Diplomas, Potholes and Friends

October 2, 2016
La Gloria, a suburb of Tijuana

It’s Sunday morning and all is quiet around the posada. John and I met up with old friends and new at the San Diego airport around noon yesterday and, after getting some lunch, headed directly to la posada de Esperanza.

A little catch up is in order.

We received our ‘diplomas’ at Escuela Cooperativa on Thursday morning. Essentially they indicate that we’ve had a couple more weeks of lessons and they look very official.

We both had a grueling day of school on our last day primarily because John had some incredible, vivid and frightening nightmares during the night. Kicking, tossing and turning, he was doing all he could to fight Satan but the devil kept taking new forms. Once he got out of bed, put on his rosary, explained to me a bit of his dreams, he fell fast asleep. We both got three to four hours of sleep and that is simply not enough to function. Or to learn.

Speeding ?!? through San Juan La Laguna

Instead of a relaxing afternoon of studying,  we rushed back to our apartment, finished stuffing stuff into our backpacks and got ready to leave San Pedro. Clemente, our driver from two weeks earlier, picked us up at 1:30 and we headed back over the muddy, pothole filled roads for nearly 1-1/2 hours to get to the highway, heading back to Guatemala City. Our ride took a total of 5 hours into the city and to find our little hotel. Sore butts, tired and dusty, we checked in, grabbed some dinner around the corner, repacked and zoned. We flew to LAX on Friday, queued up for a car, then drove in Friday traffic, to San Diego. We dined with John’s uncle Erv and cousins Paul and Joni on Friday, repacked for Mexico and, again, zoned out.

We met up with our friends who we will be working this week at the SD airport at noon on Saturday, hopped into our vans, stopped for some lunch and headed across the border. By 2 PM, we were here and split up into our girls or boys dorm rooms.

There are a total of 13 workers, 6 women and 7 men. Seven of us are repeaters – we are somewhat addicted to this idea of helping folks who are helping themselves to achieve a better standard of living. The other six will be indoctrinated into the hard work and tremendous love tomorrow when we start work

Our unflappable kitchen master, Cathy, rounded a few of us up shortly after we arrived for a grocery shopping adventure. She used to get large quantities of our food in San Diego before coming get down, but now we help the economy and relieve her of the entire burden by shopping here. The super mercado is like shopping at Safeway, only in Spanish and WAY more fun because of the different foods, styles of food displays and the people watching. Cathy split her list among us and we took off on our venture. The cashier was great, especially since we had handsome, young Alfredo with is. Alfredo is from Mexico, lives and works in the Seattle area, has an incredible history and unbeatable charm.

Our cocina

Over dinner, we introduced ourselves to each other, with some personal history. We are blessed in a wonderfully diverse group of people. We all feel blessed to be here. For those of us  who have been here before, we know we receive so much more than we give. The new volunteers will learn then soon.

Colossians 3:12, our weekly verse from Christ Lutheran in Hilo, seems rather fitting for our week. 
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”

La Escuela Cooperativa

September 26, 2016
Escuela Cooperativa San Pedro La Laguna

After John and I decided on San Pedro for more Spanish lessons, we began looking online for choices. There are a number of schools here in San Pedro, but how does one make a choice?  Reviews are helpful, but how does one know the source? The young adults who are here as part of their travels may have an entirely different set of criteria for the school they select than John and I have.

Escuela Cooperativa is a true cooperative, started by Spanish language teachers over a decade ago and they all have a passion about giving back to their community. All of the fees paid go directly to the teachers, with no administrative fee being collected. Each student pays $25 that goes into a fund to help families marginalized through disabilities or severe economic hardship in the community. These are some of the things that John and I feel strongly about. Each week a family, that has been screened and selected by the teachers, receives a visit from the teachers and a few students, who chose to participate. The families are given basic supplies…such as rice, beans, eggs, sugar and soap. 

The school has also started an ambitious program of building small, but sturdy, homes for the most needy of families.  It is a real eye opener seeing how these truly impoverished family live…barely. The teachers receive recommendations for needy families and must screen and select what family will receive a home. It is an extremely difficult task for the teachers because there is so much need here.

