He makes all things new

I don't know if I really believed Brian (our director) when he said that this is, if not one of the top two, the hardest semester abroad that CSB-SJU offers. Needless to say I've been quite humbled in this area. I've also been humbled a number of other times, but I feel like I should explain this so you all can maybe get a glimpse of what's really going on here. I'll try. 

I've had some friends as me why I'm acting so different and plenty of people wondering why I sound so down. I'm not really sure how to answer that. I do want to assure you all that I'm getting through it. It hasn't been easy, and I think those have been the parts that I've been talking about on here. At the same time, other things have been great. I received some advice from a friend to not reflect too much as i'm here, but to do that afterwards. I am going to try to do that as I can from here on out. I remember my last trip to El Salvador when I was either sick with a sore throat, an allergic reaction to cypro, or with a sinus infection/headache. In reality, I was uncomfortable almost the whole time, but what I remember and what I like to tell people about that trip is how much I enjoyed the people of El Salvador and my group. I don't remember how rough it was, and I'm sure I'm going to be able to look back on this and hold onto the good things. So as for your sake, my sake, our sake, I'm going to leave a lot of my initial reactions out, not all of them though. Please don't worry about this!!!

Here's my first one ( ha!): I haven't written in so long because I'm just as busy here as I was at school. My time feels like it's being taken. I have hope that the "2nd phase" of this program will be a better time for me. This is what it looks like: It basically starts at the end of this coming week with our big vacation. Oh how awesome it's going to be!!! 8 days: Las Flores, Tikal, Coban, Cemuq Shampe, and back again! (a better itinerary later) After that, I have two classes on both tuesday and thursday. I don't know if I'll be able to get what I want with my 15 hours of spanish school per week, but if I can do it on tuesday, wednesday, thursday, I'll have a four-day weekend, every weekend! This will absolutely make the second part a whole lot easier than this one! 

Today, I've resolved to go to Panajachel soon to buy some "crazy pants." I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to go though!They're typical dress of the Mayan men. Men have long left their traditional dress behind, except for medicine men or others (i'm not totally sure). Anyway, I really like these pants and I really need to get them. I've never sounded so materialistic....ha anyway, I just think they're really cool, and they are going to cost less than $20 US dollars. On another note I'm proud to note that I bought three traditional-style shirts thursday. Maybe you'll see some pictures of me somewhere wearing them...

Last weekend, I went to Laguna Chicabal. It was a four hour hike, which sounds like a lot, but i would call it healthy. I got a cramp in my leg about 5 minutes in which i enjoyed for the rest of the day. once you get to the top of the volcano that the lagoon is inside, you have to descent into the crater which takes some 625 steps which were unceasingly steep, like putting a staircase straight up a mountain...   So it was beautiful, really beautiful. It's a sacred Mayan site so nobody swims, but there is a path around the lagoon. If you're a bit confused, it's like a lake in the top of a volcano with a couple of beaches and whatnot. I slept on the beach for a while meanwhile the rest of the group took the extra walk around the lagoon, 45 more minutes of walking. I really enjoyed doing hiking this, and I'm a bit dissapointed today that I'm not climbing the tallest volcano in Central America with a lot of the other people from my group. I just needed today to take some time to myself. 

Two wednesday nights ago, these guys stopped me on the street at midnight and tried to make me buy them liquor. In all, I've been stopped about four times, mostly by drunk people. All other three have been during the day. They all want money, and none of them were violent. It just brings that thought into my head that it could be violent the next time. The funny thing is, taking a taxi makes me absolutely immune from this, so I do take one at night now. My host brother-in-law is a taxi driver and he's a whole lot of fun to ride around at night with! If you're curious a lot of these encounters have included words like, "you have to pay to walk past this corner, or as a tax" the thing is, they're pretty drunk, so they're easy to deal with. especially during the day. the one last wednesday night was a little uncomfortable because it was some young guys like myself and it took about 15 minutes. I ended up going to one of the cantinas with them and saying i would buy something and just walking off. They were too surprised to do anything. 

