Hard Knock Life

Business has been picking up at the bike shop. Well, not business as you normally think of it, but people have been coming in to fix their bikes and a few have asked if I have bikes to sell. Its notable that the people coming by aren't just wide-eyed neighborhood kids trying to get their hands on whatever they can. These people have been adults who use or will use their bike as their primary mode of transportation.

Meet Brian, a tall, thin anglo man. He is soft-spoken and very humble. He rides a black Huffy mountain bike, the kind that you buy at Walmart for $90. Today, Brian has his long, wavy blond hair bunched upwards into a beanie. He is a Bible student at Bethel College in South Bend. Luckly, he only has one class per week on Monday nights, to which he rides his bike. He is so serious of a student, so passionate about what he does, he carries all of his books 15 miles or more each way in a hiking backpack. Recently his seat post had to be replaced because his body weight combined with the books had bent his first one down to his rear wheel (I find that hard to believe, but he wasn't joking). He came by on Tuesday as well to work on his bike a little and check to see if I could help him install a 49cc motor inside his bike's triangle. Today he is here to install it.

We open the boxes to check out the parts. Several are very heavy, others are complicated to the point of being intimidating. I spot the manual at the bottom of the box. Drawings cover a few pages of the manual, speckled with hundreds of scratchily handwritten, hardly visible numbers. On one page, there are a few paragraphs written in far-from-perfect English describing installation sequence along with a picture of the finished product. Looking at the sketches, into the box, and at the tired little Huffy, I have a feeling of uncertainty. Brian suggests that we pray about it and I chuckle. I always pray once I've messed a project up, rarely before I even start. I turn to look at him and see that he is serious. I drop my hands and close my eyes, admitting that he has a point, then Brian prays that God will give us what we both feel is lacking, the ability to complete the project.

We didn't finish the installation, but we came really close. It'll make for an inspiring motored bike. The experience of just meeting this man was already plenty of inspiration for me. He used to live with some people close to where I live now, but he moved out when some chemical dependencies showed up in his housemates. Now he lives in a storage unit where he says he plans to build himself a loft set-up, like a dorm. He says living in a storage unit is fine, except sometimes you just want some light, like in the mornings when you want to get dressed. His light is currently a few LEDs on a utility battery. It blows my mind that he can live in a storage unit and bike 30 miles once a week to take a class.

I stayed at the Catholic Worker house in South Bend. Their commitment to simple living goes beyond ours over at the Jubilee house. Thirty of them eat nearly all donated food together every night, they work real jobs and contribute all of their earnings to the house, and on the weekends they voluntarily run a busy soup kitchen. When I commented on how busy their lives must be, I was corrected, full, not busy. One of them was gone and I stayed in his room. The only decorations in his spacious room were a crucified Jesus on the wall and several big piles of books. Yet it almost felt like home. How are these people renewed, where do they find life, how are they filled?

I puzzle over that question. I think that either of those lives would exhaust me. I am filled by many things, singing, eating with people, working with people, praying, exercise, working with food in all of its stages, going to church, being with people, reading books, and other things. I guess I could still be filled by all of those things if I was in either situation, but I'm not sure about that. I am reminded of the Liberian A Capella, a singing men's group that has gone through civil war, the loss of friends and family, and surely are familiar with looking despair in the face then staring it down. These men sing songs of freedom, joy, and peace despite witnessing atrocities and intense heartbreak. Could I still sing if my family had been killed, my friends raped? The resonance in their voices stands as a testament to the power of faith. Also, it stands as a reason to be thankful for all of the people in our lives, for the good times and for the hard times. One struggle helps to give us a cheerful perspective during another, when we know the beauty and triumph that comes out of the pain.

Una Forma de Amar Diferente

Hello dear bloggership! These days, I'm doing quite well. The interpersonal stress in my household over gender/personality issues has calmed down a little, and while they mostly remain unresolved, things are at least friendly. I'm feeling more comfortable in this house and with work, things like community meal (when 20 people show up to eat dinner with the 10 of us) no longer stress me out.

Tonight I just finished a small batch of applesauce. Our biggest pot was full of apple slices, but they boiled down to 5 quarts. They're next to the computer and one of them happily popped a few seconds ago, signaling the successful sealing of the jar. Without decomposing bacterial invasion, that seal is capable of preserving the applesauce inside for many years to come. About a month ago, I picked up some jars from an old Fellowship of Hope (intentional community) house, some of which had food still in them. The lids said 95 and 97. Everything still looked good, so I broke that precious seal on a jar full of pears, then ate them all. They were delicious. But not nearly as delicious as my 5 quarts of applesauce will be when I open them up with some loved ones in the dead of winter.

There's something that I've wanted to write for a long time but I haven't gotten it out, its about bikes, specifically why I love them so much. Not only do they build amazing muscles in your legs that allow you to go all day and not get tired, help your body stay strong to ward off diseases, prevent future medical complications, and save you money on car insurance, maintenance, and gas, they also build community. Riding a bike, you go slowly, at 20 miles per hour or less. At this speed, and lacking the metal box enclosing most street travelers, you can make eye contact with and say hello to people sitting in their driveways, enjoying the afternoon.

I thought all of this was well and good, perfect even, until now that I've been doing it for a long time and I still haven't gotten to know my neighbors. I've made eye contact with, smiled at and said hello to many people who pass by my bike shop as I work and also many people on a few streets around Elkhart as I ride my bike around. But just that isn't enough for me to have a sense of community.

Earlier this week I stopped at Ox Bow Park on my way to Goshen to take pictures of the beautiful leaves and trees. Breaking my ride up like that really helped me to relax and feel great, also to appreciate nature. Riding my bike is great for me, but I still need to stop and take time to relax.

In Honduras I really felt comfortable in my town when I could walk around and greet people by name. Towards the end I started to hear 'A wiki-wiki WAMBA!!!' when local high schoolers would see me. They were just repeating the camp chant that I had taught them, but it helped me to know that I was a part of their lives and their community. It is a beautiful feeling, something I will cherish forever.

Staying Out of Trouble

Adjustment to life in the MVS house has been a little hectic. Weeks fly by like seconds. Thursday night happens before you take your first deep breath after the weekend. That is, if you get to take a breath on the weekend. Exciting projects have coupled with my desire for community involvement and the work realize personal dreams. The first month of this life happen without time to sit in the hammock and read, as I spent so much time doing in Honduras.

This last month has also been full of anti-racism and anti-sexism talk in the house and outside of it. Its all been well and good, except that the tight-packedness of it has left very little time for reflection and collection of thoughts. Anyway these thoughts have seeped into every interaction that I have. I feel like I suddenly have a window into (what I've been told) is the dark side of systemically oppressed people's thoughts. Its a little bit unnerving.

Working at the bike shop behind the house gives me a lot of opportunities to interact with local people. If I see a Caucasian kid taking charge and his significantly older sister or an African-American kid letting him take charge, I wonder how much of that is happening because of socialization. Much, apparently, despite the Caucasion kid's high mechanical aptitude. I must admit that the things I see do make sense under these new lenses.