Last Friday, John and I sat with Mynor, who is a director for the school, and he explained how the school is helping the community. We visited the four homes that have been built over the past years. The funding comes from student and general donations.  We also saw where the next family to receive a home is currently living. Not to sound crass, but these families literally don’t have a pot to piss in. They go outside, in this urban area, to do their toilets. Hygiene is something the family would love to have, but without running water it is nearly impossible.

Mynor told us about a grandmother in one of the homes that the school has built, leaning against a post and crying when she was told that her family was going to get a new home. He worried that the news was upsetting to her, because she had lived there for so long. No, she was crying tears of joy.

I have only one picture for this entry. My last entry had a picture of a woman doing some laundry at the lake. Remember, all water runs downhill. The waste from the families with no inside plumbing runs into the lake. Moments before I got the picture of the laundry woman, she was stripped down, bathing in this lake.

Our lives are so full of comfort, prosperity and bounty. I consider it a blessing to have an opportunity to witness hardship. I hope all of us can remember what we have...and what so many others don't have.

 http://cooperativeschoolsanpedro.edu.gt 

It's Sunday, a Day for Rest

The tiny specs in the midle of the lake are some early morning fishermen. Everyday begins with these men, getting some fish.  Either for income or for their sustanance, they are there. Some are in old wooden boats with small outboard motors, and some are fishing from traditional small dugout boats powered by their paddles.

The mornings typically start with clouds looming off to the northeast, creating some beautiful sunrises. We can see a few fishermen from our window. Morning is the best time to get our errands done, because lately, we have been getting torrential thunderstorms in the afternoons. Yesterday, after we got our staples at a store about 1 mile down hill, I had planned on getting the heavy items from a small store just a little down hill from our apartment in the afternoon.  The rain started about 1 and continued, as a steady downpour until after dark. I will take care of those items today…in the morning!

Our rains on Tuesday were completely out of the ordinary. The wind came from a different direction than usual and the clouds were dumping torrential rains on us. This was accompanied by very close lightning and thunder. Along with this unusual storm came rain into our apartment. Caulking doesn’t exist here and the rain was pouring down from the roof through the gaps around the windows. We are not talking some water. We are talking flooding on the tile, moving furniture, Mynor and Josefa mopping up and Mynor on the roof trying to spread some plastic. One bolt of lightning struck on both sides of the house simultaneously and the accompanying thunder shook us to our bones. The town was flooded and there was a great fear that that the corn crops would be devastated. Corn is the primary source of food here, so many people climbed the mountains to the crops the following morning to save it, but it was fine. The wind did impact some of the family crops near the edge of the lake.

It's nearly impossible to stop for photos in the heart of the shopping area.  There are so many people milling about, buying their food and household items that I didnt want to hold up traffic to take a picture. Besides, most vendors have an umbrella to sit under and I am usually bumping my head into them.

Sunday, domingo, is market day. While the market area has vendors every morning, Sunday is huge. There are so many people selling produce that it is a challenge to just navigate the two blocks.

The coffee grown in the mountains around here is some of the best I've ever tasted. Its worth the steep walk back up the hill to insure I have some for tomorrow morning.

This morning, I walked to the very local coffee roaster and purchased a pound of wonderfully delicious, Lago Atitlan coffee beans. In the time we have been here I’ve gone through nearly a pound and don’t want John to have to deal me in the morning if I don’t have my coffee. About a mile away, I walked mostly down hill to the shop. That means the walk home is mostly uphill. At an elevation over 5,000 feet, it’s a bit of really good exercise for this sea level gal.

One of the many kibutzes in the tourist section of town. On the hother side of the town, over a very steep hill, is our side of town, and the other main dock.  The boats there come in from the other small pueblos around the lake and isn’t nearly as solid of a dock. It is from this side of the town that the local fishermen launch their fishing boats.


San Pedro La Laguna, Solola, has two sides. The tourist section, near the dock to Panajachel, has local hippies selling their creations of jewelry and art. This is also where most of the restaurants, hostels and all of the kibutzes are. From our house, we walk uphill then down down down to the lakeside. I like our part of town, away from the tourists. It is necessary, however to go into tourist section to find the only store that has a good supply of staples.