I'm ready to start volunteer work.  I'm sooooooo ready. I was sad about not starting sooner, but I've come to see that this first five weeks (with what is supposed to be 8 hours of studying spanish per day) is not a time to try to do as many things as possible. Anyway, I'm hoping to work in a place called the "Temporary Home" It's not so temporary. About 75 kids live there, of all ages. I'll tell you more when I know more, which will be at least three more weeks.

I finished "Irresistible Revolution" and "Wild at Heart" on audiobooks. They were really great. The thing is, you don't remember as much as you would if you were reading it. I'm not sure if I really want to start again the third one that I bought, "Orthodoxy." I listened to maybe a quarter of it and its just incredibly dense. I don't know if I would have gotten that far if i were actually reading the book. 

I've been dancing salsa a bit. It's been really great. It's a good way to relax and enjoy myself, not to mention feed my craving to dance. I'm not incredible, but I am excited to know how to dance a specific style. It'll be fun to know back in the states!

I saw what I saw. That's the name of a song that my good friend Gabe Hymer just sent me a little while ago. It was really great to listen to because it describes a lot of the things that I feel. A great friend, Martha, thinks something simiilar. I think it's always great when people can connect so deeply to music. I encourage you to search for it on youtube or something. A woman by the name of Sara Groves (I think!) sings it. Martha wrote a whole blog about it. She inspires me. I'm glad she's taking me to Africa with her. 

I'm going to try to write shorter blogs more often so it's not as overwhelming. I'm seriously really enjoying myself here, and I haven't really been sick here. Praise God! God's really been taking care of me down here. I can assure you all of that, and I have no doubt that part of it is from your prayers. Thank you. Keep praying for me. :) I'll load some new pictures up on facebook soon.  I love you all sooo much! Thanks to those who have sent packges, letters and emails. It sincerely helps me to enjoy my time here more. Again, I can't tell you all enough how much I love you! I'll talk to you before I go on my big trip!

Antigua! and humility

Our first weekend trip was to the colonial capital of the Spanish province of Guatemala. It's called Antigua now, and it's not the capital. It's close to the capital, but the most attractive feature is that it has held on to much of its colonial architecture and whatnot. Personally, I'm not sure what's so attractive about colonization, but tourists seem to love the town as it's the most popular tourist town in the country, or so I hear. We spent friday and saturday night in an uber nice hotel "Las Farolas" or " the streetlamps" ha anyway, it was like $120 USD (Q937) per night (paid for by our tuition), and needless to say a number of us thought it may have been money not used in the best way. Yes, we were very comfortable, and that was something we needed a bit at this point in time. I just think we could have done some pretty cool things staying somewhere cheaper. Maybe we could have hired a guide for all the sites we went to?

Anyway, I didn't get stuck on that. We took saturday to see four churches. It was an assignment (oh yeah, i'm getting school credit for being here, and its not just a vacation! *cough, cough* Kay :P). The assignment for all of us was to go to four sites on a list that Brian (our director) made and to write an essay about it. Mine was three pages hand-written, in pen, without scratch outs (incase you really wanted to know the details...) Anyway, I was happy to get to see a couple of monasteries and convents. Just so you know, these are all ruins. They're only tourist sites now, but many of the church buildings are still used. :)

First, Las Capuchinas was a convent a long time ago, but some cool things were that they only had 25 people in this convent, they couldn't have contact with the outside world, and their rooms were arranged around the outside of a circular building. It was amazing to imagine what that was like when they lived there. They slept on wood for a bed and each room had its own toilet. impressive, i know!

Next, we went to Casa Santo Domingo where my camera died before we could walk in the door. I was a bit sad, but by the time I left I was glad that I didn't waste any space on my memory card with this one. Sorry if that sounds sharp, but I was thoroughly unimpressed by how people had taken the ruins the biggest monastery in Guatemala and made it into a tourist trap of sorts. I commend the locals for luring stupid rich people to support the local economy, but as for me, the "museum" and ruins were not worth the Q40 I paid. I feel like I sound bitter. Don't take that from this. I think I'm just tired right now. Things were pretty great this weekend!

