Cú Pop

only a few weeks here in san cris are left. things are winding up...we will be having the end of the year fiestas for the women in the villages over the next two weeks.
i think one of the things brad and i have enjoyed the most living here is meals with our host family. there have been many evenings of sitting around the table talking and joking for a good long time. like last night - we sat eating our tomalitos and corn tortillas - talking about Doñ Conrado´s day of walking many hours and then killing pigs - that´s his job. He works on a finca (a big farm) somewhere and does alot of pig killing, walking, buying corn feed, and probably lots more we don´t quite understand. He is always calling to brad - ¡Brad mi Amigo! with a great big smile making his laughlines around his eyes shine. Doña Roselia has been busier than busy bees running a comedor, a restaurant down in the town square. And though she has owned this for 2 years - we didn´t even know she own it until about 2 weeks ago when school finished up for the year. she just retired from teaching after putting in 25 years. now it seems half the family is wrapped up in helping run the Cafe de la Casa. we´ve been going there to get some of our lunches now since it´s easier than her packing it up for us during the week.
Conradó Jr. is always saying something funny and everything is ´so very good´ - he is a teacher aid at private school here in town. Nicté is 14 and the youngest. She has been diligently helping mom at the restaurant over her vacation. Juan Pablo is the oldest. he works at an office all week and comes home thursday - sunday. it´s always nice to have him home for the weekend though he has to spend a good chuck of that time studying and going to school on saturdays. Marisol lives down near Antigua and is a university student - she is pure sunshine - though she has only been home for a visit one weekend since we have been here. and then there is bobby, the dog. he is the funniest dog i think i have ever met. i think you just have to see a pic sometime to understand.
The conversation swayed from the days events to the tomalitoes we were eating - if we liked them (brad hates them) and then we were launched into the 3 classes of tomalitoes. we learned all sorts of interesting things about tomalitoes. the ones were ate last night we made of corn meal mixed with just a tad of potato, usually all of them have a chunk of meat and a chili pepper somewhere inside...i don´t know what else is in them but they come wrapped in banana leaves. they are boiled in the banana leaves...we had these at Eva´s house before her wedding, we often receive the plainer type in the villages, and we have eaten the `potato only´ kind a few times served by different people.
but it doesn´t seem to matter what we are all talking about - our days, foods, Guatemalan riddles, music or whatever - it´s always animated and there is always laughing and joking. we feel blessed to be able to be a part of the Family Cú Pop - they are an absolute joy!

washing dirty feets

we went out to 2 villages this week to give our last ¨charlas¨or lessons of the year. one was in san sebastian. the lesson was on the last supper -the disciples and Jesus last time together before his death. there in the upper room Jesus washed the disciples feet as a symbol of loving and serving them in a simple, humble and powerful way. there he gave them the command to love others as he had loved them.
we shared this story with the women and then had a foot washing with the women. the power of the story really struck me in how amazingly humble Jesus was to get down and wash gross, dirty, stinky feet. you could tell it was hard for the women to have their feet washed, it´s uncomfortable to have someone touch your filthy feet. but i wonder if we have to accept it in order to ever really wash others´feet...to accept that love that Jesus has for us, compassion to be okay with the fact he knows we have such dirty feet and yet he loves and accepts us. but then we are called to wash other´s feet - to reach out and know and love others. it seems easier in the exercise of the foot washing to wash others feet...the external dirt...but are we willing to accept the dirt that makes every person feel unloveable and insecure - not stand in judgement but love the gross and the stinky -just as we are loved?

bird´s eye

here´s a bird´s eyeview of part of our life in San Cristobal....half our walk to the mission from our house. the week flew by. it was last friday already that we spent the afternoon/evening helping decorate for our staff member, Eva´s wedding and then attended it last saturday. it was lovely to be a part of the event and celebrate with her. it was also curious to be apart of a guatemalan wedding, which has many similarities to the one´s we know in northamerica. one difference is the processional walk in the morning from the bride´s parents home to the church, signifying the bride leaving her home. And then the reception is traditionally at the groom´s parents home where they both will live. we ended up in one room near the kitchen away from the other guests...i am not sure how that happened...but nonetheless we were served the traditional wedding dish, cakik, which is a soup or in our eyes is really a bowl of thick gravy, a bit spicy and with a hint of cinnamon. so the bowl of cakik, plate of hunks of turkey, hot tamalitos wrapped in banana leaves and a bottle of Pepsi. it was amazing the amount of food that they had preepared! they had probably slaughtered and cooked up 30 turkeys...that´s crazy, hey? our host family said that for their wedding - 80 turkeys...that is something crazier.

go team go!

