Guatemala 2007: Wooddale

So after my junior and senior years in high school I went to Guatemala and El Salvador with my church, Wooddale. It was an experience that really changed me and part of why I then decided to study Spanish in college.

This year, I was able to translate for the same trip that I had gone on a few years earlier. It was great for me to be able to see the growth in my Spanish in this way. During the trip I translated for North American doctor. It was great to be able to use all the medical Spanish that I had learned during the semester. Also, I loved the students who I was able to get know. It really affirmed that I would like to work with high schoolers someday.

I could write several entries about the trip, but mainly I would just like to say that I love Campur. Campur is a town that I went to in high school and was able to return to this year. It's in the mountains in northern Guatemala and it is a very impoverished area. It's always a blessing to be able to work with the people of Campur.

After working with the Wooddale group I left for the States. I could have stayed longer but it was necessary to go home and make some money. The pictures are of me and one of the girls from Campur and of a some students from the medical team and me helping translate.

Guatemala 2007: Two Weeks on My Own

So after the program with Bethel University ended, I stayed in Guatemala for a month. The first two weeks I just did whatever and the second two weeks I worked with a trip that my church does each year. During the two weeks on my own I was able to go to class one day at la Universidad Rafael Landivar, go to a wedding shower, go to an in-house Bible study, work in the clinic, and get to know the Diaz's (the family that I stayed with) a lot better. Unfortunately, by this time in the trip my camera had broken and so I don't have any pictures of this time. :-(

Guatemala 2007: Magdalena and Ministry Sites

Our last three weeks as a group we lived in Magdalena again and worked at our Ministry Sites. It was a good time to get really involved with the sites and get to know the families well. Also, for me working in the clinic, it was a good opportunity to practice what I had learned in my Medical Spanish class. At the end of the three weeks, the families helped us bring our bags to the bus. It was amazing to see how much of the community turned out to say good bye to us and how many of them were crying. Living in Magdalena was very different than Antigua. The photo is of the church that we went to and worked with.

Guatemala 2007: Pacaya

Another excursion that we did as a group was climbing the volcano Pacaya. On the way up there were people with horses offering rides (for a price of course). I enjoyed their jokes about having the most environmentally friendly taxis in the world and petted their horses whenever we took a break. Seeing the volcanic rock and lava was incredible. Feel the heat from the volcano while feeling the cold from the high altitude breeze was a contrast that I can't find words for. I hope to go back at night next year because then the lava is more visible.

Guatemala 2007: Semana Santa and the Beach

Also during Semana Santa I went to the beach for the weekend with a family that I know. It was great to be able to get away from the tourism of Antigua, the crowdedness of the procesiones, and the English of the group and go to the beach. At the beach I was able to relax, have fun, get to know some people better, and speak a lot of Spanish. One picture is of people playing in the pool. The other is of a sunset that I almost missed taking a picture of. We were walking back from the beach and I turned to listen to someone and suddenly realized that it was a great moment to take a picture.

Guatemala 2007: Semana Santa and Procesiones

Semana Santa means Holy Week and is the week before Easter and of Good Friday. While in Antigua I was able to see many processions (procesiones). My favorite was the procecion infantil or kids' procession. Also, on Thursday night I was able to walk around and see all the alfombras that people were making. Alfombra means rug. People make these beautiful "rugs" out of died sawdust on plants/flowers. At dawn of Good Friday, the alfombras were marched over by the processions. It made me think about the work of Jesus in a different way.

Guatemala 2007: Tikal and Flores

One of our excursions was to the island town of Flores and the nearby Mayan ruins of Tikal. Visiting Tikal was my first time visiting anything that old. The city was at its peak from 200-850 AD. Climbing to the top of the temples gave a spectacular view of the rest of temples peaking out from above the forest. I chose this picture of one of the temples because it shows the stairs/ladder that we climbed very well.

The town of Flores is on an island and that is where we stayed. It was beautiful to be able to take a walk around town and around an island at the same time. It is a town that I would love to get to know better someday. The sunset picture I took when walking around the island and I saw some boys playing on a dock.