After that, we went to this little place for lunch. I don't remember the name. the grilled chicken sandwich was great as well as the hamburger, but most of all, the 'liquado' or smoothie was heavenly. I had two watermelon smoothies, and i could have sat there all day drinking more. It was too bad that we had to go see more sweet history. Ha! Anyway, after that we walked a few blocks more to the church San Francisco. The first saint of Central America is buried there, and you can be sure that there is a strong devotion to miracles that he has done(I'm not sure about the wording of this. I don't really understand it all, but they thank this saint for miracles in their lives. I feel like God is doing the miracles and this saint is interceding for them, but i could be wrong.) Anyway, his name is Brother Pedro de Betancourt. He started a hospital at the church there, and he was known for miraculous healings. Also, there was a monastery, a school, a music school, and something else cool that i forget. I had loads of fun exploring the ruins, so much so that i went back on Sunday. 

Finally, we walked across town to the monastery of La Merced. It has an amazing facade that you can see in one of my pictures. The highlight is that it has a huge fountain. Somebody said it may be the biggest in Central America. However it ranks, it's huge, maybe a 75ft by 75ft square. I'm not sure. 

Dinner was great at this place called 'La Peña.' We had live music (with pan flute included!) and a very exciting and excited server for the 23 of us. Later, I saw people 'pre-game' for the first time. This was the start of a couple of hours when I felt out of place. We ended up not being able to go out and salsa like we wanted and spent most of the time standing on the streets of Antigua. 

In the morning I went to mass at the Cathedral. I was quite happy that the priest was very clear and it was a smaller building. That started off my day well, although I remember every time I go to mass that i miss the Blood of Christ. They don't serve it here. I got to sit in the park for quite a while waiting for friends to meet me there so we all could meet up with Molly Roske, being that she's in training for the Peace Corps in a nearby town, 'San Antonio' de la agua fresco(si?). It was amazing to see her, and we ended up going to the ruins of San Francisco. It was fun to explore with her and Maria, another girl in the Peace Corps. I had to go back to the hotel early to pack my bag and went back out to meet up again to catch lunch with Molly. We left at 2pm on Sunday, and I only had 26 minutes left of my Audiobook "Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne. This has been a great comfort for me.

Four hours later, we got to Xela. I walked home, ate dinner and passed out. At 11pm, I woke up feeling bad that i needed to write my paper. Damn school! I got a bad headache and only wrote one page, then went back to sleep. Thus I absolutely could have fallen asleep in class on monday. 

Tomorrow is Inauguration day for Obama, and I'm pretty excited to hear his speech! I try, but it's not always easy to keep up on US news, and I'm kinda sad that I don't have more time to keep up on the "first 100 days" or whatever they like to call it. I do want to see what he'll do at the beginning here. May the Holy Spirit lead him in all he does.

If you got through all of that up there, congratulations! That is truly commendable. Here's a reflection of mine. I hope it helps to show a real pice of myself.

I have had a lot of fun here and i plan on having a lot more in the near future. At the same time i feel like I'm learning and growing a whole lot more than i'm having fun(not that they can't go together). Learning and growing isn't always fun. I've missed people more than I ever have since i've been away from home. College was fine, but now I have people (like you! probably) with whom I'm pretty close to. I find myself missing those people a lot more than I thought I would. A couple of people in particular keep coming to mind, and it's hard because it makes me feel like I don't want to be here. It's absolutely not easy living in spanish. I know that I'll "get over the hump" or whatever, but right now, I can't ignore that for the first time ever, it seems, i miss people back home, in my comfort zone. What am I doing about it? I'm trying to keep in contact through email, skype, etc. I'm also trying to start doing my volunteer work as soon as I can because I feel like it will be a place that I can invest myself and give and get a lot. I guess everyone gets homesick at one time or another, and i thought i was immune. it's nice to come back to earth. :) 

In the same vein of trying to find some sense of comfort, my desire to be dating returns after the end of last semester where I didn't feel comfortable trying to start anything since I was leaving. Oh the places you take me, Lord! 

wondering how different things will be after all of this...