Until later, God bless.  And remember the blessing we receive everyday, without even realizing it.

With the rain, lightnening and thunder having rolled in, its time to get some homework done. With these afternoon thunderstorms, it's easy to see where the tropical storms in Hawaii come from.

One Week Of Lessons in More Than the Spanish Language

Sunrise view from our apartment

We have survived our first week of lessons.  I know my Spanish skills has improved, as have John’s. We both know , however that at the end of second week here, with a total of 5 weeks, we will have only scratched the surface of the language.

I love the pueblo of San Pedro La Laguna. The people, most of whom are Mayan, are kind and beautiful. Not one time have I worried, or felt threatened, when I was wandering around. Being tall Anglos around the mostly short Mayans, we most definitely do not blend in…we stand out. I find the community warm and accepting, even if we are unable speak with words, hands, smiles and eyes say it all. Easily 50% of the people in San Pedro communicate daily only in Mayan. The younger generations are receiving Spanish in school and, in their homes they speak mostly Mayan…so the language will not be come extinct.

Josefa has put beautifully woven Mayan textiles on the walls

Our apartment is on the third floor of a home owned by Mynor and Josefa Cortez. As chance would have it, Mynor is one of the founders of the Cooperativa Escuela. It is a away from the major hubbub of the pueblo,  in a relatively quiet barrio.  In the mornings we have roosters, dogs and even a turkey voicing their daily complaints. I’m used to dog and roosters, but turkeys?  Gobble gobble gobble. Mynor and Josefa’s home has a shared wall with her brother’s home, the land having been given to them by their father. It is very common here to have a parent give land or part of their home to their children. The apartment we live in will someday be the home of one of Mynor’s sons. After our home stay in Antigua, which was not as enjoyable as we had hoped, we opted for an apartment this time around.

Sometimes it's nice to just have ham and cheese. This eleminates some for a the guess work.

Saturday was market day, in a sprawling area of streets, with vendors on all sides of the roads, selling food, household goods, produce and some beautifully woven Mayan fabric. Most of the food vendors can tell me the name of their produce in Spanish but when I ask how to prepare it, they answer me in Mayan. It’s   a bit of a hit and miss action in our kitchen.

Meal preparation takes a bit of imagination  for me. We  purchased a chicken at the street market on Sunday and decided to bake it. Seasoned with Johnny’s salt (don’t leave the US without it) and stuffed with celery, onion and some lime, Señora Pollo was ready to hop into the oven. We guessed at the temperature, because there are no markings on the oven and  her from the oven 1-1/2 hours later when she was done.  She was one tough chick. This gal is a distant cousin from the plump, juice chickens that grace our table on Kapoho. Another lesson…there is a reason the Mayans stew their chicken.  She turned onto a lovely bean soup for the next day and some of her broth made our paella later in the week.

We attended mass on Sunday in the church of San Pedro…St Peter. I posted pictured of the church and of the statue of San Pedro earlier this year when we visited here. The congregation is so big that there were people spread through the courtyard, as well as squeezed into the pews. The service was spoken mostly in Mayan and I didn’t understand much except for the hallelujahs. The Catholics slightly outnumber the Evangelicals here.  While Mynor and his family are Catholic, their home is situated in a mostly evangelical part of town. Every evening there are services with very loud singing, some preaching and then more singing. We are between two evangelical churches so we have it on both sides. On Monday evening there was a home blessing (we think) on the top floor of a house we are guessing may be the parsonage for the church 3 doors down. Again, just a guess and, again, it’s all in Mayan.

Our school, La Escuela de Cooperativa, offers various events for the students to participate in during the week. Wednesday was a class for making the traditional tomatilito con chiplin. The tomatilito is similar to a tamale, but lighter and smaller. Instead of wrapping in corn husks, the masa is wrapped in sections of a leaf that looks like a heliconia leaf. Mix the masa with a little oil, some salt and a bowl of chipilin. Chipilin is a bush that grows everywhere here.

