Frijole days of obligation 2005

(I hope to add some photos from the trip later)

Monday, May 23rd

This year our mission group goes to Guatemala on Delta Air Lines, former employer of the Queen of the Sky. We take off from Milwaukee before dawn, change planes in Atlanta, and land in Guatemala City at mid-day. Our bus is waiting for us, along with the Sister in charge of the orphanage, and two of the three young Germans who came there as their alternative to military service. We stop for supplies at the Hiper Paiz, a giant supermarket. For a quick bite, I go to the little McDonald's restaurant in the store and have a McFiesta burger, a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, and mayo.

Two hours up the Pan-American Highway is the turn-off to Santa Apolonia. As usual, a crowd of the kids is out front to greet us. This year the men in the group will sleep in a downstairs room, the women upstairs. We each get two small thin mattresses stacked on the concrete tile floor. The kids made welcome signs of letter cut from construction paper and taped high on the walls. They also made construction paper signs with our names and hung them on the wall above each mattress. Having the benefit of experience, I get to the room first, and rearrage the signs so I bunk on the far end of the room where no one has to walk past to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The main street divides the orphanage grounds, the main building and boys' houses and dining hall on the southerly side, the girls' houses and dining hall on the northerly. We're in the half of our group that will eat with the girls the first half of our stay.

Dinner includes the staples, beans and tortillas, and a thin corn mush to drink. Some of the girls are studying English in school. I help by teaching one to say "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain." My wife gives me a mujerencia that I stop. Gregg, a member of our group, coined mujerencia from sugerencia (suggestion) and mujer (woman), to describe that particular kind of suggestion that a wife gives a husband.

Since last year, the orphanage had constructed and improved water system. Municipal, well, and rain water if pumped to a storage tank on a parcel of farmland up the hill from the girls' side. This is used for drinking and washing. Gray water from shower drains is pumped to a separate storage tank and used for flushing toilets. The recycling saves water and the new storage promises improved pressure and a supply when the municipal system is off, which it is all but about an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.

Tuesday, May 24th

I'm in the part of our group which will be working with some of the kids in the carpentry shop, making replacement bunk beds for the houses. We brought some stylish safety goggles to encourage the kids to wear eye protection. It seems to work.

At a late morning break, we are provided some Coca-Cola and Guatemala's own Super Cola. We gringos wait for the kids and staff to pick first, so we wind up with the Super Cola. It's not bad, it's ... just cola.

Our first year on this mission trip was 2001, and there were frequent power outages. That problem seemed to have largely gone away, but was back this year.

I hoped to blog a tiny bit from the orphanage. It does have internet access, but the connection speed turns out to be around 2.5k/sec., okay for email but impractical for the web.

After supper, our leader declares a party in the women's dorm. They tell us there appears to be a bird nesting in the shower that they use. (There are no screens on the windows.) The largest part of our group runs a medical clinic for the kids and local people. From past years' experience, I thought emergency room people had the best jokes and stories, but this year we have someone who works in a constipation clinic. For the first time in my life, I think, I experienced side-splitting laughter. Too bad those jokes won't be posted here, eh?

Wednesday, May 25th

Today's late morning snack was watermelon, followed by an international seed spitting contest in the courtyard.

Thursday, May 26th

Some of us take the chicken bus, Guatemala's ubiquitous converted American school buses, to market day in nearby Tecpan. The local produce and weavings are there in large quantity and low prices. This year there was also a lot of seafood, including mounds of little shrimp. It looks and smells okay, but we wonder just how it got from the ocean to Tecpan; we haven't seen any refrigerated trucks on the highway.

My wife is in the part of our group leading various supplementary classes for some of the younger kids. She made some looms from popsicle sticks, and some of the kids learn the basics of weaving.

Our group meets in the orphanage chapel for prayer every morning an evening. To our surprise, after evening prayer we are invited to Casa Ocho, where the oldest third of the boys live. It's Luis's 17th birthday, and his housemates are giving him his first real birthday party. One has a part-time restaurant job, and the boys serve pizza they made from scratch in the case, and baked in the sisters' oven, the only one on the grounds.