Guatemala 2007: Second Session of Language School

So for my second session of language school I had the class Medical Spanish for Health Professionals II. The work included a lot of vocabulary, reading articles in both English and Spanish in relation to health and health in Guatemala and Latin America, visiting hospitals, and doing a final group project of a public presentation.

Two other students were taking the same class and so the three of us had to do a presentation together. Since we were all females, our teachers were all females, and the doctor that we worked with for our ministry site was also female, we decided to take advantage of that and do a presentation on women's health in relation to pregnancy. Towards the end of class we went to the clinic in Magdalena and presented the information twice and gave out prenatal vitamins to the women who came. The one picture is of us students at school with our visual aids and the other picture is of a student and me with my teacher.

Guatemala 2007: Pacific Coast Excursion

Going to the beach was a great weekend break. Seeing the black sand, playing in the waves, relaxing in the pools, eating the amazing food of an all-inclusive hotel--everything was thoroughly a sabbath for me. But perhaps someday I should try to see a different ocean since I've been to the Pacific from Oregon, northern and southern California, three different points in Guatemala, and two or three different points in Ecuador. :-)

Guatemala 2007: Second Session of Ministry Sites

So after our first 4 weeks of language school, we had another two weeks of ministry sites. So while still living in Antigua, we went to our sites-- which for many of us implied a lot of public transportation. Many people refer to the public buses in Guatemala as "chicken buses". It's always an adventure on the chicken buses as adults fit 3 to a seat with kids on top and as the bus drivers race each other on the highway.

Guatemala 2007: Living in Antigua

Living in Antigua was a truly unique experience. It was good in that it was a safe and beautiful town. It is a tourist town-- so there's always people from various countries in Antigua. That was both good and bad. It meant meeting people from Korea, Japan, Denmark, Italy, and of course Canada and the US on a regular basis. But it also made it easy to be able to use English. Overall, I loved it. I had a very kind host family and house mates. The pictures are of the view during my walk to school and of my house. Beautiful, huh?

Guatemala 2007: Language School

For four weeks we had class at Centro Linguistico Maya. My class during this time was Sucesos Actuales en Guatemala, or Current Issues in Guatemala. I was able to read a lot about the different factors leading to how Guatemala is today and I had to write a final research paper for the class (along with several other smaller papers). My teacher during this time was a middle-aged man named Carlos. He's super intelligent and I was able to learn a lot from him. This photo is of my up on the roof of the school where I had class each day.

Guatemala 2007: First Week of Ministy Sites

So the semester was organized in two blocks of four weeks at language school with working a various ministry sites before and after each language block.

My ministry site was at a small medical clinic in a town call Magdalena, Milpas Altas. There were four of us students working in the clinic. Each day two would sit in the exam room with the doctor, listening to the Spanish used and helping with small tasks and the other two would work in the pharmacy room, getting medicine ready and explaining the medicines to the patients as they left.

This first week of working in the clinic really made me want to get into language school and get working on my Spanish. It was a good motivator.

This picture is of the doctor (in the middle, and yes she is Guatemalan) and us students on either side.

Guatemala 2007: Orientation

We had a good week of orientation before actually starting the semester. It was good to be able to get to know the group and some general concepts about the culture before living with families. We visited the central plaza in Guatemala City, the garbage dump, and the cementary. We stayed at SEMILLA, a seminary that also hosts people, during orientation. When I had visited Guatemala 3 years before while in high school, we had stayed in the same place. It made me feel at home to be staying at a place that I already knew.

Ecuador 2006: Hospitals

We visited two different hospitals while in Quito. While in the childrens' hospital, we put on srubs, were told which floors we could visit, and were sent off to talk to people on our own. Many things surprised me. Perhaps the biggest one was how many people were there. Each room had about 4 patients, but almost every patient had someone there visiting them. Another thing is how open everyone was. We were able to ask about what happened, how long they had been there, how that affects school, etc.

This little boy in the photo was adorable and kind. He had broken a bone, so that's why he was in the hospital. He played soccer with us, tried to take pictures with my camera, and tried to share his snack with us.