Maddy and Andrieta stripping the leaves from the chipilin.

Andrieta mixed the leaves into the masa then we all set about wrapping small sections into the leaves. Pop them into a kettle with aromatic sticks, water and more leaves in the bottom, cover it and set it on the fire. After 20 minutes, we feasted on our little tomolitos with Andrieta sauce and some cheese. Totally tasty.

Into the kettle for some cooking

Juan enjoying some of our finished tomalitos

Our studies are progressing well and we are both ready for the weekend. Our fellow students are much younger than us and are from Holland, England, Montreal, Australia and New York. One of the couples had their last day, after three weeks of study, yesterday. Last night was a delicious graduation dinner  at school that the teachers prepared. It was fun to see the other students and our teachers outside of our regular lesson time. 

Dinner for all. Mynor is in the lower right.

Living and learning in God’s grace, we are ready for a weekend and some down time.

One Long Day Of Traveling = Some Very Tired Students

Our backpacks, all set for travel. Wrapped to prevent straps from snagging in baggage conveyors.

After flying for 12 hours and waiting in airports for another 8 hours,  we arrived on a redeye to Guatemala City, cleared immigration and customs checks as two very tired gringos. Our packs were still neatly wrapped when they appeared on the baggage claim conveyor belt. What a relief. We have packed our clothing, study books and other ‘stuff’ into those bags for the next two weeks in San Pedro as well as work clothes, sleeping bags and other required items for our week working with Esperanza International. It would be such a drag to have a bag missing. 

Directly outside of the airport, we were met by Clemente, our driver. He has some English and we have some Spanish, so we were able to communicate reasonably well. This is a very good thing because we would spend the next 5-1/2 hours together, traveling through Guatemala to the little pueblo of San Pedro La Laguna, on the edge of Lake Atitlan. We buckled up and sent a prayer out for our safe arrival, as we’ve previously had drivers in Guatemala who drive like Formula 1 wannabes. Clemente proved to be a courteous and law abiding driver. Perhaps this is what comes from living in a small town, instead of a loud, aggressive big city. Quit possibly it is also in his Mayan heritage.

Once we left the city and the miles and miles of outskirts, we drove through the countryside of occasional pueblos and dense jungle. We passed dozens of coffee farms, as this is one of the primary exports of Guatemala.  Low hanging clouds followed us most of the way, occasionally sprinkling us, occasionally drowning us,  as we traveled higher and higher into the volcanic mountains

Carved into the the jungle, coffee fields are nearly everywhere.

Some two hours into our drive, Clemente stopped at a restaurant on major highway intersection. It was time for some breakfast and a bio-break. It was about this time that those low hanging clouds decided to drown us. John, Cemente and I jumped the potholes filled with water and tried to dodge as many raindrops as we could. Slightly dampened,  but no worse for the wear, Kapa Paulinos proved to be a popular place for a meal. Our coffee came quickly , as John and I realized that we were the only gringos in the building. We are becoming more and more accustomed to this and are happy to have the chance to be in places where we are the tourist.  Clemente ordered a traditional Guatemalan breakfast of eggs, fried banana and black beans. After our last stay in Guatemala, both of us are burned out on the bananas and black beans. John opted for a breakfast type burrito and I went with a breakfast style quesadilla.  Naturally, everything is served with the unique kind of tortillas that are made in Guatemala and accompany every meal.

Hearing the familiar, ' pat ... pat ... pat' of la senoria patting the tortilla into shape means some fresh ones are coming to the table soon.

Back on the road, we continued to climb higher and higher  into the mountains until, eventually, we began to head into a huge valley and Lago Atitlan. Only a portion of the drive toward the lake is a consistently paved road. Roads of asphalt and mud gave way to roads of muddy potholes and  were barely wide enough for two vehicles. Clemente joked that his little Toyota was a ‘cuatro por cuatro’.  Far from being that, he was meticulous in avoiding the holes that could swallow dogs and small children. It was a thoroughly bumpy ride, reminiscent of our local Government road in in it’s worst condition.

