Monday, August 14, 2006

Ascension Lutheran Church, Xela, Guatemala

The guesthouse where I planned to live during my stay in Xela was a disappointment. I asked the school to find me a place with a family instead. It was not necessarily a better option, as the home of the family was not much better, but I loved the family, so I stayed. The guesthouse, Casa Concordia, was owned and operated by a Lutheran Church, and the family of Pastor Ignacio Chan Cux lived there. As I was scurrying out the door with my luggage, Pastor Ignacio invited me to come to church the following Sunday morning.

I caught a cab on Sunday, having asked my maestra to call the church to get directions. I gave the address to the taxista, and asked him, "Tu conoces?" (are you familiar with it?) They always answer, "Si." I am not sure whether it's just good business or courtesy, or just a macho thing, but they never tell you they don't have a clue. Rather they drive as far as they have figured out, and then stop a passerby (usually male) and ask for directions. Unfortunately, no one in Guatemala ever admits that they don't know where something is, so the directions he receives may or may not get you where you are going on the first try. That's one of the reasons why it's always a good thing to set the price of the taxi ride before you start. It only took us two stops for directions for the taxista to find Iglesia Asencion, a small parish partially painted yellow, in the same neighborhood as Casa Concordia.

I arrived pretty early, and was greeted by Pastor Ignacio, his wife and each of his little girls with the standard Guatemalan kiss and embrace and "Bienvenidos a la casa de Dios (welcome to God's house)." While I was standing talking to Pastor Ignacio's family, other members arrived and each adult and child also greeted me in the same way. I was so touched. No one in Guatemala had ever before greeted me with the kiss and embrace used for friends. As parishoners continued to arrive, everyone was welcomed with embraces and kisses. My conversation with Pastor Ignacio was difficult as I didn't understand most of his questions, but I had no trouble calling myself a pastora luterana. I was able to explain that I was a recent seminary graduate, and that I was not yet ordained. He asked me to assist with communion, explaining that just saying "cuerpo de Christo (body of Christ)" while I gave out the bread would be sufficient. When church started I was introduced, and my status among them clarified. If any of them ever wondered what the giant gringa was doing in their midst, they never let on. It was wonderful to be part of their worship. The liturgy was easy to follow, and most of the hymns were ones I already knew in English. I did not understand one word of the sermon, although I kept straining to hear something that I recognized. At the end of the service, Pastor Ignacio thanked me during the announcements, and then asked me if I would say a few words. My Spanish was so bad -- I had managed to forget most of what I had learned six months before and was still going through the basics at school. I did stammer out a couple of sentences to say that it was a real pleasure to meet then and worship with them. I can only imagine how horribly grammatically incorrect it might have been, but I have no idea. Everyone smiled and seemed delighted to have me there. As the service finished up, no one left. People began to visit and the children began to play, moving into the front court after awhile. Pastor Igacio asked how long I would be in Xela, and invited me to come back. I was planning to leave the following Saturday for vacation, but promised to return in two weeks when I got back to Xela from the coast. He invited me to preach, but I firmly declined, expressing my certainty that I could not deliver a message in Spanish. He suggested that I would have two weeks to practice, but I knew that even two weeks was not enough. I firmly declined again. NO WAY!

I did come back two weeks later, basking in the warm greetings, and assisting once again at communion. I was able to offer a blessing after I communed Pastor Ignacio - rather than the stunning silence of the previous occasion -- and to really say "the body of Christ, given for you," as I placed the bread in the mouths of the communicants.

My welcome at Ascension Parish was so warm, and their sense of community was so palpable. I have never been in a church like theirs. It will always be a fond memory of my time in Xela. The Lutheran Church in Guatemala is very small, and this church is "independiente," says Pastor Ignacio. As far as I can tell, that means that his parish is no longer associated with the Guatemalan Lutheran Church, associated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. I never understood his explanation of his independent status and what his associations actually were. He wanted me to help him connect with the ELCA or with ELCA congregations who would become partners with his parish. I was very clear that I had no authority to offer any help or connection, and was somewhat concerned that I could not even imagine the path to such relationships since his "independent"situation has the possibility of being troublesome. I was scheduled to leave Xela at the end of the week, and at the end of our meeting, Pastor Ignacio offered to pray. He prayed for my vocation, and for a congregation to love me. And then he wished me the peace of the Lord. Y contigo, tambien, Pastor Ignacio, and also with you.

There are pictures of Iglesia Luterana, Parrochia Asencion in my photobucket album:

http://s85.photobucket.com/albums/k80/barbarapunch/

There are also pictures of my return from vacation, Xela, and my return to the US in the album Summer 2006

Friday, August 04, 2006

Return to Guatemala

The return trip from Belize was dramatic, a flight in a four-seater over the coast of Belize to Belize City and then an hour flight in the same plane over the jungles of Peten to Flores, the gateway to the Mayan ruins of Tikal. I´ll have my pictures up on photobucket as soon as I get back to my own computer in a few days. It was an expensive trip, but one of the highlights of this vacation.