Before the (Damascus Road) anti-racism training, I had spoken with an African-American male teenager outside of the bike shop. I asked what was up, to which he responded that he was just trying to stay out of trouble. Being taken back to the hundreds of times I had heard my dad say that in a joking way, I laughed and told him that that was what I was trying to do too. What struck me immediately was that for him, keeping out of trouble was a very real struggle. Every day I'm sure he struggles to keep out of trouble with gangs, drugs, and police. He, walking alone or with his friends, is immediately suspect. I don't know the statistics, but I do know that he, simply by being African-American, is much more likely to do time in prison or in the back of a cop car. And even though I disregard traffic law and have done stupider and more illegal things in the past, I was and am not as likely to get arrested for it.

But I see hope. A growing wave of racial and sexual discrimination awareness is bringing these things into more and more benefiting people's conscience thoughts. A smile and salutation still have the power to blast warmth and acceptance through people's reluctantly built walls of bitterness, anger and fear. And Maisha (housemate) and I were welcomed to the neighborhood last night by an Angel, a woman who lives down the street.

The Work Pew

I'm getting settled in here in Elkhart. I moved into the MVS Jubilee House almost two weeks ago and I've been working a lot doing projects with my dad, projects at Jubilee and getting the bike shop set up. Its been exhausting and I'm already drawing clearer lines between work and personal space so that I can preserve calm, peace, and energy throughout my time here. The MVS unit here is coming together a little more every day and I'm really enjoying the friendships that I'm making here. We fill our time with good laughs. :)

Last week as I was rearranging the attic over the bike shop, I found a small section of one-legged pew from Prairie Street MC that had been cut off several years ago to make space for wheelchairs. I carried it down into the bike shop, thinking it would be a great chair to put into Jubilee. When Simon Gingrich (Prairie Street MC's pushing-90 workhorse) gave a suspecting sideways look at it and said it was one of his challenges to cut a few years ago because the wood curves while it's thickness changes.

Later that week I found a suitable piece of wood, sawed it up and nailed it onto the legless side of the pew. Then I sawed it again so that the pew would sit straight. Smiling to myself, I took a good look at my work. This little disabled pew now had enough legs, it supported my weight. The torn cushion and cover were as comfortable as they had ever been, happy to be able to serve a purpose again.

Sitting on the pew, I was overcome by an urge to sing a hymn, to rejoice for all that God provides. My upbeat heart sung all day, now with a place to sit and examine old dysfunctional bikes, take them apart, wipe of decades of grime, patch their tubes, true the wheels, tighten the brakes, scrape off rust, and grease up their mechanical pieces. Yesterday five other people came to work at the bike shop doing all of the above. One old neighbor man, Uncle Ed, sat on the pew and made wheels, fenders, and handlebars shine brighter than any of us would have believed possible.

With this work, some lines have been blurred rather than better defined. One has been the line between work and worship. For me, it has become an act of worship to rehabilitate an old pew and a few old bikes as well as teach some bike repair. New familiarity with each other, the feeling of being useful, the dissipation of fear of the unknown, the swelling joy from riding a pretty bike, the empowered glint in the eye of a new bike mechanic who understands her machine, all of it gave me a glimpse of the Kingdom. Its a beautiful sight to watch from a seat in the crutched work pew.

And if the salt has gained new flavor?

I have now arrived in Akron, Pennsylvania and am with the SALTers from around the world. Its been a wonderful couple of days. I'll move on to visit my brother and EMU people in Harrisonburg, then to a family reunion at Laurelville Mennonite Camp then to Liz' friend's wedding in Newton, Kansas. then I'll take a train to Purdue and hopefully connect with friends from Camp Tecumseh (where I worked last year) and friends from Purdue, then my parents will come pick me up. and take me back to Elkhart. All of that is extremely exciting, but I'm sad about the fact that I'm already exhausted. Not doing consistent exercise for about a year will take a toll on you.

Its quite apparent that the same affliction has fallen on most of the rest of the SALTers as well. Evidence was shown in the disappearance of tone and muscle size during our ultimate frisbee game the other day. My calves are still killing me. I've started out into vegetarianism as well and I'm struggling to find sources of lots of protein.

But personal fitness was the least of our worries. Today we had small-group meetings where we talked about our greatest struggles this last year. It was quite powerful as many SALTers shared deeply about being trapped in social or physical boundaries. We all were trapped at some point because of language difficulties, some people unexpectedly had to learn an indigenous language. People shared about tough host family, work, and community situations that they dealt with the whole year. In a few cases, they were able to come out at the end with an acceptable resolution, but a lot of them just had to learn how to cope. Some people who were bubbly last year are now startlingly quiet, others where had appeared muted and emotionless last year expressed powerful emotion and passion.

Its been tough. We are tired. We were hit with things we never expected and confused for months over things that shouldn't have been ours to worry about in the first place. We have cried nights away, spent hours clearing out abused intestines, and run away to hundreds of worlds in the books we read. I think we have all come out of the experience stronger. We have more understanding of ourselves and definitely more understanding of foreigners and their cultures. We have developed passion for personal and community development, passion for right relationships, passion for life, love, and peace. Please, be gentle with us.

Las Palabritas

The last couple of weeks here have been kind of crazy. Honduras has been undergoing some serious political issues. In case Michael Jackson has taken priority over Honduras in your news, I’ll recap.

Former president Mel Zelaya had been pushing a public inquiry to open the constitution to change in a way many suspected would be similar to Venezuelan Hugo Chavez’ recent changes (highly left-wing, but also with a clause to allow him to run for president again). On the day that the inquiry was to happen, Honduran military took Zelaya to Costa Rica and Roberto Micheletti (presidential candidate in recent caucus) was put into power by Congress. Zelaya and Chavez threw threats of war around for a couple of days then settled to push Zelaya’s reinstatement through the Organization of American States (OEA). Zelaya also went to the UN, where he found support. From what it looked like on the TV, protests for and against the new government were raging in the biggest cities around the country. Lastimosamente, one or two protesters were killed by police when Zelaya tried to fly in to Tegucigalpa last week. Since then, aid money to Honduras has been delayed and there have been vague threats of trade/oil embargos which do a fairly good job of striking fear into rural people. Zelaya has said that he is going to appear in Honduras sometime soon.

Though life goes on as usual, it has been a pretty frightening experience out here in La Campa. I think that’s mostly because being so far away from all the action and straining all day to hear reports of anything on the radio really gets your imagination going. I went to San Pedro Sula over one weekend that looked a little dicey, but the 10pm to 6am curfew made sleeping downtown feel like La Campa, minus the roosters.

Zelaya was taken out on a Sunday. Similar to Amanda and Andrew’s experience, church that day was very good to me. A guest speaker preached an uplifting message of hope and faith because as Christians, our citizenship is of heaven, not of any country, and we know that God is with us. During the church service, I couldn’t stop looking at the plump, smiling, wide-eyed babies all around me. It weighs on my heart that this event is and will continue to provoke a massive uncertainty for the future of those babies. What does this mean for their education? For their life opportunities, slim as they may be? Will they be like the children of Baghdad, six years old and unaware of an empowered life, always subject to the whim of a random bomb or rocket attack?