our week with the team was fantastic. we stayed at the hostel in Pamuc, a village a 5 minute drive along the gravel road from Panzal, the village where we worked during the week.
how to tell you all about it...well the hostel is amazing! the family that runs it is great! they are so congenial and hospitable. staying there is like going to camp. the views from the dining pavilion is unreal...actually there is a pic on the guatemala site...and since we can´t access our pics onto the blog yet...click here to see pics of the hostel..thanks to Audrey´s family team.
we worked each day in Panzal and built 4 water tanks for different families and put in 20 stoves to homes. it was great to work with the team and to interact with them all for the week.
one thing i found the most helpful over the week was how my understanding of the villages and the people grew. after going into the villages for just an hour or two over the time we have have been here - the big picture of how things fit together was a bit scattered. but with being with the people for several days really helped -it also was good to see how ASOSAP team projects work. one morning, the women from the team and staff, went to the village school and spent a couple hours making kites with the kids, singing and playing with them. the next day when i was on the road by myself walking from the worksite at one house to another about a 10 minute walk several of the kids emerged along the way and they grabbed my hand and took me down to the church where they were going to practice singing some songs for a presentation the next day - such a joy to be able to talk and play and sing with them. -"yo tengo gozo, gozo, gozo en mi corázon!" - they are all so beautiful!
and it a blessing to be apart of building a tank so that a family doesn´t have to haul water or collect the rain water solely in wayward barrels. ahhhhhh!!! i gotta go dinner is 3 minutes ago...so much to tell....

lessons in panzal

the village of Panzal...an hour drive over ruddy gravel road. there we were greeted by a woman holding her child while an older one timidly peeks around her back. we put our things in the simple cement building where the usual meetings take place. women beginning coming in one by one many with their baby in the colorful cloth slings hanging down on their back. "C´llain tud" we greet them...me in my miserable attempt at Pokom but Eva greets them smoothly as it is her native tongue. Eva teaches our classes...audrey and i help..taking attendance, passing out crayons and papers, putting together some of the teaching aids. though today... i am going to play a bit with the children that dare interact with a tall giant blonde white woman. but we brought long balloons to make animals. these are very well received with giggles and sweet smiles by the women and by wide-eyed children slightly smiling through their shyness. we wait for quite a while - for we are early and the Pokomchi come in their own timing. so we make crowns for the women, puppies and bunnies for the kids. the once bare cement dingy room is transformed by the brillant colours of the cortes and wipils (traditional Pokomchi dress), the vibrant multi-colorful woven cloths that hold their children or things, and the multitude of odd-looking blue, red, green, white, orange...balloon creatures. the meeting begins with all rising and praying all together, the room has now been transformed into sounds of women seeking and thanking God. After a one lady lead the women in a couple songs, eva begins to teach them about parasites and worms and how to prevent them as well as get rid of them. I step out side into to the little dirt yard with stone steps, baby ducklings waddling, a stray looking dog curiously poking around. three little girls and i settle into coloring a picture of a lady holding her baby. meanwhile brad and cristobal return from hiking up to all the homes to check if the families had collected and started drying firewood for the stoves that will be built in their homes this next week. but no one is home for them to speak with...they are in the building learning how to keep their families healthy. so brad and cristobal sit and talk together...a ever helping cristobal continue to learn english.
the lesson ends... women are in and out of the building...cristobal steps in to give the reminder about the preparation of the firewood to the women...soon a couple women come carring baskets with mugs filled with hot drink. we all partake of this cornmeal sweet drink (i don´t remember the name of it). when we finish, we pack up, give several thanks-yous, smiles, good-byes and head back to the truck to journey back to nisnik, the village where our mission is based.
that was tuesday morning. that is a glimpse into our work in the villages.
tomorrow afternoon (saturday) we meet up with a group from Texas that has come down to help build water tanks and stoves for those homes in that village, Panzal. most of our ASOSAP staff and the team will stay at a hostel in a nearby village for the week while we work there. next friday, the team leaves and we, b&j, will return to san cristobal. until then....

a day of adventure...

we journeyed to a place called samuc champey on friday. it was a staff end of the year party...since rachel will be leaving in just a few weeks to go to school. the vistas are just breathtaking... along the rolling highlands lightly dusted with mist hanging gently billowed in areas, the huts are scattered among the loosely patchworked fields of corn, cabbages, banana trees, wild natural brush all rolling with the terrain as well. after our 4 hours of driving we arrived just as the rain finished up with a sprinkle. we enjoyed refacciones -coffee, tea, sweet rolls and tostadas. Then hiked up to the Mirador, the look-out. The trail was fabulously rugged and steep though there were some steps built to make the more muddy sketchy areas easier. The turquoise green pools below along the river basin were gorgeous. When hiked down the trail we found where the roaring river falls down the rapids and down into a huge tunnel. the roaring powerful energy contrasted the gently bubbling water on the land above the tunnel. That is where the turquoise pools terraced down with clear water where we enjoyed some good swimming and diving. Our visit finished with a barbeque and as we finished that the rain began again as we climbed in the microbus for our 4 hr journey home. It was fabulous. Other fabulous news is that Ricardo is continuing to do well and that the 8 or9 witnesses to the accident that Bill and Linda picked up - very strongly testified to what they saw which was aligned to what we had heard was true. They had been approached with bribe money and threats but they were all one big family with several men so they weren´t scared. Yay! But unfortunately the legal work is a process and so the saga will continue on indefinitely. And now we begin our fifth week here...time is flyin...