Ecuador 2006: Mitad del Mundo

We went to the equator while in Ecuador. Mitad del mundo means the middle of the earth. There's not much to write because the videos show it all. Enjoy!

Ecuador 2006: Cloud Forest

After visiting the cloud forest in Ecuador, I know what my favorite ecosystem is. A cloud forest has similar flora to a rainforest, but is at a higher altitude and thus is colder. While traveling through a cloud forest, one is basically traveling through green mountains that have, in the morning, clouds rising up out of them. In this picture, we had gone swimming in the cloud forest (which was very, very cold).

Ecuador 2006: Otavalo

We were blessed to be able to go to Otavalo, a town known for its amazing artisan market, not simply as tourist, but rather as students and as friends of a friend. The husband of the director of our school in Quito is the godfather of some of the children in one of the Otavalen families. We were thus able to go visit their home. They showed us how they weaved, explained to us their marriage ceremonies, and dressed up two of our students in their clothes. After that, we were able to go to the market. It is much harder to barder after knowing a family that lives off the money made in the market.

Ecuador 2006: Futbol

At the very end of our trip, we managed to sneak in a trip to a soccer (futbol) game. The game was between Guayaquil and Quito--the two largest cities in Ecuador. It was incredible to be able to see how many people came to the game and how impassioned they were.

Afterwards I ran into some of the men from my family (if I were my host-mom's daughter, they would be my brother-in-laws) and they asked me if I had learned any new words while watching the game. I knew they were swearing (everyone was except us!), but I didn't know what they were saying. The second picture was taken during half-time in which a huge banner was pulled over the crowd for a break from the sun.

Pictures and words cannot communicate it, if anyone has a chance to go to a futbol game in Latin America (or nearly any foreign country) they should take that opportunity.

Ecuador 2006: The Beach

While I have visited the beach in nearly every country that I have been to, it proves to be an elusive place. I mean this in the sense that often we visit the beach, but seldom do we live there. What I know about the culture of the different groups on the coasts of Ecuador, I know from reading not experience.

But I do not mean this to be a complaint, because our time at the beach was a terrific time to relax, reflect, appreciate creation, and get to know the others in the group even better. Someday though, I'd like to get to know some costenos.

Ecuador 2006: Amazon

Going to the Amazon was a truly amazing experience. First, the travel simple to get there from our comfortable home in the Andes was quite the adventure. A rather active volcano, Tungaragua, had erupted the night before we were supposed to leave. So plans were delayed a day and we had to take a different way to Shell Mera because of roads being blocked from the eruption. So after an entire day of driving, we spent a night in Shell which is on the edge of the Amazon. The following day we flew into the Amazon to spend some time with a family there.

Being with the tribe taught me the opposite of what I had learned in Quito. While in Quito, I was able to connect with my family and the teachers well because I knew relatively good amount of Spanish. This was nice contrast to when I was in Guatemala during high school and unable to communicate with the people around me. So while I was in Quito, I was learning how much language matters in forming relationships with people.

But then with the tribe, we did not have a common language. However, we learned to not let that be a hindrance. We were able to play with the children and interact with the adults without a common language. When it came time to leave, it was hard to say goodbye even though we had only spent a few days with them, we had no conversations with them, and we didn't actually know how to say "bye". So while I was in the Amazon, I learned how much language doesn't matter in forming relationships with people.

Ecuador 2006: Host Family

My host family is Ecuador was super incredible. I was the only student living with them and was able to get to know the family well even though I was there for just one month.

One thing that was special to me were the children of the family. Being able to invest in those children was truly a blessing.

Another thing that really impacted me was when one of the aunts who was very sick would stay at the house. She was having problems with a brain tumor and needed to go to Miami for a serious operation, but the greater illness was the depression that plagued her. Sometimes her husband would bring her to the house and family members would surround her with love and try to get her to eat or walk, but she couldn't and wouldn't. Her husband would stay downstairs, talking to be about politics or religion or anything other than his sick wife while the others would work with her upstairs. I felt humbled to be there during that struggle.