Thankfully, protests have not become seriously violent. As always, we are reminded to pray for the future and these children. The national (and global) divide between the ultra-rich and the rest as well as their grip on politics and the economy continue to grow. All of this leaves room for plenty of incertidumbre, a good, awkward word to describe feelings of unsureness.

As I prepare to leave, I find myself looking into the eyes of my Honduran friends and trying to push away that shadowy, persistent demon of incertidumbre. And then we talk and the bond of life, joy, friendship, love, and hope starts shining and brightening between us.

Photos to pass the time

Probably the last photos I will post here in Honduras

I'm at the MCC farm near Lago Yojoa with the Stephens family. Its been fun to to hang out and see some farm work and dull a machete on some rocks. The political situation here has been preoccupante this week. I feel like it should be alright, but the situation is a little more worrying for the Hondurans as international aid money is being cut and possible sanctions could be applied. I went to church last Sunday after hearing that the president had been taken to Costa Rica and I saw the usual load of babies and small children there. With the political situation as it is, it makes me wonder about their future. It is heavy on my heart that while I can leave easily and carry on with my life, the children of Honduras's education, their parent's livelihood, and a million other things are in jeopardy. So please, take a moment to pray for Honduras and its people, wisdom for Honduran and other Latin American leaders.

Thanks!

Culture Accepted as Truth

This last week I finished my work with the camps. I’ve said this before, but I’m so glad that I’ve gotten to help with them because I’ve seen such a wonderful effect of the work. Amanda and Andrew came to visit me on the weekend and we had a good time hanging out and talking. I also took each of them on a short moto ride and they both got pretty scared, but they managed well in the end.

One thing that has been very interesting to see is how some cultural taboos work. In North America, most everyone except for some young women have never danced moving their hips from side to side, in fact most think it’s not possible. If a North American tries it, they will undoubtedly laugh out of embarrasement and convince themselves not to try it again. Men would never dance moving their hips. Here, all you have to do is demonstrate how you want the jovenes (young adults) to move their hips, and they (the non-evangelicals, at least) get to it right away, without a hint of embarassment. Either that or they say they can’t do it and watch in envy.

Cheating also has a contrasting taboo. In North America, cheating is generally prohibited, unless you’re playing one of those card games that is based on it. Whether we’re playing Mafia, walking around blindfolded, or answering surveys, cheating normally comes out as the prefered method to complete the task at hand. If theres another way to do it that seems like it might be easier, people go for it. There seems to be no real concern for ‘the letter of the law,’ sometimes even when it is repeated and reiterated that it must be followed. Cheating appears to be fully acceptable.

That perception of mine makes me wonder if that’s how so many government officials get away with corruption. Two of La Campa’s three hotels are owned by former mayors, along with one or more nice vehicles. The current mayor has a very nice truck and several large milking cows, which together have a value of around 6 years of his actual salary. I’m not saying that any of them pocketed La Campa funds, but its just a little suspicious that the three (by far) most well-well off families in La Campa have held La Campas highest government post.

I am fascinated that depending on where you grow up, you can develop distinct attitudes toward the same thing. In La Campa, we admire a man who can shake his hips. We understand that cheating is acceptable. We crave meat, beans, and tortillas. We see a hungry man unless a woman is close by to cook and serve him food. We go to bed at 9pm and get up at 5am. We ask why the present NGOs aren’t giving us houses and petroleum-based fertilizers. We wonder how, without the NGO’s constant donations, we can ever make our country developed and respectable. We see green grass and we look for the horse or cow that should be eating it. We look for tasty/medicinal monte (shurbs) and mushrooms on the road or path that we walk on. We talk in hushed voices about the corruption we see up the street. We are so busy incriminating politicians that talking about solutions hardly crosses our minds.

We’re so used to all this, we can’t even imagine things any other way. We’re convinced that the way we see it is the (t / T)ruth. But then breaking that in ourselves and in others is why cultural exchange is always so rich and rewarding.

El Gran Reto

The camps I`ve been helping with recently have been wonderful. They`re paid for and staffed by multiple institutions, PLAN International, World Vision, and a bunch of Honduran NGOs. Its really amazing and exciting to see young people develop leadership, teamwork, and critical thinking skills over a couple of days. Its really dramatic.

So many institutions working together can be a headache. On Thursday I went into Gracias and walked an hour to the camp site to find out that I had to make it back to La Campa because it had been decided to do the camp right outside of La Campa. Someone had decided to change it the night before and I hadn´t been informed. I was a little furious. But when I got to La Campa, I hung out with the institution people until it was decided that not enough young people showed up in the municipality to go ahead with the camp. In that municipality, turnout is generally low because people walk up to 6 hours just to get to the town center. We, the leaders, went on a hike for fun up a river, climbed up a ravine wall to see a cave where guaro (moonshine) used to be made. I only felt like my life was in danger a few times on the ravine wall, so we´ll praise the Lord for that.

I ended up going to the other camp that was going on in another municipality that I had never been to. I went in a car, a shiny new Ford Explorer, that had been donated to the camp NGO by USAID. SUVs like that don´t exist here except for maybe a couple in the cities. We were listening to techno and mainstream rap from the US. Also we were driving with the windows usp, and since no one could see through the extra-balck tint on the windows, they just looked at the USAID sticker on the side of the car. We were a good personification of a lot of aid money, self-serving, impersonal, and oblivious to the reality surrounding us.

At one point at the camp, we saw smoke rising from a hill fairly close to our camp. When the wind picked up, the coordintor guy said we should check it out to see if it was a controlled burn or not. Four of us then went on a super-exciting, physics-defying, absolutely terrifying motorcycle ride, me on the back, up an extremely treacherous footpath to fight a forest fire. We triumphantly fought one side of the fire, saving maybe an acre or two of forest.

The rest of the camp consisted of giving ridiculous-seeming challenges to the young people and watching them work at it until they figured it out. Its a whole lot of fun. I joked with my parter that el gran reto (the great challenge) is to climb that big pine tree over there, without touching the tree! (or cut it down with...a herring!) :O The great thing is that leadership, teamwork, and critical thinking skills develop during the challenge and everyone comes out with more confidence, knowledge, and wisdom than they had before.

El gran reto made me reflect that that is often how life is for all of us, how things work. We have a huge task set before us that seems impossible, and whether we achieve it or not, we come out with new and improved skills, knowledge, and wisdom. Of course, all this depends on our attitude. And God is the camp leader, watching, laughing about the seeming impossibility of the task, but knowing that it is developing us for our future.

Walkin' legs

The rainy season is coming into full swing now. It really makes travelling to communities tough. Today on the motorbike, I had to cross a normally shallow river (1 ft deep). I was thinking it had probably grown since it had just finished raining, but once I saw it, it didn’t look like it had very much. I dropped a gear and went into the little river, lifting up my legs so as not to soak them. The moto and I got across fine but my boots went under so I think it was probably about 2.5-3 feet deep. But eso no fue nada (that was nothing)! My coworker Elvin (the one who doesn’t exaggerate) said one time he crossed a river where the water almost came up to the seat on the moto. Scary!