San Pedro La Laguna is at the end of the road.  To get here, we drove through the three pueblos of San Juan, San Pablo and San Maria. Lots of Sans around here  each of the pueblos is named for their patron saint.  We seem to have a hidden talent for arriving in other countries on significant holidays. Portugal and France were having independence celebrations, Russia was celebrating the end of WWII, as was Germany. We landed in Guatemala on their 175th anniversary of independence from Spain and each pueblo has a party, usually in the form of a parade. In San Juan our trip was halted, while we watched the parade that was going through the heart of town. All was done after about ½ hour. I enjoyed the parade. It was so reminiscent of our 'back to school' parades we used to have when we lived in the Green Lake neighborhood in Seattle.  Very home grown.  When we got to San Pedro, Clemente knew the streets so was able to detour around the parade to bring us to our home for two weeks.

Many of the youngsters were simply walking along with their fellow classmates. These young ladies were walking, holding hands and laughing at the antics of the young boys in front of them.

We were stopped at the intersection that the parade turned on, so had some stretch our legs and enjoy the excitement of the children and parents alike.

The many school bands were percussion heavy with only a few trumpets and trombones. Not a saxophone, clarinet, or flute to be seen. I suspect that the students play whatever instruments the schools have to offer.

Our apartment sitting area. Yes, turquoise walls...my favorite.

We are living in an apartment up four flights of stairs in the home of Mynor, his wife Josefa, and their two boys. Being Mayan, they are small in stature but huge in life and love. Mynor is one of the owners of the Cooperativa Spanish escuela that we are attending.  We are in his apartment only by happenstance. More on all of that in future entries.

For me, its time to do my homework. John is already hard at it. Hopefully our memories of Spanish lessons in Antigua will surface soon.

Off to Esperanza via San Pedro La Laguna

September 14, 2016
39,000 ft over the Pacific Ocean…again.
Sometime in May, John asked if we should do Esperanza again this year. My reply was, ‘Of course, but we need to go back to Guatemala first’.
A little history is perhaps in order. ‘Doing Esperanza’ means slinging 5 gallon buckets of concrete In a bucket brigade, or pulling nails, or tying rebar or any of the tasks associated with building a concrete block home for a wonderful family who is working right along side helping create their dream. Esperanza International is an organization that helps hard working families in neighborhoods south of Tijuana Mexico save money and plan for a home. Essential to the fabric of Esperanza are the volunteers, who come from all over North America, to spend some time helping the families build their dreams. Throughout the year, church groups,  college and high school groups and other organizations volunteer to spend a week or more, living in the Esperanza posada and volunteering 6-8 hours a day doing the back breaking work of manually building a home.

Before a family even gets close to building, they get involved with the Esperanza organization. They must own the land that they will build on.  They must have a certain percentage of the cost to build the home saved in the Esperanza savings program and, finally, they must help and provide assistance when one of their neighbors is ready to build.  Esperanza helps build strong, loving neighborhoods by providing a means to save money and to give back to their community and to get a much deserved home. Along the way the families feed the volunteers and we volunteers become very attached to our families that we work with.  We fall in love the parents, the grandparents, aunties and the uncles. But most of all, we fall in love the children. Beautiful little ones who are so happy to see the smiling faces and hard working gloved hands of the volunteers building them a home. The older ones walk off to school shortly after we arrive in the mornings, in their crisp clean uniforms. The younger ones are herded out of the way of the workers by the plethora of women who are hard at work making food,  cleaning and just surviving in some rather dilapidated, ramshackle buildings that serve as their home. It is often the case that the papa is not able to help during the day because he is at work. Their neighbors step in and help build. Partly from love and respect and partly because they too, are involved with Esperanza and are now living in their home, or still saving and planning their home.

This will be our third time to volunteer for a week of working for Esperanza. It’s back breaking,  inspiring and love filled work. We volunteers get a good dose of what day to day living is outside of Tijuana. We also get so much love from the long term volunteers, the paid employees, our fellow volunteers and, mostly, from the families we work with.
Why a trip to Guatemala first?  To brush up on our weak Spanish speaking skills. Three weeks of Spanish immersion lessons earlier this year will most certainly be refreshed by two more weeks. I’m so excited this year that I will actually be able to communicate with the women and the children of the families we work with. So, two weeks in San Pedro La Laguna, then to TJ for a week, then back home with a renewed love of life, each other and of the miracles of the world.

