A Change of Pace

Every year is the same. I start school in September. I get a couple weeks off a Christmas. School ends in the spring. I have summer off, either as vacation or a chance to work rather than study. This year, though, is different. The school year started in January. The 2 month break is at Christmas (November-December) when I return home. It is currently the end of June and school is not wrapping up. We are not nearing end of the year exams. I am not looking for a summer job. The weather is not getting nicer or sunnier. In fact, this is probably the toughest part of the year. We're just past the half way mark in the school year, the rains have returned, and life is becoming routine. I'm starting to feel the drag of repetition. Every day is the same, every week is the same, and no end in sight. I'm having a hard time putting the effort into my lessons and some days even a smile on my face when the kids are louder than usual or it's rainy for days on end. I was thinking about why I'm feeling the way I am, and I think by mind and body need a break. That's what I've always known: a break in July and August. I need a change of scenery; a change of pace.

Thankfully, the school year here has Reading Break (Semana de Lectura) the last week in June, half way through the school year. So this coming week is a week off. And none too soon. I'm looking forward to a break from work and a chance to get out of this town. I'm fortunate enough to have friends still in Costa Rica from when I studied there for 8 months in 2006. Flights from Guatemala to Costa Rica are much cheaper than from Canada (Obviously! It's 5661 km from Vancouver, BC to San Jose, CR, and only 872 km from Guatemala City to San Jose). There are also a number of people driving to El Salvador for this week off, and they are able to drop me off at the airport on the way. I return the same day as a team from Canada arrives a week later. It worked out well all around. I'm sooo looking forward to this week. I know it will be tough coming back to work, especially at this time of year when it's just past half way here and everyone at home is beginning summer vacation. But I want to come back refreshed so I can do what I came to do here with joy and love, energy and creativity. Happy summer vacation to you all. Enjoy it, even if it is just a break from studying or a week-long trip out of town.

Rain and Snow

Most of you can probably picture the first snowfall of the year. Not the first couple times snowflakes fall, but the first time you really wish you had your winter tires on already and the first time you hear sirens all night because people forget that snow means drive slow. Going to church after a big snowfall the night before, the sanctuary is nearly empty because those who do manage to arrive, arrive late after shovelling, driving slow, and getting caught behind accidents. That's what I was reminded of today.

Of course it wasn't snow that made me think of that. Actually this afternoon my roommate commented to me that it was really hot out! I looked at the blue sky with scattered clouds and said, "It's going to rain." An hour later we heard it. The black clouds rolled in, the skies opened up, and it just started to pour! Sitting in my room downstairs I didn't really realize how hard it was raining. So of course when the doctor couple upstairs offered us a ride to church I thought it was just nice of them. I thought to not wear my glasses in the rain and to wear my plastic flip flops rather than my cloth ones. But somehow I thought, in my Kamloops mind, that having an umbrella, as broken as it is, will keep me dry. So I didn't wear my raincoat or my rubber boots. Why would I wear my jacket if I wasn't cold and who wears rubber boots to church?

Then I stepped outside. Well, I opened the door to step outside and stood staring at what was our road. River is a better word for it. I have never seen our road running with that much water! Yes it rains hard here. But usually I can jump from the sidewalk to the higher part of the road and skip right over the river. This time I landed ankle deep as I ran for the vehicle. We had to ask Walter to move the vehicle to the middle of the road so we could get in without swimming. We got a few ppl honking that we were blocking traffic, but I wasn't about to go wading through that. 

The church service starts at 4:00pm. Usually we are punctual, especially if we drive. We arrived at 4:10. Church didn't start until 4:30. You know it's empty when the worship leaders tell everyone to move into the front 3 rows. People weren't late because they had to shovel or scrape their windshields. They didn't decide not to come because they don't have winter tires yet. But sometimes those muddy paths are as slippery as ice. Where some people live, they need rubber boots, just as at home people need snow boots. When it's raining so hard at the church that they have to turn up the volume on the sound system and move the instruments off the floor because of water pooling, and you choose where you sit based on which seats are not being dripped on, it might be best just to stay at home. The service was good, though. We worshiped God extra hard to warm up (when your clothes are wet, and the sun is not shining, you feel cool). And our pastor reminded us that not only do we have to love God, but we have to tell God we love him, just as in any relationship. The more we do this, the closer we will be to him. Through good times and bad, through rain and snow, life is better when we walk close to God.

My gumboots

Oh the Noise!

It is true that Tactic is not a big city. It is a town. Yet in the Yellow House, it is surprisingly loud. There is no insulation in the walls, and the windows don't seal, so everything that happens outside is heard inside. As well, chairs scraping the kitchen floor upstairs echo in my bedroom. I have been talking on skype when the person on the other end asks, "What was that?!" and I respond, "Oh, that was just a truck on the street." However, I no longer wake up to the roosters, the church bells, barking dogs, or squealing pigs.