I got to the community and sat around for a while, waiting for the young people to show up. Plenty of younger and older people came in too once we started singing songs and playing games. As is typical, following instructions turned out to be difficult. Reminded of the time, I tried to talk with them about what kind of interpersonal and life skills they had been able to practice while working on the vegetable garden. Unfortunately the presence of the overly participative group leader meant that no one else really had to talk. Soon, the rain started up again and drowned me out. Between the time restraints, the talkative leader, and the rain, I think very little (less than normal) of what I said was understood. Though it was a weaker than mediocre meeting, a bunch of them let me know that they had enjoyed it and thanked me for visiting.

My conclusion is that there is a lot of value in going to a meeting just to make sure that they know you’ve made the effort to come out to see them. I’d probably be encouraged by a simple visit too if I lived out there. Some of them walk to the municipality center (1.5 hours fast, 3 slow) and back for high school every weekday. For these people, spending half a day walking is fairly common. My church in La Campa had a service tonight at an 85 year old man’s house for his birthday. He walks to town at least twice a week for church, about a 4 hour roundtrip over hills covered with loose rocks. In that context, understandably, the presence of people at any meeting means that they care.

And some more books that I just read:

Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver – She has an ability to pull you into her story so completely that you never want to put it down and then when its done you miss the characters. It carefully explains the importance of community as few of us know it while providing an intreaguing look into modern Native American society.

A Traves de Cien Montanas (Across a Hundred Mountains) by Reyna Grande – Is a powerful book about immigration to the US from the point of view of a poor Mexican family. Hope carries through the emotional struggle of anger, worry, fear and disgrace. It puts a very human and personal touch on immigration, well worth the read.

Same Kind of Different As Me by Denver Moore and Ron Hall – Powerful and touching, it is a true story about how a millionaire and a homeless man become emotional brothers. Encourages the reader to an enduring relational ministry to the homeless and society’s outcasts. Read it and tell me how many times it chokes you up/makes you cry. My count of 2 shouldn’t be very hard to beat (especially if you’re my dad ;).

Oh Happy Day!

I've finally gotten to post some pictures! They're beautiful, check them out :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012625&id=1161480074&l=c1d78e3d27

That NGO Addiciton

The other day I picked up an Utne Reader magazine and started reading it. I found an interesting article called ´The New Colonialists´ talking about NGOs and what they do for the people of third world countries. I`ve read before about aid shipments of clothes, grain, and infrastructure collapsing local economy on those three levels, effectively creating a dependency overnight. The article correctly said that while the effects of NGOs´ work can be horrific, it has saved millions of lives. By saving all those lives, they take authority and the need to be competent away from their host government. This makes the government weak and since it has fewer responsibilities and expectations, more likely to be corrupt. The people lose confidence in their government, making a situation of civil unrest more likely to happen. It was a fascinating article, really, considering that I work for an NGO.

What made it even more fascinating was that I was reading it in La Campa´s municipal building at a meeting of representatives from all the local NGOs with political and community leaders from La Campa and its villages. And who was invited but wasn´t present? Take a guess. La Campa´s mayor. It seemed like the people who were united were the de facto municipality officials, yet no elected government officials were there (but a mayor candidate for the coming elections did showed up). The next day they had a similar meeting in San Manuel, but there the mayor and local government officials showed up.

Whether or not the NGO workers in the area are aware of the political and dependence issues that could come out of their work, what they were doing in La Campa and San Manuel had the possibility of stemming those issues. That would be achieved by uniting local NGO-empowered community leaders with each other and with local government, to effectively do whatever work that needs to be done, without relying on foreign donations to NGOs.

The goal is to empower people, something I feel like we do with CASM. Sometimes though, dependence rears its ugly head. A couple of times when I have visited communities, people ask me what I brought for them. Sometimes it feels offensive, but then I remind myself that its true, I have access to more money and more resources than they do and I am here to serve, so why shouldn´t I help them? The biggest challenge is to work for sustainability, to ward of dependency. Luckily, my work is focused on building leadership in youth and in communities, something that is directed to diminish dependency.

Let the Rain Come

The last few weeks have seen a steady accumulation of clouds in the sky. This country is so parched; the promise of rain is exciting and refreshing. Last week I went to the MCC retreat at Lago Yojoa and it was quite different to see green trees covered with flowers. At the retreat I got to meet the new MCC Honduras family, the Stephens. Their story is encouraging. They took a leap of faith into service, selling their home, abandonning their comfortable life, and coming down with an open mind, hands free.

I stopped for breakfast in La Esperanza on the way to the retreat. An old man with a French cap and voice reminiscent of Sean Connery came in, sat down at the restaurant’s one table with me, and ordered some breakfast. I soon found out that he, Salvador, had spend 15 years studying in the US to get four bachelor’s degrees on top of a Ph. D. in education. He worked for the Honduran government for decades, writing the law concerning organic agriculture while organizing, teaching, and befriending a large group of campesinos, in the process making them millionaires (1M Lempiras = $50k).

Now he is the regional director for Habitat for Humanity. Salvador designed and is building a house for his son to live in that he hopes will be adopted as a new design standard for Habitat in his region. His design separates the latrine/shower from the house and adds two bedrooms, making it a healthier and more practical house. Also, he’s using apropriate technology, building with bamboo instead of steel rebar to support the walls. His design comes out more expensive ($4,500 difference) than the current design, but for the added cost, he calls it a habitacion digna, a respectable living space.

Many development organizations seem more concerned with writing big numbers in a chart than with actually helping people. World Vision recently came by to measure, weigh, and have a doctor glance at some local kids. They were supposed to be the poorest of the poor, but the town setting of the check-ups meant that the kids were already fairly well off. The poorest of the materially poor live in villages that you have to walk over rivers and mountains to get to, few of which I have been to. Not that being weighed, measured, and given a notebook and pencil would have changed their lives anyway.

A homeless man in Lafayette, Indiana expressed to me his anger that most people invest more money in and spend more time on their dogs than the suffering human beings down the street. This is true, we go to great lengths to satisfy a selfish whim; yet, when the most crucial needs of our neighbors stare us in the face, we pretend not to notice.

So make it personal, make it real. Share a meal and a meal-time with someone on the street. Open your house to a family in need. Sacrifice something for the benefit of a neighbor in need. You don’t need to send your money to an institution to be a conduit of life and love. Right now, you can put leaves back on the trees, give the birds a place to sing, and send new green shoots full of life through the dead plants. You can help bring the Holy Reign.

Teólogas

Out in the country, many people don´t have a lot of social interaction, most people´s days consist of working fields, taking care of livestock, and chopping up firewood. They relate most often to their extended families. Meeting with groups far out in the country with who share distant family connections, the discomfort is thick in the air. Communities with strong, involved leaders get projects done and community development (or the development of community) soon follows after.

These individuals are often also involved in religious leadership. If they are, it’s a sign of commitment to the community since being a pastor here is rarely a way to put bread on the table. They are also providing a time and place for regular social interaction, giving them more opportunity to lead. Taking all of this into account, religious organizations and their leaders understandably have a lot of power.

