The feel of Charchá

The feel of Charchá

Bean juice on my fingers: First it is warm and runny, then, since I don´t have a napkin, it is just a little sticky. I eat beans all the time, and they slip out of the tortillas with which I grab them all the time.

Mud skiing: I was advised to pretend like I am skiing when going down the steep hill leading to my house on a wet and muddy day. It is especially advisable to do this when I am stubborn and wear my slick sandals instead of my rubber boots. The other day I had no other option than to let myself slide about five feet before I found a post to hold. I did this successfully. Anyways, I have become accostumed to the feel of soft mud under my shoes and deceptively slippery ground.

MY FIRST THREE WEEKS HERE

1. It was really cold and I got used to continually wearing the same shirt/shirts 24/7. I didn´t want to take it off for bed, I didn´t want to take it off in the morning, I didn´t want to take a bucket shower outside in the cold every day( I showered about once ever three days during this period). It was actually never very uncomfortable and my long sleeve shirts came to feel like a protective armor I couldn´t live without… sort of like Frodo and his shirt of Mithril.

2. Without heaters, living with the cold was a constant battle. I never really felt like I was just terribly cold, was simply in a constant state of coldness. My “core temperature” as Kramer would say, was simply always low, and could not be raised. I just lived without the pleasure of being warm. I still sometimes sleep in a 40 plus degree room.

3. My feet were always wet. No matter how hard I tried, they were never dry. It felt like they were water logged or something. My MCC friend David, who dealt with the same weather, reports the same struggles with wet feet. Weird.

The Sun: After 3.5 weeks here the sun finally came out. I remember looking at it and hardly being able to take my eyes off of it as I had not seen it in a long time. Now, I oftentimes get up, receive my hot glass of atol, and then bask in the sun as I wait for my breakfast. This is the best way to raise ones core temperature. In the cold air, it feels kind of like God is hugging you.

The Wind: The wind comes slowly over the mountains, but arrives at our almost hill top home uncontaminated by the smells of the town below. When it comes it always reminds me of the fresh ocean air. Sometimes I feel like a kid again.

Chairs: In my experience in Guatemala, one sits on plastic chairs. It is no cushioned chair, but it is better than a wood or metal, but not really uncomfortable. One gets used to it. I rarely think about the comfort of sitting down on a comfortable couch. More than anything I miss a comfortable chair on which to sit and read. The best chair ever is currently located near Wichita Kansas. Don´t be deceived by its appearance.

Shaking hands: my host dad walks in the evening and shakes my hand and puts his other hand caringly on my shoulder. He has a hard and calloused hands from working construction most of his life. Unlike most Kekchi people, he actually gives me a strong handshake, which is very nice. We hold hands for an awkward amount of time and sometimes I am not sure what to say, but I always feel good about it.

Jordan

ps. recently I have eaten: pineapples, watermelon, oranges, bananos, strawberries. All very good.

This was a wedding I went to in the middle of nowhere. It also feels like a long time ago.


Some Mayan ruins I saw a LONG time ago (at least it feels like a long time ago).

Jordan

A Sleepy Day in Carchá

It is Sunday and Carcha is basically closed down. It is drizzily, as usual, and there is not much to do except to rest and go to church. It is pretty nice.

I was thinking about relating a recent, rather hilarious story, but I´ll think put that in my back pocket for good dinner time conversations.

A little over a week ago I was in Nicaragua at MCC regional meetings. It was a lot of fun hanging out with MCC´ers who are, as a rule, very cool people. On the bus ride to Nicaragua we saw six movies. Common themes were: a lot of dyin, resurrection, immortality, the power to rule the world. It was annoying because you couldn´t take your eyse off the screen.

Now I am doing a lot of running around trying to keep things running semi-smoothly for a group of adult Nebraskans here on a Work and Learn trip. They are a lot of fun and it is really great to see all the people from back home who care so much about MCC´s work and the people we work for. It is very refreshing for me. It is also very good for people here for the same reasons.