I love you all very much!!! I'd really like to hear from some people. ;) :)

My favorite quote recently:

"Don't call us saints. We don't want to be dismissed that easily!" -Dorothy Day

I feel the same

The amazing view from the roof of my house!!! 

(if you look closely at the center of the photo, there is a yellow building. my school is close to there! as well as La Rumba)

Here we are just outside the airport waiting to get on a coach-like bus
Guate truly is beautiful!!!
yes i actually took this picture from the airplane!
first picture in DIA!
these are all for now! sorry!!! my school is closing now and i have very little time to make captions. also they are in the reverse order that i took them. enjoy!!!

What to say?

As you can tell, it sure has been a bit of time since I wrote last. Sorry! I guess this can show you a little bit of what my time here has been like. I cannot complain too much about anything during my time here, but in reality, I don't have a whole bunch of time on my hands. It's pretty tough to not be tired everyday trying to speak and understand spanish for a lot of the time. It takes me a while to get warmed up in the morning (both because it's cold and because I'm still getting into the groove with spanish). 

I should say a bit about my family and our house here. The house is up on this hill about 15 minutes away from the spanish school and maybe 10 from central park and the cathedral and whatnot. It's a cinderblock house with concrete-looking walls. The water for the shower is heated in a tube-thing just before it comes out of the shower head. They have a fun bathroom because they were kinda artsy with fitting different broken tiles together. There is one vehicle (kinda like a Honda CR-V) and a motorcycle with a picture of Ché on the gas tank. He's a hero here instead of a villain as he is in the US. I can put up a post of pictures and descriptions soon. I have some incredible pictures already. Thanks to my brother who helped me to use a camera properly! (he probably won't ever read this)

I live with Lily and Rony, who are grandma and grandpa. they have a son and a daughter, Ricardo and Gloria, 30 and something like 25-29 years respectively. Gloria is married and lives in a house connected to my house. Ricardo has a girlfriend apparently, in another city. He is a bit awkward and sings U2 songs at the top of his lungs in the evenings when it's not blasting out of his speakers. He's the only one in the family who knows a lot of english. I don't know if he works or if he is in school or neither. Gloria has three children. Mario is nine. Sophia is seven, and Emile is less than a year old (I can't tell and don't remember what they told me. sorry) Mario and Sophia are fun to play around with except that much of the time Mario is too cool to talk to me. He's got his friends. 

My weekdays have some structure, and the weekends don't, gladly! My week day starts at 7:15 am, breakfast at 7:30, 15 minute walk to school, class from 8 to 10:30, a 30 minute break, class from 11 to 1, and I walk back up the hill to my house to eat lunch between 1:30 and 2pm. This is where things can vary. My spanish school schedules activities every day of the week. some are in the afternoon and some are in the evening. Depending on if I want to go to a particular activity or not, I could also go to the discoteca (it's a bar, in US terms, but here "the bar" is the strip club...) to practice salsa. I have a friend there and a group of us like to go when we can to work on our moves. Also there is a internet café at the school with wi-fi, so a lot of people talk on skype or do whatever else they do. I check email and facebook... Not many people I know are ever on skype (*hint, hint*). I'm in the same time zone as Minnesota, btw. Anyway, there are a number of things to do, including 2-3 hours of spanish homework every night (and it's hard to skip homework like in previous spanish classes when it was so easy since you'll kinda stand out since you're the only student of the teacher...). Anyway, my dinner is at 7:30 or so every night. After that, I usually start my homework, try to finish by 10pm and listen to my audiobook (Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne) or journal. I'm so tired by then that it's easy to fall fast asleep. 

I should mention something about how I eat here. First, yes my insides are still getting used to it. Now that that's out of the way, I found it interesting to see that they eat a big lunch here and smaller breakfast and dinner. i feel like it's almost the opposite in the US sometimes. My family barely ever eats dinner. For a lot of the meals, I'm the only one at the table. I'm so grateful that i have a lot of variety for food. I have had things like spaghetti, chicken soup, and pancakes, but also things like beans, rice, potatoes, fried slices of cheese, mosh(watery oatmeal, only it tastes better than it sounds), and a lot of fresh fruit. I've also eaten out at an Indian restaurant (THE best), a Mediterranean restaurant, another "worldly" restaurant, and my favorite the "Blue Angel." The Blue Angel is a coffee house/restaurant. It has pretty much the cheapest prices for anything substantial in Xela (except for the street vendors...I can't wait...). It's like 15 quetzales for a sandwich and chips, which is almost exactly 2 US dollars. There's things like macaroni or soup for about the same. Tea is like 5 Quetzales, about 75 cents. 