Por ejemplo, a Peace Corps volunteer in the area was doing an efficient stoves project (they burn less wood to cook your beans and tortillas) and one of the women she was working with was having a problem getting hers installed. Why? Her husband was annoyed by the womens group´s efforts of empowerment so he wouldn´t give his permission to build it. Another Peace Corps volunteer suggested that she involve my host dad, this man´s pastor, because anything the pastor says is to be taken seriously.

All this to say that alongside the unfortunately strong machismo society in Latin America, there are encouraging signs of women´s empowerment. CASM has organized several women´s groups in the area and many community leaders and local development NGO workers have very progressive understandings of gender roles. And last night, my host dad graduated from the Latinamericana University of Theology in a class with 8 men and 28 women. Implications? Profound.

For the Price of a Cup of Coffee

The wonderful week of Semana Santa just ended, marked by Liz’s visit, vacation, lots of church services, and a politically and socially infused walk through colored sawdust pictures on the road. The walk went by the twelve stations of the cross and the religious leadership spoke of the way that dominant culture abuses women and tradition while politic(ian)s devalue the indigenous and the poor. Though the words were strong enough to be wielded by activists, unfortunately they didn’t talk very much about action. It made for an interesting walk, but nonetheless we decided to go cool down at around the 2 hour mark.

Aaron, a civil engineer volunteering with a bridge-building organization, accompanied us to Gracias for the days of vacation. One night he came down with a nasty case of food poisoning after which he felt bad enough that we took him to the hospital. We were directed around the hospital and into the doctor’s office where a nurse took a blood sample and hooked up an IV. While the IV flowed, a young man with a motorcycle accident mashed face arrived and was parked in the hallway in a wheelchair. Since we were in the doctor’s office, we got to hang out with him while he signed papers, gave directions and chatted with us. The doctor hooked another IV up to Aaron while he told us that he recognized us from the restaurant we had eaten at last night and how traditional culture like we have in La Campa is losing its place in big-city Gracias. He saw Liz’s bag on the floor and advised her not to put it there because the floor was very dirty. Too true, in the hall a nearly naked man with an ace-wraped leg and another painful-looking face was accompanied by drips of blood and several not-so-pleasant smells. Reassuringly Aaron’s needle had clearly come out of a new package and the whole IV setup was very clean.

While they did some tests to determine the cause of Aaron’s sickness, Liz and I walked to the park to hang out and get lunch. I felt a need to leave because we were just taking up space and looking at highly busted-up people in the hospital. We came back a couple hours later to be given several prescriptions with the explanation that only a couple of them could be given to us at the hospital, the rest we would have to buy. The doctor gave us the meds that he could plus a starting dose of the antibiotic to shoot into Aaron’s IV. Aaron got ready, I shook the doctor’s hand, and he sent us on our way. On the way out we paid the bill.

We were given immediate, caring, professional attention, two reenergizing IVs, various tests, a number of pills, a couple prescriptions, and a bed for 5 hours for the going price of a cup of coffee, 5 Lempiras ($0.27). Public health care is an incredible thing.

La Politica

I posted a few pictures of happy people yesterday, so make sure to check those out too

Politics here are more or less a joke. Everyone knows that the mayor is corrupt, apparent from “the Municipality’s” big new black Ford pickup, the police are corrupt, and the high government officials are corrupt. The presidential commercials often go to the point of showing a minute of nearly-naked women dancing then flashing a name and asking for the vote. Rallies are worse, they display hours of professional dancing mixed with concerts finished off by a little show of the candidate shaking hands and waving at people. Despite all this, the main form of advertisement is through stickers displaying a name, a picture, and a party color. They are pasted everywhere. Enlarged versions are on billboards or painted on walls.

Qué fue? Oh that’s right, you want to find out about what matters to each candidate so that we can decide which single person’s opinion we want to turn into a guiding force. Well my proud citizens of the United States, that knowledge is not really available here. But somehow plenty of people have been convinced that it does. At the camp training for counselors, intelligent NGO workers who had no idea what any government plans were still insisted that each candidate had presented a government plan to someone at sometime. They must have some plan or else they wouldn’t be running! Indeed.

I was surprised at first to find out that the main point of doing these camps all over our department is to encourage youth to be politically active. We analyzed the political commercials and talked a lot about how we could try to get youth to think critically about candidates and officials. But it doesn’t stop there. We’re also trying to turn them into locally active community leaders with a more complete understanding organizing and of gender equality. We’re attempting to equip youth with knowledge of their own people power.

As logical and good as that may seem to us, I think you North Americans could use a good bit of knowledge of your own people power too. The problem is that we are encouraged to make change by being passive, through voting for people to make our choices for us. The fact of the matter is that we can change our communities; it just has to be important enough for us to give it an honest effort, to make sacrifices.

Gente Digital

Hey! I haven't been able to post pictures in months, and now that I am able to, I only have a few to post. :/ They are from a camp training session I went to for counselors, we will be hosting close to 1000 youth in over 30 camps/trainings in the region in the next two months. They are a good crew and I'm looking forward to it :)

The point of the camps is to train youth to be future community leaders. There is a focus on developing critical thinking skills, an idea of gender equality, and skills to organize and develop community.

Fotos

I have not yet made progress on talking with church leaders, but its definitely in my mind. Currently I am in San Pedro Sula at the MCC office with Liz, Caleb, and Bikemovent gurus Jon Spicher and Lars Akerson (americas.bikemovement.org). They just made chocolate icing to use on our banans in a bit. It'll be wonderful :) A special shout-out thanks goes to Jenny Hostetler, who sent Jon a bar of wonderful dark chocolate.

The Hammock of Selfish Motivation

In Akron they asked us to think about what our selfish motivations were for doing a year of SALT service. What I thought of immediately was that I signed up so that I could go to the tropics to eat fruit and see the sun every day, never be cold, and that I could live life at a slower pace. And one reason to live at a slower pace was that I would have time to read plenty of books. So with a little bit of chagrin, I confess to you that I have been reading bastante. And in the meantime, I’ve sentenced my hammock to hard labor. But I thought I might be able to supplant my selfishness by sharing my list with you and making some recommendations, so maybe you can enjoy them :-) I know I’ve left out some books and if I remember them I’ll add them, but at the moment this is what I can remember.

Whats So Amazing About Grace? By Philip Yancey – One of the best books I’ve ever read. Plenty of fascinating explanations of Biblical stories as well as some modern ones. Challenges the church to be the haven of grace that Jesus calls us to be. Powerful and motivational.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver – A truly inspiring book. About her family spending a year growing as much food as they can for their own consumption and buying the rest that they need from neighbors. Challenging yet exciting, it really makes you want to grow tomatoes and have chickens or something.

Kite Runner – Another excellent book, but pretty depressing at times. I related to a disturbing extent with the broken friendship that the book presents and it actually hurt to read it. It provoked some great reflection.

The Secret Life of Bees – Wonderful book about community, racial tensions in the 60s, dealing with personal past, and personal growth in character, spirit, and body. Very well written.

