An Interesting Weekend-- finally a real and less scattered post

Today I divided my time between studying Q´ekchi´ and reading about the presidential race. I still hope I can vote, but right now the chances look bleak. I am just starting to learn bits of Q´ekchi´in a more structured manner as I am actually devoting a little bit of time to it now. It is a lot of fun trying out my limited Q´eqchi´in the office and teaching the equivalent in english.

Anyways, the weekend:

After a short bout with a little bit more of stomach problems I went on a trip with missionary friends to a gathering of jovenes (a loosely defined Spanish word that means young people, you will be happy to know that many of you, who might not be called young in the US, would be jovenes here). Well, this gathering really was for the very young, so, despite the looseness of the word, there were no fifty year olds participating in it. I got there right at the end of the lessons that had lasted all day on religious themes. One of which, my missionary friend and maybe my most valuable cultural informant told me was the respect of elders. Apparently many young people don´t respect many of those older than them because they already are better educated than they were (as a result of the civil war that lasted untill 1996). Many older folks, actually tend to feel the same way, that is, that they cannot command respect from their kids, because they don´t have the education. At least they are placing value on education I guess. I also was cued into a little bit of Q´ekchi´ youthful awkwardness concerning boy/girl relations which was interesting. Last generation a boy would ask his father to talk to the father of a girl that he likes, Saturday we saw a boy purposfully sit next to a girl... in the past this would not have happened. NOw youth here just aren´t sure what to do. Cultural practices are always in flux everywhere, but here it is more pronounced because there are some changes happening of the large differences between the old culture and the incoming Latino culture. The issue of cultural change pops up everywhere here (at least to me, as an outsider looking in) and it is hard to know where to stand. Is a little more autonomy for youth good, or do we lament a the destruction of culture? By wanting ot preserve Q´eqchi´culture does one simply make them into dolls which we dress up for our pleasure (to use an analogy one of my fellow students at CASAS, and before at BC, used)? But what about girls being married and pregnant at 15 years old, is not not ok to encourage that to change?

Sunday, I rode about an hour on bumpy roads and then hiked about an hour to reach a wedding in a beautiful aldea of two 19 year olds. It was, for once, a clear day (gracias a dios), and so we could see all around the church and hill after hill of countryside, milpa (corn and bean fields all in one) and coffee. It was beautifl. In the church the service alternated between extremely loud music (my missionary friend tells me sarcastically that loud music is proof that the holy spirit is there) preaching and at one point me, being a gringo connected with the honored missionary friends, apalogizing in Spanish for the fact that I don´t know how to speak there language and that God bless them and the marriage. I also sat in front and received a coke to drink throughout the maraton service (though not as marathon as a Cambodian wedding, that´s for sure. This was really an easy 10k. TO say the least, sitting up front was very embarrassing, and yet still nice.

The couple sat deathly serious the entire time.

After the service and after a select group of people prayed for the health of a sick baby we walked down to the houseof on of the families. We had arrived there before getting to the church. Where, after our substantial hike we received hot coffee (not what I was hoping for) and a delicious Guatemalan treat which I forgot the name of. Anyways we returned here, where we were greeted with more coffee (this time I refused). Soon we were sat down and slowly everyone was served hot chocloate, which is particularly delicious here, and that everyone drank out of the same gords. I should also note that we were very much crammed into a small space. After a while we were served food, a soup of with three huge pieces of meat. Since I was among the slightly honored my bowl was loaded with grease... and can´t believe I was able to finish it. To achieve this feet I tried to remind myself of all the extremely greasy pizza I have eaten and asked myself, what, really is the difference. The idea is that we are served mroe than we can eat and that everyone take some food home in order to bless our families. Pretty neat. Finally things ended and we started on the 40 minute or so walk though muddy paths which zigzagged through coffee, milpa, and cardamon (the other cash crop), and the occassional bannana tree. In the end I can say that the whole thing was beautiful and extremely fun.

It is raining quite hard again today, but I think I might get going. I´ve already written quite a bit, but I certainly could write more about all that is going on here in Guatemala.

tin cua´ak (I will eat (corn tortillas))

hope all is well with all of you as always
Jordan