So things are pretty cheap here. I bought a quality pair of dancing shoes for about $35. My phone was about the same. I took out 1,000 quetzales from the ATM here and wasn't too sure what that was in US dollars, so I looked online. It was like $130 plus $5 fee. It's weird spending Quetzales because I still cannot think of them as different than US dollars. I guess this makes me want to not spend as much, but this feeling mixes with the feeling I get when I translate quetzales to dollars that makes me want to spend more since it's cheap here. It's weird to keep 200 of any currency in my pocket, but in reality, it's less than $30

On Monday, this guy tried to take my money when I was walking up to this busy street. He called it a tax. I could tell he was a bit out of it and understood that he was drunk when I smelled his breath. I wasn't really sure what I should do. I kinda felt like walking back down the block and going around, and it was just then that I saw a police truck drive by. I kinda waved them over, and I told the guy that the police are here and pointed to them. Then I just walked by him and the police went and talked to the guy. It's funny because there wasn't really a lot of tension because he was pretty drunk. He was just standing there with his hand held out, and I said "Sí?" like I didn't think he was serious. 

If you're wondering about my safety, I don't have too amazing of a sense of it, but my host sister says my walk home is pretty safe because there are all these strip clubs on the street that I take to get to my house. It's safe because they apparently have guards and the police drive up and down the street all the time. In all honesty, I've never seen the strip clubs or "bars" as they call them, but I do see the police all the time. When i walk home around midnight or so, the streets are deserted, so that feels a bit less safe, but I've been fine so far. I think I have a healthy amount of confidence in this area. There are a huge number of spanish schools in Xela, so the locals are used to seeing foreigners. Thus I'm not like the one person to mug since they've never seen my kind before. I mean, I obviously stand out for a number of reasons other than my good looks, but I think there are enough other whiter people around that I'm kind of just "one of those." It's nice to fit into a bit of a group here. So yes, I'm safe, in my opinion.

A couple of highlights of my trip have been the soccer game on monday with friends of my host-brother-in-law, our first big night out on friday at La Rumba, trying to practice and learn salsa almost every day as my way to relax, getting blisters ripped open because of it, my spanish teacher laughing at me when I say things wrong, a natural hot spring called Las Fuentes Georginas, and being in contact with the people I have been able to talk with. 

This friday after classes, we're going as a big group to Antigua, which is one of the big if not the biggest tourist spot in the country. I'm excited to go, and spend some time with the whole group together. One of the least amazing parts of this semester is that we don't live close to everyone else like we did up at CSBSJU. It will be important to bond a bit with the group and talk about how things are going. I really value hearing what the other people are experiencing. 

There is so much to say. I hope I can express as many things as possible in future posts. I'll try to keep you entertained. This one kinda had to be boring since it's been more than a week. I'll post pictures in the next post. (I think I already said that...)

Like I said in an earlier post, all these big questions and reflections are kinda gone. There are no expectations or dreams of epic proportions. I'm here living the life. In all honesty, there are many times where I think I don't want to know spanish, and I want to be more comfortable and to be somewhere where people speak english. I can't say it goes away quickly or easily, but it's not overbearing. Also, listening to Shane Claiborne and having a poster of Mother Teresa are making me think about trying to "Come and see" their communities. There are also people I'm reminded of daily whom I miss a lot and wish I could be closer with. It's funny how the distance and knowledge of future trips can do that to any kind of relationship. I still have this overwhelming love for all of you people, especially those whom I'm closest to. I continually struggle to express this in its fullness. 

I love you. Take care! I've only heard from a handful of people, there are more whom I'd really like to talk with :) Until next time...