Preventing Violence by James Gilligan – A fascinating look crime and the reason behind it. Does a great job of breaking it down and making sense. Takes a good look at the US’ justice system and alternatives to punitive justice, such as restorative justice.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Exciting story about a boy on a quest. It works with a very vague worldview and vague understanding of spirituality that sounds universalistic or animist. Verdict? Harmless.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond – About the history of people and why things turned out the way they did, with Europeans colonizing the world. Chalk full of fascinating research and insights. Its long and it looks heavy, but its definitely worth reading.

Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti – Sassy author who explains different branches of feminism and the logic behind them. Full of enraging stories and statistics, but in the end encouraging and empowering.

Freedom of Simplicity – Paradoxically has possibly the most advanced vocabulary of any book I’ve read. Plenty of good thoughts and suggestions for simplifying life and therefore being more involved in life. Challenging in quite a few ways.

Violence and Nonviolence in South Africa by Walter Wink – Challenges popular nonviolence. Very helpful because it is insight from experience. It reviews violent and nonviolent conflict strategies and roadblocks that present themselves.

The Shack – Despite my initial skepticism, it turned out to be a pretty good answer to plenty of theological and spirituality questions. Unfortunately it is limited to a North American perspective, (almost) completely forgets about service as an integral part of Christianity, and tends to focus on sadness and regret as opposed to life and love. Still a worthwhile book to read.

Liberation theology – About the Latin American empowerment movement in churches and communities. Despite the subject matter I couldn’t get through it. Due to being translated from Spanish where sentences are written paragraphs at a time, it was difficult to keep a thought developing. I stopped reading it because it was so tough to read and I felt like it was repeating a lot of theology that I had already come into contact with through Mennonite connections and other books.

Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder – Another book I was excited about until I couldn’t read more than a couple pages at a time. Could have to do with sentences half the page long and a pretty elevated vocabulary. I couldn’t get very far, I’ll try again though.

Wild at Heart – A macho perspective on the world and a man’s soul. The author presents an opinion, gives a one-line explanation, then accepts his answer as the obvious, ultimate truth. Apart from how sickening most of it was, it had one chapter that I related to a little, but it really wasn’t very helpful. Completely leaves service out of Christianity.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri – I’m currently reading this, it is a bunch of short stories about broken marriages and people with serious issues. They’re good stories and its well written, its just very frustrating because it doesn’t ever resolve anything.

Now its your turn! : )

Unite, Ignite, and Spark a Light...

The trend of increasing work has proved true once again this week. Monday I traveled to Gracias to ask NGOs World Vision and PLAN for seeds for vegetable gardens. Preparing the required paperwork, I formatted my solicitation, signed and CASM-official stamped it. Unfortunately my proud efforts to make official documents were to no avail, but I left with contacts and a promise to work on it. 12 hours of Tuesday was spent in the office meeting with visiting CASM people. Their passion was great to see, but combined with a Honduran concept of time, it made for hours and hours of monologues that served to reinforce agreement about how the world needs to change. My bosses´ ability to agree while seeming to argue vehemently never ceases to amaze me. Wednesday we went to a new sugarcane processor and the monologues were stopped short by the mouth`s craving for hot, thick, sticky sugarcane. Then we had another longwinded meeting afterwards and we managed to make it out just after bedtime (9). Thursday I went to meet with SAT (high schoolers) and set up some worm composting. There’s something about worm composting that never fails to make everyone feel great inside. The thought of a million little plump, squirmy worms making fertilizer and dropping eggs night and day...well, me fascina.


The really exciting part managed to emerge from the least exciting part, the 12 hours of meeting on Tuesday. We talked about how we could work with church leaders in the communities and municipalities to think of organic as theologically correct. My idea was to try to have a meeting with leaders from both the Evangelical Church and the Catholic Church (gasp).


Here especially, it seems that the religious organizations are more of a divider than anything really. Basic preaching endorses the good Christian life, which boils down to going to church every time there is a meeting, giving offering, and abstaining from drinking, smoking, and dancing. From what I understand, this is the common theme for both Evangelical and Catholic churches, although there are huge chasms of lack of respect that divide them. My host-dad, a man who is a role model in this area, preached about how bad legalism is because look where it got the Catholics, they go out drinking, smoking, and dancing right after mass! Also, he preached about how we should call people brother and sister because we are a family in Christ, unless, of course, they don`t go to our church. A similar spiel comes from other churches, Evangelical and Catholic, in the area. Some communities have as many as 6 churches. The complexity of those divisions blows my mind.


En realidad, my scheme to unite Catholic and Evangelical leaders is something that scares me a little. I practically couldn´t get my idea out when I talked to my host dad Wednesday night. But that’s when you know it’s something that’s worth doing, because you know its right, it´s beautiful, and the feel of it stretching your comfort zone makes your heart skip a beat.

O Si Yo Se

This last week has been packed as well. There were two North American groups who came, one of 25 EMU people and another 12 from Oklahoma State University. On top of that, I was able to have two meetings with high schoolers to talk about soil, homemade chicken feed, the kingdom of God, and play a bunch of games. Oh yea, the youth wanted to learn a song in English, so I sang my favorite (Freedom is Coming, Oh Yes I Know) plenty of times until they could sing it with me. I also taught them in Spanish so they would know what they were saying. The meetings were wonderful to have and have helped me to see that what I want to do is possible. The irony was fairly severe as I realized that what I’ve managed to start doing, environmental education, is exactly the same thing that was on the assignment description back a year and something ago. I never would have guessed. It just took a while because I had to come up with the idea all over again then figure out how to make the necessary contacts and actually do it. (Sorry Amanda and Andrew)


On Wednesday, I made a contact to start working with youth in another community, then I went to Gracias to receive the EMU group. After some hugs, we went up to the Fuerte San Cristobal to get the colonial view around Gracias. Through much persuading I got 6 people to turn a turret into a concert hall (swords into ploughshares?). The chorus of angels descended, divine harmony danced around us, and we sang Freedom until after the Fuerte was closed.


We spent the next day touring La Campa, eating, and talking. It was wonderful to sit and hear reflections from culturally sensitive, gracious, and positive people. It was also exciting to dream about the Critical Mass that Harrisonburg will be having in late August. On that note, we could do a Goshen one too, that would be awesome! …Whats that, you want to do one in Elkhart too? Three Critical Masses in three weeks? I’m all over that. So if you are in any of those locations during mid to late August, don’t miss them!


Finally, I was hit by the iron skillet of irony this week once more when I looked at the tab on the EMU shirt that I was gifted that said Made in Honduras. I highly value them and am thankful for their visit and the shirt; however, I would feel a lot better about the shirt if it hadn’t been made during a Honduran brother or sister’s 72 to 90 (or up to 120) hour work week in a stifling warehouse in San Pedro Sula. The fault does not go back to this EMU group or even anyone else that anyone has ever known. I wish that we who profess EMU’s school motto to “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” would “first remove the log in [our] own eye” before walking out of the front door. Unfortunately that's next to impossible because stepping out of the front door is usually what helps us to see the log in the first place.