The two Susans. With hugs, smiles, a genuine love of life and our first names in common, we hardly needed to use the same spoken language. Susan is a cousin of one of the families we worked with and was was certainly doing her share of work.

Walking in compassion, working in love, living in harmony and receiving God’s blessing everyday. What a life.

72nd Anniversary of World War II Allies taking Normandy France. D-Day

June 6, 2016

On May 1 we came to port in Cherbourg France.  Cherbourg is located on the northern point of the Cotentin peninsula.  It was May Day, a day that the French celebrate workers’ rights and in most parts of Europe is called Labor Day.  This was also the most moving tour we joined, because we were heading to parts of Normandy Beach. 

I am making blog entries of this trip chronologically and I find it interesting that today, June 6, I am writing about our tour to Omaha Beach.  The name of our tour…Bloody Omaha Beach.  Seventy two years ago today, on D-Day, scores of US infantry plowed ashore on Omaha Beach to begin the process of freeing France from German occupation.  We visited museums and memorials and I had a good dose of World War II history.  None of the sites visited was more touching and emotionally charged as actually being in the American military cemetery and on the beach.

There is no need for me to review the history of D Day.  We have read about it and have seen movies and documentaries about it.  Some of us have relatives who were there, some who are still living and many who don’t tell us much about their experiences…because it was so terrifying it has been secured in a safe place in the veterans minds.

Arromanches-les-Baines 

 Our first stop was at Arromanches-les-Baines, where the US military secretly built a floating port to get supplies and equipment to be used as the Allies were moving forward into France.  It was an engineering first and was accomplished against the punishing seas of the English Channel.

Remnants of the floating port in Arromanches-les-Baines

The American Cemetery at Omaha Beach 

Spirit of  American Youth Rising From The Waves

At the entrance of the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach is a memorial consisting of a semicircular colonnade with a loggia at each end showing large maps of the military operations.  In the center is this bronze statue. "Spirit of American Youth rising from the Waves".

A small portion of the American Cemetery

No words can convey the feelings that I experienced while at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.  The white crosses go on forever.  It is a visually stunning, emotionally charged place.  Walking through here, my heart ached for those infantry who were given the task of taking the beach and moving forward into France. The cemetery contains the graves of over 9,000 military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and the ensuing operations.  During our walk through the cemetery, we observed numerous small groups, with flowers, searching for the cross of their loved one.  I could not help but pray...for their souls, for their families left behind and to be thankful for their genuinely brave execution of orders.

Omaha Beach stretches out for 8 kilometers

There are no sections of the German walls or bunkers remaining at Omaha Beach.  The beach now stretches out beautifully for over 8 kilometers and is banked by lush green hills.  It's hard to imagine the devastating events of D-Day when walking through this serene beach, but it's hard to not imagine the events because they changed the course of World War II and eventually brought the Nazi regime down.

A view of Omaha Beach from the American Cemetery

Les Braves War Memorial on Omaha Beach

A lone headstone adjacent to Omaha Beach marks the site of the
first American Cemetery in World War II

Rapeseed plants, used for feeding livestock and for the
production of canola oil, are resplendent in their yellow haze

Military debris in a field in the Normandy countryside

As we were driving through the area, we would see the occasional bunker and old military debris. Many of the residents of Normandy have used these old bunkers as storage or as foundation for their homes.  The landscape of Normandy is lush with farmlands and is peaceful.  In my imaginings, I could see the war devastated land, the tanks, transports and the thousands of soldiers doing their best to free France from German occupation.

My heartfelt thanks to those infantry who literally changed the course of the war.  Without their dogged determination, there is no telling what the world would be like today.

My thanks to Gene Hendricks for sharing his photos with me.  Some of pictures are Gene's, some are mine.  It all works out.