To add to this regular noise, one of the three main roads into Tactic from the highway is under construction. I won't say it's closed. It is closed to vehicle traffic, though there is nothing but mud and deep caverns in the road to keep people from walking it. The trucks that bring in bulk quantities of produce for the market usually use this road, and the bulk market is just up the road from where the construction is. I don't know if that is the reason, but the bulk market has moved to the empty lot beside/behind our house (the one where the circus was in January). So, not only do we get the noise from the vendors in the bulk market at 5am each morning (including weekends), we also get the big truck traffic delivering bulk produce going past our house all day, honking their air horns as they pass traffic over the speed bump in front of our house. And did I mention that the camionetas (microbuses used for public transit) have started coming down to the market too?

The nice peaceful empty lot behind our house

The beginnings of the bulk market in the empty lot, visible from our roof.

The produce trucks all lined up delivering their goods in the bulk market

As if it is not enough to have a noisey street out front and a noisey market out back and to the side, they are now putting a road in behind our house. I knew it wouldn't take long, once I realized the market was staying there somewhat permanently. The other day I was in my room and noticed it was unusually loud. I went up on the roof to take down the laundry, and there was a backhoe, a dump truck, and a pile of logs for telephone poles right behind our place. Definitely a road going in. So if you do the math, that's traffic 360 degrees around our house. The market and road will do a loop around 3 house lots: the Yellow House, the Red House (where the Chupa's live), and a mechanic shop. It might be hard for you to picture. Unfortunatly the photos I've added don't have sound.

The view from the roof of the Yellow House overlooking the Red House, the mechanics shop, and the empty lot to the left.

The backhoe and pile of telephone poles being watched by a Ministry of Transportation worker.

The dump truck. Notice the clothes lines on our roof? So much for privacy.

And for all of you who wear earplugs to sleep because of the occasional roudy neighbour, car alarm, or howling dog, I wish we could trade places for a day.  

3 Houses

House Scenerio 1:
When my dad was here, we had the chance to visit our sponsor child. Our previous one has since grown up and is teaching in the schools (I get to work with her on Wednesdays). So, my Dad has not met our new sponsor child, Miriam, who is in my grade 5 class in Purulha. I see her every week, and have met some of her family, but I have not been to her house. Here are some things I noticed when I was there:
- they do not have electricity in their house, not even a lightbulb. (Do I really expect her to do homework after dark by candelight?)
- in the kitchen there are chickens, kittens, and a wood cookfire (I would not call it a stove)
- the floor is dirt and her bed is wooden planks (no mattress)
Visiting Miriam and her family made me glad our family can sponsor her and help them out. They have so little and are so appreciative of the sponsorship program.

Miriam Coc Tot, our sponsor child

Their kitchen cook fire

Their family in front of their house

(Her dad is at work and her oldest brother no longer lives at home)

House Scenerio 2:
Over the past 5 months I have been getting to know a lot of the teachers as friends. Yesterday I had the chance to visit one of the teacher assistants at his house. The situation is so similar to that above, yet it hit me so differently. Here's what hit me:
- Walking up to the house, I almost slipped a number of times because the path was so steep and slippery with mud, even though it wasn't raining and I was wearing my hiking boots. I commented that probably not many have cars in his neighbourhood. He said, there are 2 and they leave them at the bottom of the hill, along with the bicyles (it's that steep).
- They have 1 chair in their house. I felt awkward being offered the only chair.
- His dad works for the Municipality, gardening or shovelling up garbage after market days. He makes Q1500 a month, which is less than $200 for a family of 6 (8 if you include the 2 oldest who have moved out). His mom makes and sells tortillas twice a day, and it probably takes her all day to cook the corn, grind it into flour, make tortillas walk down into town, and sell them, twice. I spend the same amount of money here a month as they, but only on myself.
- I asked if they had a shower (it shouldn't be that hard, with the rain they get and gravity). Their bathroom is a shack thrown together in the backyard. No shower, no sink, and probably no mirror or lightbulb. He said they'd like to put in a real bathroom with a shower but they'd have to build a wall first so the ground doesn't wash away in the rain. They don't have money for a wall.
- I noticed a bookmark that had fallen on the floor and that had obviously gotten wet. He said that when it rains hard, the water leaks in one side of his room. Looking at the sheet metal, planks, and sticks that make up their house, I am not surprised, yet somehow still surprised. They built their house 10 years ago, and it's still like it is.
- I felt like I was camping: wood cookfire (no marshmallows though), dirt floor, and the rain sounded like it does on my tent.
- He's a university architect student. He showed me some house designs he had made. Is it not ironic that he can plan a beautiful 2 storey house yet lives in a shack?
- His parents don't speak Spanish. His dad knows enough to communicate with his boss, and his mom enough to sell tortillas. His dad came from Coban, his mom from Purulha - in both places they speak Q'ekchi, but in Tactic people speak Poqomchi. So the family speaks Q'ekchi at home, Poqomchi with neighbours, and Spanish when necessary. He is learning English, his fourth langauge.
- They eat one meal a day (supper). Any other food they might get is the meal provided by the sponsorship program at the schools.
- I teach 2 of his siblings, one in elementary school and one in high school. They have sponsors.
I don't know why it hit me so hard that he is at the same poverty level as my sponsor child. I guess because at school, we're on par. We're equals. But when I visit his house, he's humbled in showing me his house, and I'm humbled because I have so much in comparison. It's embarrassing.

