronica and her crew do when they come to my house! There is a little extra work for them today. Water for the house comes by way of a cistern that must be filled manually and stopped manually. One of the men in our team was assigned to do that job. When we got in last night, he turned it on, and a couple of hours later we saw and felt the flooded downstairs! He had not stopped it! After sopping and wringing, mopping and squeezing, and sweeping water out the door, we finally got most of it off the floor. The Guatemalan women took care of the rest of the mess quickly. Now the house is beginning to smell like the cleaning supplies Veronica brings when she comes, sort of a chemical lavender.
All of our meals come from the house kitchen. A nice young man who is in school for his Masters of Divinity is in charge of cooking and has planned every meal. He, and whoever else shows up to help, cook a big traditional breakfast. After that, peanut butter, jelly, nutella and various processed "meats" and cheese, white bread, chips and packaged cookies are spread on the table for us to assemble and bag for our lunches. We make one for ourselves and one to give away to whichever Guatemalan we are with. When we share at the work site, they enjoy their lunch bags as much as we do. Last night, we made fresh guacamole with chips as an appetizer before the dinner of pulled pork, roasted potatoes and green beans. Tonight it will be tacos. So far, the good coffee grown right here is my favorite part of the day.
Since I am back at the ranch, I will be doing some prep work to help with tonight's meal.
Tonight we are going to a local church that they call "Max's Church." Those who have been before said it will be packed and that we will be the only gringos.
We landed in Guatemala City on Sunday and drove through there, catching lots of sights. At the big box store (and other places) armed guards are standing in something like deer stands watching and waiting. I read that the city is rife with crime.
Guatemala reminds me of the Philippines. The poor are happy and industrious. It is easy to see why Jesus came to the common man, and why he said it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. I imagine somewhere there is a corrupt government system. are lots of children at the places we have been, and they are very loved.
Our first job yesterday went smoothly. "They" say that at some places it is almost impossible to get the post hole digger in, but our soil was loamy and easy. The men got the building up in about four hours. We Americans brought baubles, beads and elastic for jewelry making, bubbles, coloring books and crayons, gummy bears, and other little goodies to keep the children and women occupied. Our group constantly took pictures with their phones, and one of the young men whipped his out of his pocket and did the same. I was surprised he wanted to take a video of me, but I obliged.
One of the village women was forcefully washing clothes in a tub that was rigged up to collect and use rainwater. Then after much wringing out and shaking, she hung the damp clothes on the stretched clothes line. Cleanliness is valued, I can tell. I gave one of Ned's T shirts to the man of the new house. He participated in the construction, and was happy to get it!
The team brought over a hundred deflated soccer balls that were inflated after we arrived. They have been tossed out here and there, and the kids who get them are overjoyed with delight
At our second job yesterday, a pretty young woman was sitting at a sewing machine by the door of her corrugated metal home to take advantage of her only source of light. We seemed to make a connection. Thanks to Connie's teaching me Spanish when we were in high school, I can ask a few questions such as "Como se llama?" Jacqueline was making pleated aprons from colorful, local fabric. When we left, she gave us one that she had sewn a rope of shiny sequined things on that read "Welcome Guatemala." Maybe Don will leave it at the mission house for other groups to see. Also at that spot, the old woman brought us bananas that I presume were just picked. They were smaller and sweeter than the ones I buy at HT. Rising behind the property were the most enormous and gorgeous single leaves I have ever seen. A banana tree! The extended family in this third world compound also had a chicken and biddies, ducks, a rabbit, a cat, beautiful flowers, and a little white puppy that we all wished we could take home. One of the cutes scenes was the way the baby chicks rode on their mothers back! The species all seemed to get along well yet do their own thing. Chicken, duck, rabbit, and cat. The good Lord made them all.
After our second job yesterday, we drove over to the site where the other half of our team was working. Getting there was a story in itself of steep hills and rough roads, but once there we found a happy, tight group of Guatemalans. One man was named Felipe Corona. That is Veronica's last name! Some women were shelling a huge basket of peas. One pea sheller showed interest in the hat I was wearing, so I took it off and gave it to her. Such big smiles from the entire group! One of our women was playing music from a speaker connected to her iPad and kids were trying to sing and dance along. And one of the metal homes built by an earlier mission team was filled with wonderful dressed up local women who let us join them. It is good to see how the homes are used.
They say the weather is always like spring here, so I can see why they don't need HVAC. Some places do have electricity but not most. The soil is rich and black, packed down where often trod on and loose and muddy elsewhere. I love the feminine dress of the Guatemalan women. They do not dress in jeans and tee shirts or in bland clothing that a man could also wear like we Americans do. There is no mistaking they are women! Their fabrics have designs of vibrant primary and secondary colors, and they mostly wear dresses! They hold their babies in long beautiful swaths of fabric and drape them over their backs or fronts.
Before meals and jobs, one of the team members has been asked to offer a short prayer. A couple of the "kids" here have started theirs with "Hey God!" I know God is magnanimous toward His children and looks on the heart, but is it truly respectful toward the One who made us and suffered His Son to be tortured and murdered for us? Generation gap, I suppose. It is not mine to judge, but it is different from our more reverent and serious sounding, "Dear Lord" or "Heavenly Father." I have not been asked to pray, but when I am, it will probably sound old fashioned to these college kids.
Out the window where I am sitting is a beautiful vista of blue mountains whose tops are partly obscured by a low layer of soft white clouds. The clouds rise as far as my eye can see, a scrim of pale blues and grays. I am not missing being jostled around the rugged terrain in the back of a van.