We get a lesson in stereotyping. The boys plays CDs of country music for us; Americans like country music (true), we're Americans (true), therefore we like Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits ...

Friday, May 27th

Our group's prayers have always been on our own. The readings are selected for a connection to the idea of mission. I've thought it would be better to work on including the kids, and using the universal readings for the day. The mission readings might be better suited for our group's preparatory meetings in the months leading up to the trip.

It happens that some of our group giving classes have been asked to include some religious instruction, so the kids don't get the impression that religion is mostly for the sisters who run the place, and the priest of the local Catholic church.

This morning a few of the younger boys scooted in as we were about to start prayer, and they sat quietly fascinated. Maybe we can build something on this next year. As I understand it, the Second Vatican Council proposed more participation on the Liturgy of the Hours; better forty years late than never. But now that I think on it, why didn't and don't religious and priests who pray a daily office just invite people to join them?

Someone gave us an old Polaroid camera and a few film cartridges, and I'm assigned a photo shoot at the girl's dining hall over lunch. They're happy to pose; some want to hold a small planter for the picture, and it does wind up looking a bit like they were photographed in the garden. They put the developing photos on the mantle of the corner fireplace, but later take them all to their rooms.

Saturday, May 28th

With our longer than usual stay, we scheduled a longer than usual visit to the old colonial capital of Antigua. I had plans to use the time to visit all the major sites, using a map we got last year courtesy of Jades Imperio Maya, and blog from an internet cafe. Unfortunately, I picked up a case of that illness common to visitors to these parts, and I spend the morning sipping a Seven-Up and dozing in the courtyard of Cafe Micho while my wife shops.

That afternoon, while she shops at Nim Po't, I negotiate with a shoeshine boy. I've seen kids in the central square charge two quetzales (about 25 cents). This kid starts at 20, settles for 5, wants five more for shoeshine cream, and then asks for a tip. One of his little competitors stops by to watch, and I tip them each one quetzal.

We then track down a local supermarket. Last year we came up with the idea of a marshmallow roast for the kids, and we need more marshmallows. Back at the Hiper Paiz, we had also bought chocolate and the closest local equivalent of graham crackers for s'mores.

Not feeling well, I also miss the marshmallow roast, but I heard the kids had a great time.

Sunday, May 29th

For the Feast of Corpus Christi, there was more incense at Mass than I've ever seen, or smelled. Since last year, the choir moved from the loft to the front, there was a girl altar server (from the orphanage), and there were a couple of extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. All more like Mass at home, along with some disagreement on when to stand, sit, and kneel. I could, at least, follow along from an order of worship I printed from the internet years ago. And I can manage communion on the tongue, despite lack of practice.

For the feast, fireworks were periodically set off from a mortar outside the church door.

After Mass, there was a Eucharistic procession around town. Townspeople created a path about two feet wide down the middle of the main streets. Part was of various colors of sawdust, and part of pine needles and flowers.

The priest, under a canopy and holding the monstrance, processed to small shrines set up at the orphanage and various businesses around town. At each, we would kneel on the cobblestones and he would lead prayers. He then would then lead the procession, walking on the sawdust and pine path to the next shrine, accompanied by firecrackers.

Back at the orphanage, our group had two guest speakers, this year from GAM [Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo], on the history of the current Guatemalan political situation. As usual in these presentations, Guatemalan political history begins with the period 1944-1954. To save time, United Fruit, CIA, liberation theology, Rios Montt, Peace accords, Bishop Gerardi. It's the progressive Catholic equivalent of the Rescue Mission sermon before dinner.