The "bathroom" for a family of 8

His mom cooking corn for tortillas in their kitchen

The view while walking down the path into town

House Scenerio 3:
I live in the Yellow House with Julie and Ingrid. We live in the downstairs of this 2-storey cement block house with tile floors. The walls are painted (though the paint comes off if I sweep too close to the wall). There are flush toilets and electric-heat showers. We have a stove, microwave, and access to the clothes washer upstairs. Our front door locks, there are curtains on the windows, and the beds have proper mattresses. We have cloth-covered chairs in the kitchen and sofas in the living room. And we have wireless internet access. In Guatemalan standards, it is a mansion, a nicer house than they will ever live in. Yet, we still find things to complain about. The toilet leaks, the tap drips, there are flies, ants, bedbugs, and other assorted bugs. The windows don't seal. The traffic on the road is really loud, starting at 5am. The shower is either too hot or too cold. And things smell mildewy because it is so wet and humid in Tactic. We have no carpet, no TV, no dishwasher, no laundry dryer, no hot water tank, and no yard. In Canadian standards, it's a sacrifice living here.
But really. Who am I to complain? What gives me, someone in the wealthiest 5% of the world, the right to complain about living conditions? The only reason we don't have food in the cupboards is that we were too busy or too lazy to go buy food - not for lack of money. I have never had to go hungry. If anything, I eat more than I need to. They have a saying in Salaman, the capital city of Baja Verapaz, that goes something like this: Don't give me too much, don't give me too little, so I will still be grateful. This lines up with a proverb that says "Don't make me either rich or poor; just give me enough food for each day. If I have too much, I might reject you and say, 'I don't know the Lord.' If I am poor, I might steal and disgrace the name of my God." (Proverbs 30:8-9)

The Yellow House where I am living

Brain Surgery

A few weeks ago my roommate Ingrid's younger brother, Marvin, was having bad headaches and was having a hard time seeing in his peripheral vision. All he was seeing was spots. So his parents took him to the hopsital. At the hospital they told him to go to Guatemala City. So they went and had some tests done. On Wednesday they were told the results of the tests: He had to have brain surgery the next day. There was a mass that needed to be removed and it could not wait.

So Ingrid, her two brothers, and her parents drove to Guatemala City that night. Her parents live about 5 hours out of Tactic, and it takes about 4 hours to get to the capital from Tactic. So they left Tactic around 7pm Wednesday night and arrived in the capital late that night. Thursday morning Marvin, who is 21, went in for surgery.

Meanwhile, all the staff and students of Impact Ministries are praying for healing for him, for wisdom for the doctors, and for peace for the family etc. There are about 1300 students and about 100 staff. Plus Marvin's church, of which his father is the pastor. Needless to say, there were a lot of people praying.

When Marvin got to the hospital, the doctors said they weren't 100% sure where the mass was, so they were going to do another x-ray or brain scan to be completely confident going into the operation. They did, and the results showed no mass in his brain. The doctors could not explain it. If there's no mass, there's nothing to operate on. So they left, without having had surgery. Later Marvin told his family that earlier he had felt all the pain leave him and that he was filled with peace that he was healed. On June 27, Marvin has to go back to the capital to make sure there still is no mass.

Marvin and his family are calling it a miracle. So are those who were praying. They were praying in faith and trusting that God hears and answers their prayers. In the past couple months I, personally, have really been asking God to increase my faith. I find having grown up in North American society, I am very skeptical of things that are of the supernatural. Having studied science in university, I like to have proof and I like to consider all options before making a decision. I have faith that God exists. I trust that He has done miraculous things and can do miraculous things. But I am often skeptical that He actually will. Talking with Ingrid and Marvin's family before and after the "brain surgery" has given me a boost of confidence. How about you? Does reading Marvin's story give you more confidence to pray in faith? Or do you, as I so often do, revert to skepticism and unbelief? All Jesus asks of us is that we have faith.

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1).
"Jesus turned and saw her. 'Take heart, daughter,' he said, 'your faith has healed you.' And the woman was healed at that moment" (Matthew 9:22).

Marvin and Ingrid