I must confess that it was hard to go back to Guatemala. I have been wrestling all week with sadness at being back. Everything in Guatemala seems to be either broken or incomplete. I miss the sun and the humid breezes, Guatemala has been rainy and grey, even the night at the lake in Flores was overcast and dull. Somehow the incompleteness in Belize seemed charming in the middle of the laid-back, friendly Caribbean culture, the result of too much sun and too much heat. Here in Guatemala it seems grubby - as if no one really knows how to do a good job of things, or how to gather the resources necessary to do something well. I am rediscovering my own racism, too. Somehow the natives in Belize - all shades of black and tan - don´t seem so foreign because they speak English, thought it is flavored with Creole and sometimes hard to understand. It feels as if there is a cultural pride there that is more confidant, less of a strruggle to own.

I must confess that Guatemala wears me out, makes me feel guilty, makes me want to run from the complicated problems which are constantly thrown up to me. Life is hard in Guatemala, and Guatemaltecos are hard-working people, but there seems to be no solution to their troubles. The government just talks and enacts policies that have no effect on most of the people who live in the countryside, and hardly touch the core of the problems of those who have the least. In spite of how hard people work, it will take generations, if all goes well, for any appreciable change. Guatemala makes me sad. This is my last week here. I can hardly wait to go home.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Communidad Santa Anita

Two weeks ago, our school made a trip to a cooperative coffee finca in the Boca Costa, the region toward the coast in which most of the coffee plantations are located. We had a private bus because fourteen of us would have been hard to manage on local buses. ¨Private bus¨ means a minivan with seats everywhere and people piled four and five across. The idea of personal space is very different in Latin America than the US, and the idea of privacy is something you get over fast. The community of Santa Anita is a success story. A group of nearly 30 families of ex-comabatants from the civil war joined together to buy and work a large plantation on the side of a steep hill in a lush area about halfway to the Pacific coast. They have been there for about 8 years, grooming, growing, learning to market and sell their organic coffee around the world. They have established a primary school and begun ¨basico¨ which goes from grade 6 to 9.

Education is of particular importance to this community as much of their activity in the mountains during the civil war was concerned with educating the workers in the countryside, both in their human rights and in reading and writing and good health practices. This part of their mission continues strong today, and their community is both beautiful and interesting to visit.

We were invited to walk through the tropical forest by Gloria, whose guerilla name was Teresa, a proud, machete-wielding member of the community. She described how workers have to carry the yeild of the coffee plants up the steep slope during harvests, a feat I can hardly imagine, as the trail we were on was slippery in the humidity and after the rain, and precariously steep. We stopped often to take in the view across the deep canyon, rich with huge trees necessary for the shade coffee cultivation requires. At the bottom of the canyon is the Rio Naranja, which defines the extent of the cooperative´s territory, and which then joins the Rio Mujulia, the largest river in the area, the border between the county of Queztaltenango and neighboring San Marcos. From a few spots, you could see into San Marcos, and Gloria and Ronaldo, our guide from the school, told us that they met each other in those mountains when they worked there as guerillas in the 1980´s.

At the bottom of the canyon was a beautiful waterfall, a real treat as we were hot and sweaty from our downward trek in the humidity of the forest. But the real test was the trek back up. Slippery, steep, and humid it seemed never-ending. By the time we got to the top, my thighs were wobbly, and I was steaming like racehorse - huffing and puffing and dripping wet. It would have been really embarrassing, but I was not the only one. The women of the community served us a rewarding lunch, and we had a chance to talk to the leader of the commercial operation about the history of the conflict and the work of the guerillas, as well as the history of the community. The armed conflict ended only 10 years ago, with the peace accords of 1996, so this story is very fresh in the memories of those who suffered during that time, mostly country farmers who wanted a better life for themselves and their families and found themselves thwarted and threatened on every side by cruel dictators who represented the status quo. Whole communities were bombed and community leaders were regularly ¨disappeared,¨ usually tortured and killed by the army or police. The hardest part to hear, for me, is that those dictatorships, responsible for some of the cruelest repression in the world, were put in place through US foreign policy. It was a policy that protected US business interests in the region, regardless of the effect that policy would have on the burgeoning democracy and independence of the people of Guatemala. It is a story to make your heart ache, and to make you sad to be an American. I have heard it so often here that you would think it would no longer affect me, but it hurts every time I am faced with it.

It was so encouraging to listen to the leaders of the community of Santa Anita, who are living the dream that drove them to fight for their country and for their compaƱeros. One of the students asked if the community believed cooperatives like theirs could change the future for the people who still have little in the way of food security and education in the countryside. They said no. The only possiblity for real change will be through political organization to reflect the will of the people who desire change for themselves and their families. It is hard to imagine that such a change will happen soon, as the political conditions in Guatemala still reflect the will of wealthy landowners and large businesses more than the will of the common people. Witnessing the pride of the community of Santa Anita and the changes they have already wrought for themselves and their children is a source of hope that their dream of such success for the rest of their compatriots could really come true.

There are some pictures of Santa Anita at my spot on the photobucket website: http;//s85.photobucket.com/albums/k80/barbarapunch/ Enjoy