Random thoughts:

John Smoltz with the Red Sox, you´ve got to be kidding me.

The United States biggest, scariest, and most effective weapon is the idea of democracy. Right? The idea of popular uprising for a just and representative government makes a lot of evil people with power shake in their boots. I know most cultures dont have these ideals so ingrained as being of upmost importance as ours does, but promoting it peacefully (can you truly promote just governance with violence?) might possibly go a lot further than at first thought. The French revolution was scary enough that all the monarchs of Europe came together to prevent it from happening again. Enlightenment ideas about government were captivating enough that, despite strict censorship, exiled authors, imprisonment, the death penalty and other forms of forceful government oppression, people kept on reading about these ideas, and people, amazingly, kept on writing.

I am considering to continue not shaving and see where it leads.

My Kekchi nickname (the nickname for Marcos, which is what I go by here) is Cux, which sounds like ¨cush¨ with th u sounding like the u sound you hear in ¨you¨ . My host mom once said to me, ¨a Jenny le extraña su cuxito¨

Sometimes the best parts of my day are the random conversations I have with people. The guys at the bus stop with whom we talk about why the United States has such a better soccer team (the first thing that is always mentioned is size, then money, then talent, nobody seems to think it matters that we have so many people... I don´t think many can quite grasp how many more people a huge country like the United States has to choose from for it´s team thana small country like Guatemala).

My own personal approval of Obama would shoot way up if he were to buy aHuskey or a German Shepherd, or just pick up a will be big total mut off the street and make it his.

What does it mean when the coke cans on the back of walmart brand soda says ¨100% satisfaction garunteed¨? I spent entire summers working at fruit packing sheds perplexed by that question and I have seriously dreamt of returning enough coke cans to WalMart (for only being 93% satisfied) that they stopped handing the money back to me. THen I would have to take them to court and they would either pay me off, or, even better, they would take off their arrogant claim that they can truly garuntee 100% satisfaction. Nathan Boldt my favorite work partner knows that this question is one of the few things that can truly make me kind of upset. Well, maybe not so upset, but it at least annoys me to know end. Where do they get the arrogance that their little sugar water product can satisfy (100% satisfy) so many millions of very different consumers. My rather acute sense of spitefunessl just rages and begs me to make my lifes work taking that silly little line off of WalMart coke cans.

I am reading my first work by a Russian author, Dostoeskys Notes From Underground. In it, the author is extremely spiteful. Basically like George in Seinfeld. He preceives everything as an insult and can never win. In it he dreams and dreams about, as a lowly person, instead of jumping to the side of a rich important person, actually bumping shoulders with him. When he finally tries to do it, he attempts and attempts and fails and fails. Finally he does, barely, bump shoulders with him... and he is exalted. This is like me and WalMart. One day I will come home exalted at the small amount of money WalMart has given back to me because they are foolish enough to make a claim they coulnd´t possibly keep if we were all honest. And WalMart wouldn´t care one bit.

ok, ok, so there is a small view of where the mind can wonder while working at a fruit packing shed (which, despite the idea the previous lines my give you, is a great summer job).

anyways, I need to get on with the business of the day and take a nap.

con cariño

Jordan

New Years fast

New Years eve-
Church celebration: 8-1:30
I arrived around nine
there was church singing (mostly you hear the band)
There was individual singing (mostly you hear the boom box played into a mic
There was communion
There was a short wedding}
There was a gift exchange (My neighbor and host-little cousin drew my name and got me 2 triple A bateries, two fake birds in a miniature cage, and a pair of socks)
There was a long period of time praying on our knees after communion
a message or two
and finally, the best part, tomales!
it was a marathon, but fun.

New years day we slept in, ate tomales for breakfast, had a family meal (duck and chicken we recently slaughtered) which was great because we never eat together, and the best part, we played some good soccer with extended family. THen we rested and that evening me and my dad went next door for more tomnales and my neighbors house where they were having a party. THere was drinking there which is why the rest of my family didn{t go. The music kept me up as I tried to sleep before going to work today.

hope you all had a good one as well