So as not to end on a sour note, I would like to reiterate that we are not our own enemies. Our enemy is the greed, the inhumanity, the system that leads us knowingly or unknowingly to support injustice, brutality, and arrogance here and between our brothers and sisters. I would like to invite you to sing with me, all the better if you know the harmony:


In English: Or in Espanish (reino means kingdom):

Freedom, freedom oh freedom Reino, reino o reino,

Freedom oh freedom, Reino o reino

Freedom is coming, oh yes I Reino ya viene o sí yo

Oh yes I know, oh yes I O sí yo sé, o sí yo

Yes I know, oh yes oh yes I know, Sí yo sé, o sí yo sí yo sé,

Freedom is coming, oh yes I know. Reino ya viene o sí yo sé.

We´re not in Kansas anymore.

This week I´ve been blessed with busyness. On Monday I was informed that I would be needed as a translator for a group of Americans. They brought 5,000 pairs of glasses to give away to people in this area. They say that almost everyone here has something called Ptridyum growing across their eyes because of high quantities of sun, dust, and smoke that they come into contact with. We´ve given away several hundred pairs of glasses in this area and I´m proud to say that I´ve diagnosed and given a few more away out the back door. Translator in this case means that I´m also a cultural liason, which has been tiring as well.

The rest of what made this week tiring was that from Tuesday night to Thursday morning, I was travelling with a bunch of campesinos. We were going on a tour almost to Tegucigalpa (long trip!) to see a cane sugar production plant. It was amazing to see their quick, superefficient processing techniques and to discuss them with the campesinos. The men I travelled with have their own sugarcane processing that they do, but it is not nearly as advanced and they don´t come out with brown sugar at the end. Even though 100 lbs of the stuff was only selling for about $26 with half going to expenses, ten men producing ten 100 lb bags of sugar a day is very lucrative.

Travelling with the campesinos, I got to share in their excitement at seeing another part of their country. I was surprised when a few of them told me that they had already travelled as far as Comayagua. Travel is not common here. We had stayed in Gracias the night before at a hotel, a foreign concept as well. Most had stayed up well beyond their normal bedtime (until 10 PM!) to kick off their boots and watch some TV. I shared a room with two campesinos from nearby San Manuel who were fascinated by watching Man vrs. Wild on the Discovery Channel. Actually, they probably related more with that man than with anyone else on TV since they both know their way around the wilderness. The anticipation was thick in the air just after 3:30 AM when we started getting ready to go.

During the travel, they pointed out plants that they recognized and asked each other about the things they didn´t recognize. On the way back, we stopped at Lago Yojoa to eat lunch. When we got off of the bus, I heard one man declare that this must be the ocean. I let them know that it was actually a big lake and they all went out and gazed at it while I answered a few more questions. Then we each got a very special big fish for lunch.

Though we spent many hours travelling that day and we didn´t actually go that far, we passed through many worlds. People rarely travel and because of that, you see plenty of regional variation. The people from one town do things that others don´t. They have thin tortillas instead of thick ones. They have paved roads with lines. They live on flat ground. They have a view of a huge valley. All of these things brought waves of excitement to the bus that are no doubt being relived and splashing new waves in the houses and villages of my travelling campesino friends.

¡La Feria del Fuego!

This last week my parents have been visiting me. Their visit coincided with the annually occuring biggest event in La Campa, the Feria. People had told me for months that the Feria is crazy, that thousands of people (tens of thousands by recent estimate), people from San Pedro Sula, Tegucigalpa, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador, descend on the 500 person town of La Campa. Food, candy, and clothing vendors had been throwing tarp over wooden frames and displaying their goods on tables for weeks in anticipation, catching diminishing hours of sleep as the people flooded in. Because of the impossible logistics of providing shelter and sanitation services for 40 times a town`s normal population, Feria pilgrims slept under their own small sheets of plastic, under their trucks, on the street, or they didn`t sleep at all. A large hole had been dug across the river for defecation, but since it was a few minutes walk from the party and one would likely have at least a couple of simultaneously squatting neighbors, many instead opted for unoccupied patches of grass or dirt around town.

Its been like this for a long time. Saint Matthew, the patron saint of the local colonial church, has been performing miracles for a long time too, the lore of which (and the photo-wall in the church!) attract people far and wide by the horse, truck, bus, and big truck-load. I participated in the march of Saint Matthew around town, where all of La Campa`s old women get together and carry half-meter wooden Saint Matthew on a litter all around the town, singing repetative, enchanting songs about him. The procession follows a ways back, regularly complemented by a home-made rocket flying crazily from a mortar then two pockets of gunpowder ricocheting sucessive blasts off the canyon wall. The walk is only 600 meters long, but walking reverently up and down the mountain at the pace of old women weighed down with San Matias keeps us going for about an hour.

Later on, once my parents had arrived, there were guancascos, when catholic and indigenous customs meet. I found myself being passed by one of these processions one day, headed up by an intimidating-looking masked dancer holding a stick with a wooden lizard hanging from it. At night, these masked dancers and their lizards met the toro del fuego (bull of fire) in the area in front of the church. A volley of the same unpredictable home-made rockets and several more elaborate fireworks announced the meeting as they were launched from the hands of a group of young men on the church roof. The toro del fuego was a guy with a long tent-shaped thing on his head who jumped around the meeting place with the masked lizard-dancers while more fireworks were sent off. A few minutes later the fireworks from the church roof had stopped, but the toro del fuego was dropping military-sized firecrackers behind him and daring them to blast him as he performed his frenzied dance around their burning wicks. Soon a sparkler lit up on the side of the toro and, to my parents` and my shock, proceeded to launch several rounds of rockets from the top of the toro into the starry night sky. The combination of extremes made it the most exciting fireworks show I have ever seen.

The next day, a Honduran cowoker let me know that during celebrations in her village, the children love making their own toro del fuego. Apparently its great, but I was told that they have to be careful, because it can be dangerous! Who knew?

the Culture of Ya

Ya is a fascinating word for any North American. It has to do with time. Used in a sentence, it can mean already or that something will soon happen. Or, when used with no as in ´ya no,´ can mean that it is no longer happening or that it will soon cease to happen. Used as a sentence in itself, it can mean that you´re done, you don´t want any more food, you want more food, or you´re ready to go.

I struggle with the usage of ya. Its such a wonderful word, but it can be so frustrating! For example, one day everyone from my office was driving out to a community. The community was probably about an hour and a half away and we had just left at about 8:30. My coworker got a call from the people in the community, asking if we were going to get there soon because people were getting impatient. Her response: No, no, ya llegamos. Which means, no, no, don´t leave, we´re already arriving. I thought that was ridiculous and I said so, saying that we should have planned to leave earlier if we scheduled the meeting for 8:00. Being at least half North American, I get very uncomfortable when I make people wait because I know that time is valuable and waiting is no fun. My coworker assured me that the villagers wouldn´t be annoyed.

Sure enough, we arrived an hour and a half later and within 5 minutes, you wouldn´t have known we had arrived 2 hours late. It blew my mind to pieces. How is that possible? How can you so easily forgive and forget that someone made you wait for 2 hours?

