Estoy Aqui!!!

My first two days here in Guatemala have been both amazing and stressful. I arrived yesterday morning in Guate at about 7:30 am and immediately took a cab to Antigua ($30), an old capital of Guatemala and one of the major tourist destinations. The town I was going to be staying at, Aldea El Hato, is about 6 kilos from there. Upon arriving to Antigua, I enrolled in a Tour/Spanish Lesson for about four hours ($30). I also spent some cash on water and food ($15). It is a bit more expensive here than other parts of Guatemala. By now I am out of cash, pero no problema, tengo una tarjeta de credito. Unfortunately, being Memorial Day back in the States, Mastercard could not contact my bank to verify the transactions. So now I am broke. I convince a cabbie to take me up to the village and that I would pay him tomorrow. Upon arriving in El Hato, which is a very small town in the mountains with pretty much just a school, a playground, a church, and una sila (a place to do laundry), I am pretty noticable. Many of the people here are Mayan and very shy but they so speak some Spanish, especially the drunk old man with very litle teeth who wanted to show off his English skills to me for like 20 minutes. I finally made some sense out of him and realized I was on the right path. Reaching my hostel/commune/avacado farm was a relief to be able to relax and stop worrying about the money situation (I'm on credit there and it's cheap). The Earth Lodge (www.welcometoearthlodge.com) was full of people from all over the world. Everyone there spoke English and Spanish so conversations are pretty interesting. There were fellas from Israel, Colorado, Columbia, Ecuador, Ireland, Canada...really relaxed atmosphere living pretty simple lives up there. For those of you who are familiar with Naz Far, it was a lot like that (cabins and dorms out of trees and adobe, outhouses, homecooked, family style dinners. Last night we talked about the aspects of socialism under Lenin and Stalin and the political infrastructures of a two party system versus a My brother and dad took care of my banking situation this morning and it is all fine. Make sure your bank knows when you leave the country. I've always done this before, I don't know why I didn' this time. I hiked down to Antigua this morning and paid the cabbie. I'm going to hike back up there and we are having a pig roast this afternoon. Looks like I'm eating more meat than I hoped for but oh well, at least it's food. Tomorrow I leave for Antigua tomorrow to meet my friends Katie and Hannah. I already am wishing I was spending more time in this country and in Central America in general. A wonderful country (full of expats too) with beautiful vistas, good food, and easy conversation. I really do enjoy the backpack travel and hope to do some more while I am here. From what I have heard from the people I've met here, the Lago de Atitlan region and San Lucas Toliman are beautiful places to stay. I'll confirm that in a few days. Hasta luego amigos. Paz y Amor.

Beginnings

It begins. I leave for the airport in 6 hours and I have yet to pack a single thing. My plane leaves at 3 AM, arriving into Guatemala City around roughly 7:30 AM. Then I'll figure it out from there. I think I am a bit anxious and nervous but because I have so much to do still it really has not sunk in. I'm sure that as I am sitting in the airport in the middle hours of the night it will strike me that I am going to a country that has just recently emerged from a brutal civil war and decades of U.S. backed government oppression. So goes the lone American with his 6 years of grade school/high school Spanish and wild dreams to return with the fluency of a life-long Spanish speaker along with some understanding of the Mayan languages. Many people have asked me what I am going to be doing in San Lucas Toliman for two months. Quite honestly, I don't know. A friend asked me to tag along with her to volunteer for a month. It quickly turned into three of us and two months. I am going to San Lucas Toliman to learn. I want to learn about a culture that predates anything Western civilization has ever produced. I want to learn about the Land of Eternal Spring and how to love and appreciate a land so much that after hundreds of years of imperialism, domination, economic slavery, theft, rape, murder, torture, fear, hate, and greed, it is still consider the land of your ancestors. I want to learn to live. I want to learn what it means to serve and to love.

I hope to try and post fairly often. At least once a week. I am going to try to keep a journal and transcribe later. This blog will probably be quite personal in an attempt to understand the real differences between American culture and indigenous Mayan/Guatemelteco culture. I hope to explore this in a way that will be challenging to myself, which therefore probably means that it will also be challenging to my readers. Please do not be offended by my blunt or abusive language. I am not writing attacks but a carthartic purging of anything that resembles an ethnocentric, racist, prejudiced (whether that be social, economic, etc.), viewpoint I may have. I want to understand that just because different peoples and cultures choose to live in different ways, it is not a reflection of a "better way to live." I am going to explore what it means to live as a human in a community. Hopefully this community where the white, suburban, North American joins the dark, rural, Central American I/We may be better able to understand the shared humanity between us.

I am not going to Guatemala to help poor people. Sure, many people of San Lucas and Guatemala are less wealthy then me and most other American. But the work going on in the San Lucas Mission will be accomplised whether I go there or not. God's work is already there. I am going to become a part of that work and to allow God to work in me in Guatemala. I hope this clarifies what my mindset and attitude is like as I embark on a journey that will surely change my person. Is it a pilgrimage? I don't know, maybe. But it is most certainly a journey with deep spiritual, cultural, and philosophical intonations. This is not to say I am not going to have an amazing time and do plenty of awesome things (like climb volcanoes and sleep in hammocks), but I hope to cherish this experience for all that I can.

Some Good Reads

Four Keys to Guatemala. Vera Kelsey. (good for its ancient/traditional past up through its Spanish colonization)

Through a Glass Darkly: The U.S. Holocaust in Central America. Thomas Melville. (Thank Bro. Bob for this one. It is the story of Padre Ronaldo Hennesey, a Maryknoll priest from Iowa and his experiences as a priest during the political and civil turmoil of the latter half of the 20th century. Good policy book too for understanding the U.S.'s role in contributing to oppressive policies and regimes)