Back at one of our preparatory meetings, we watched the Precarious Peace video. It struck me afterwards that the breakthrough to the peace accords was the voluntary confessions by leaders of the opposing sides that that their ends were the good of Guatemala but now they saw that this did not justify the means. By contrast, the Church's later official approach was accusatory. Not surprisingly, Church leaders prominent in compiling the accusations were regarded as having taken sides, and screwed up the peace process. While our group didn't download it, you might test my thesis against a close reading of the video's accompanying Discussion Guide [PDF]

As usual, our guest speakers treated Guatemala's various large and fast-growing evangelical and pentecostal groups as a marginal phenomenon, as does anyone else in our group who addresses it. In the meantime, the numbers I see indicate that Guatemala might now be a minority Catholic country. I might have the geographical equivalent wrong, but it's like the local and visiting lefties are reading What's Wrong with Quiche. Meanwhile, a few seconds on the internet produce this.

Many in Latin America and in North America have praised liberation theology for its ability to give the poor a sense of empowerment as they try to change society. But liberation theology's encouragement and motivation cannot compete with the feeling of empowerment that comes from the belief that one has had a personal encounter with God Almighty. It is no wonder that services at the pentecostal churches are loud and joyous affairs, or that members attend church five to seven nights a week for two hours each night.

No surprise to me, but then I've actually read some Gutierrez.

One of the early members of our group had an uncle who was a priest who's ministry included prison inmates. An inmate carved a large wooden crucifix to thank him. When the priest died, the niece received the crucifix and donated it to the orphanage. This afternoon we have a brief prayer ceremony and procession to the chapel with it.

Later some of our group join an excursion to the Mayan ruin at Iximche. Transportation is provided by putting 24 people in the orphanage's crew cab pickup truck. If you had a child, spouse, or parent on this mission, I'm just kidding.

Monday, May 30th

It's pancake day. Mmm, pancakes.

That afternoon, we're called out of the carpentry shop for what I'm reminded I've called Mission Creep, the added project they didn't tell you about before you got here. There is about a twenty foot water tower on the girls' side which is now obsolete. We assemble a crew of about twenty people, raise the tower off it's concrete base, and pull it over and lower it to its side with ropes. Then we carry it down about ten steps and around a basketball hoop to the chain link fence on top of the retaining wall next to the road. Did I mention this is all being done in the rain?

When a flatbed truck pulls up, we raise the tower over the fence, but not too high because of the power lines along the road, and lower it onto the truck bed.

Then we go for a drive out of town. The base of the tower just clears the various power lines crossing the road. We simulate being shocked and Edgar, head of the carpentry shops, laughs saying Accident de Guatemala, apparently meaning "where else would they try this."

The truck turns into the gravel road to another farm field owned by the orphanage. Here the power lines parallel the road, and sometimes sag down to within few inches of the truck.

At the field, we see that the truck can't leave the road, so we carry the tower about a thousand feet to the new site and pull it upright.

Back at the orphanage, gracias a Dios, there's hot water with pressure for a shower.

As everyone else finishes work, a few of us go for a Gallo [pronounced "guy'-oh"] beer at the cantina that's still open. While the brewery's point of sale posters on the walls show prices, the retailer doesn't regard them as binding. But for such good customers, she cooks up some sausages. Tasty.

Tuesday, May 31st

The local public school is at the far end of the village, but I notice there's a little school nearer the center of town. I learn it's an evangelical school, very good, but expensive.

Because the orphanage kids are having exams in the public school, the staff split the farewell dinner from the fiesta, the former held tonight, the latter tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 1st

At the farewell fiesta, the kids acts are mostly lip syncing pop songs or acting out comedy songs, along with one traditional Mayan dance. My personal assignment for our group is writing our act's script. This year it's La Nueva Gorra de Winnie Pooh, Winnie the Pooh's New Hat. Under our time constraints, it's more of an improvisational outline, but it's well-received. Then there's dancing to CDs; poor Kenny Rogers is removed from the playlist.

Thursday, June 2nd

We say our farewells and board the bus for the two hour ride to the Guatemala City airport. While waiting, I finally get a meal at Pollo Camparo, Guatemala's fried chicken restaurant chain. It's good, perhaps the Super Cola of fried chicken.

On the flight to Atlanta, the safety briefing says federal regulations prohibit "conjugating" in the aisles.

We arrive in Milwaukee, pick up a gallon of milk, and arrive home around 11 p.m. A cold glass of fresh milk; it's good to be home.