Sometime later, all of us had just finished eating lunch in a neighboring town. We had at least an hour drive to get back to La Campa. As we were paying the bill and the owner was looking for change, the same coworker decided to go use the internet. The owner came back with the change and we sat down to watch some soccer highlights. After a few minutes, the news came on, which we watched for a half hour. We then watched part of a telenovela, or soap (which are on constantly). Tired of the TV, we went outside and sat in the truck, listening to a very weak radio signal from El Salvador. After an hour of waiting outside, I decided I would make good use of my time and go take some pictures of the town´s church. That sucessfully used up about 10 minutes, and I returned to the truck to find that my coworker had not yet returned. Upon commenting to another coworker, all he could do was shake his head in disbelief. Nearing on the 2 hour wait mark, my coworker returned. ¡Ya! said my coworker whom I had been waiting with. And we made our way back to La Campa, acting as if we had only just begun to wait.

When I asked my internet-surfing coworker about why it took so long, she said that the guy at the internet cafe didn´t know what he was doing. Possible. But no one else even bothered to ask why we had waited for so long. They had tired of the wait as well, but why make a big deal out of it? We had begun our journey back to La Campa.

In North America, we would interpret that as a sign of disrespect and we would be angry about the lost time, the inconvenience. Here, we understand that she was not trying to offend us and waste our time, she was just trying to get something done and it happened to take a while. Since we value our relationship with her in the office and it would not do us any good, it would be foolish to get angry about the wait. Its better if we just get back to La Campa, where we all want to be and since that is now an option, lets get to it. Already. Ya. Brilliant.

Christmas all over again!

Recently I´ve been prepping for something to get started as far as my own work here. I met with my group of youth (anywhere from 12 to 30 and unmarried) the other day and suggested that they plant a vegetable garden to earn money for their group. I thought it would also be a great platform to talk about soil conservation, nutrition, creation, small business operation, planning, and whatever else I can think of. I´m meeting at the high school sometime soon and I´m hoping I can do the same kind of thing with them.

So today I went into Gracias to buy seeds for the garden and I stopped by the post office (where I only get to visit about once a month or so) and I had two Christmas cards! One from my grandma, and one with a million little notes from a lot of people at Prairie Street, my church congregation in Elkhart. Thank you all so much for the kind and encouraging words! In Honduras we call those kind of notes or speeches ´palabritas´ meaning words and with the ´ita´ suffix meaning small/short, cute, nice, or any other endearing word you can think of.

I went to my favorite liquado (fruit milkshake) shop and sipped something delicious as I read through the pile of palabritas. Thank you all so much for sending them, they were wonderful to recieve :)

Lo, the Beloved Campo

I have now been back in La Campa for a week. I came back this time with resolve to get started on something, whatever that may be. In my place of work thats not so easy because its a very small office where everyone travels from nearly every day to visit far-flung communities and participate in projects. Often I end up tagging along, laughing at the humor that I miraculously and joyously now understand, eating the chicken soup delicacy at lunch, and maybe leading the campesinos (as) in a nice little game or two. Other times I stay in the office so that I can feel like I´ve gotten something productive done. Sometimes that works out for me, and sometimes it doesn´t. As you may be able to tell, I´ve been struggling recently with feeling in the least bit useful here. A couple of days ago I felt like doing even a fraction of what I had originally envisioned was going to be nearly impossible.

So I started praying for signs that my presence was meaningful. Probably something I should have been doing all along, but this is how it works. I soon felt very encouraged when I washed my plate after lunch and a few others that were in the sink. This is not at all something that Honduran men do, in my house, this work is reserved for the ridiculously overworked house-servant who´s job title is ´muchacha´. My host brother deposited his plate, and once I started to wash it, he signalled that he wanted access to the sink so that he could wash his own plate. The growing trend is that I have found myself able to recognize small things in the lives of my family and co-workers that I can see that I have had some possitive effect on. Very encouraging and it feels wonderful.

So, I love being back in La Campa. And I´m looking forward to making whatever kind of impact I possible can here. And I´m going to chop this post short so that you can take some time to read Rachel´s and Liz´s posts because I relate to what they said in a lot of ways and they are excellent posts. In case you don´t have time, because I know how packed we like to make our schedules, here is an exerpt from rachel´s post:

´The outside living-ness of Nueva Suyapa such as children playing soccer in my path, donkeys going on their own and mothers bathing their children no longer makes me giddy like it did before. They now are everyday backdrops of the painting I’d like to call my life in Tegucigalpa.´

That painting is a beautiful one indeed.

Back to My Roots!

Liz and I have finished one week of language school here in La Ceiba, on the north coast. This city is named after a huge tree that grows here in Honduras and the city is known as Honduras´ girlfriend. Thats apparently because there is a thriving nightlife here that is lacking in all other cities. Theres a well known Honduran song about La Ceiba that has a really catchy chorus, ´Es mi novia Ceiba, dum da da da dum´ and its kinda fun to sing.

Here on the north coast, the (Honduran-African) Garífuna people live in their own towns. Liz and I went to one this past weekend to hang out. I was really excited because I had heard that the towns are very similar to African ones. It was really nice to walk around that town, smiling at people and being greeted in turn by huge white African smiles. The Garífuna like to play music and dance, but the day we went we didn´t see any maybe because it was raining.

We went for a walk on the beach and finally picked a spot to sit down and enjoy the beach and ocean. The beach was deserted and the waves looked perfect for body-surfing, so I went out to catch a few. Liz went on a walk. While neither of us was watching, someone grabbed our bags (and my clothes) and ran, leaving us moneyless and me mostly naked. By the grace of God, my wallet happened to make its way out of a pocket inside my bag, so we had enough money to easily make it back to La Ceiba. I felt like going back right away would just feel too much like defeat, so I got back in the water, got knocked around by a few more waves, then came back in. We then decided to stop at a hotel and get a coffee to enjoy for a while. We sat at the restaurant and watched a storm come in from the ocean before we made our way out. The owner ended up giving us the coffee for free and we went on our way running through the rain to the bus stop, yelling ´Adios!´to massive white smiles as we ran out of their friendly town. We made it back happily and safely without too many losses, and it was a great story to tell our host-mother. Haha, she really enjoyed telling it back to us the next day, laughing uncontrollably about how we showed up at the door without a key and how I was almost desnudo.

We sometimes talk about how our stuff, our technology, really complicates our lives. We talk about how life would be more relaxed and probably better if we didn´t use technology as extensively as we do. But at the same time we are reluctant to give up our technology because it is the most expensive thing we own. I lost my camera to the beach-robber, but that only means that I am forced to pay more attention to the beauty that I see in everyday life and in the faces of the people I would normally try to take pictures of. I see the beauty or the joy or the life and I say to myself, wow, I wish I could capture that in zeros and ones. But since I can´t, I just take a good look at it and soak it in, remembering not just the image, but also the feel of the rotting dock below my feet, the wet and salty sheen on my face, the rolling waves and the mist that trails them as they pass me on the way to the beach. So regrettably, I won´t be able to post pictures for a while. But I´ll do my best to soak in all this beauty around me and tell you about it as best I can. :)

Sending warmth

This isn't to try to make you jealous, although I'm well aware that it probably will. May you be surrounded by warmth of peace, love, and community. That said, please enjoy some photos of God's creation from the beautiful Caribbean island of Utila :)