~ From: Earley, LeMay and Thie
Saturday, January 16
After a grueling day of traveling, which included free DirecTV on the first flight for about fifteen minutes, lunch at Wendy´s in Houston at 10:00 a.m., lots of sitting around, lots of waiting in lines, and many new sights, sounds, and smells, and a three hour carride, we finally arrived in the village of San Lucas Toliman at around 6:00 p.m. Upon arrival, we got situated at Hotel Iquitiu before heading down to the mission/parish for dinner. We were greeted there by a boy hiding under a truck, who thought it was very funny to yell HOLA at the top of his lungs and stick his head back under the truck. We didn´t see him right away, but then he stuck his head out completely and said, Jaja, no pueden mirarme. (Haha, you can´t see me.)
We then feasted on a dinner of soup and vegetables and bread and coffee and juice and milk and cookies and Pepsi and water and 7UP and Grape Soda. Then we walked around the town and saw the sights. There is much poverty in the village, but the locals have strong wills and work very hard. There are stores everywhere you look, and everything is quite inexpensive. We headed back to the hotel, hung out for a while, kicked a soccer ball around, and had a very deep discussion about what we left behind in the States and also how we would learn to seize the moment the next day.
Today was extremely eventful. We woke up around 7 AM and went down to the mission for breakfast. We had black beans, oatmeal and a plantane. Ater breakfast, we went to work. Rocks and dirt were the main part of this job description, and they were in large supply. We worked hard, and while it seemed like we didn´t really accomplish anything crucial, our helper Elde assured us that we had greatly lightened his group´s workload for the week. We then went back to the mission, played around with a hacky sack for a while, then had a nice lunch of beef stew and tortillas with guacamole. Guacamole that could put Chipotle out of business.
After lunch, we set out to conquer a mountain, literally. While Mr. Rogers watched from the security of his room, we men and Mrs. Reuter bravely scaled the biggest mountain ever. The one hour climb was grueling, but the 15 minute sprinted descent was truly empowering.
We found our way back to town, made it to our hotel, and cooled down for a minute before heading into town. We are now headed to dinner, after which we hope to challenge the locals to a futbol match. So far it´s been amazing, we look forward to everything that we´re going to do.
____________________________________________________________________________________
~ From: Hvidhyld, Zimmermann and Thie
Sunday, January 17
¡Hola from San Lucas Toliman!
Today was a very relaxing day. We woke up at 7:00 a.m. and went to church at the mission. It was a wonderful service and Father Schaefer even gave us a shoutout during the service. He acknowledged our presence and thanked us for being there. The mass was entirely in Spanish, so some of us had a little trouble following along. One humorous part of being at the mass was when we realized that Luke was the tallest person in the church by about 1.5 feet (except for the rest of us).
After the mass we went to breakfast where we had fried eggs, refried beans, pancakes, and bread. We then headed down to the docks of the village, which are located on Lake Atitlan, and we cruised across the lake to the town of Santiago. The first thing we did there was visit the memorial for Father Stan Rother, who was martyred in the church in 1981. Then we walked around town for about 15 minutes before hopping back on the boat and heading to Panajachel where we ate lunch at Deli Restaurante and walked around the town. Many of us bought sweatshirts, or "drug rugs" (don´t worry, no drugs) and Guatemalan bracelets and anklets, etc. It was fun to try out our Spanish and barter with the merchants. Often, they will initially ask for more than double what they end up selling it to you for.
After this, David, Luke, and Alec hustled back to the village Internet Cafe to check the score of the Vikes game. We were overjoyed to learn that the boys in blue were no match for the Purple People Eaters and the Silver Fox, Brett Favre. The other guys and Mr. Rogers and Ms. Reuter headed down to the futbol field to get their dangles on. We are heading there now. Thanks for reading, and we hope all is well at home.
______________________________________________________________________________________
~ From: Drake
Sunday, January 17 and Monday, January 18
Sunday evening we were looking for a place to play some soccer. However, every field we looked at was filled with people, so we couldn´t find a spot. Later, we found a dirt field next to the lake with about 40 Guatemalans playing. We were hesitant to ask to play, but they called us over. At first, they made fun of us and didn´t take us seriously. However, after some quick jukes by our very own LeMay, they began to see we could play.
We lost the first game, but the second game we played in lasted about 20 seconds, with us emerging victorious. Each game was a game to one goal, and the loser switches out. We proceeded to beat every team at the field, but exhaustion overtook us, we lost in the end, but we were done anyway. It was very fun playing with the locals, talking with them, joking around with them, and it was a great experience.
Monday began with Mr. Rogers waking us up a good hour before we had to go anywhere, and the walk to breakfast is shorter than three minutes. We ignored him, but reluctantly got up with ten minutes left, plenty of time for Alec to grab a shower. Breakfast was oatmeal accompanied with beans, same as Saturday.
After that, we got our official orientation from the British dude, Chris. Afterwards, we were told to return to the road we worked at on Saturday. We almost got lost, but found our way. There, the rock movers moved "Stonehedge." It was grueling work, and seemed much harder than it was on Saturday. We moved a lot of rocks again, POD got sunburned, talked with some workers, and managed to set up a game against the champions of the local league at the mission.
Lunch was a stirfry of some kind. Afterwards, we went on a tour of all the different mission's sevice sites. There was a half-finished women's facility (to be finished within a year), a clinic with a doctor and 13 nurses, an ultrasound, dentist clinic, wards, and a pharmacy.
After the clinic there was a town we visited (San Andras, whose community was destroyed in a previous location by a mudslide. Now, it looks great.)
The final stop was a coffee benificiary where we learned about the process to make coffee. It takes 500lb of coffee picked from the tree to make 75lb of actual coffee ready to be made. After the tour, we walked around town looking for places to shop. We then went to dinner, which was pasta and soup.
After dinner, we got ourselves psyched up for the soccer game. We blasted pump up music and suited up for the big game. As we approached the synthetic field, we saw our opponents suiting up in matching uniforms, legit indoor soccer shoes, and a sick swag. We paid for the hour, and began to play. The games were 5v5, so we had to divide up. The first team was Ward in net, Thie and LeMay at defense, POD at midfield, and Drake at forward. wW lost our first game due to lack of warmup.
Then the second team, consisting of Earley at net, Hvidhyld at defense/forward, Zimmermann at defense, and Fee just running around. The teams were even, and we all had a great time. We then headed back to the hotel, after pictures and talking with the goalie of the team (the guy we met at the work site) and played some mafia. We ended the night with some The Princess Bride, and fell asleep.
____________________________________________________________________________________
~ From: Fee and Cotter
Tuesday, January 19
Today we had breakfast at 8:00. We had eggs and beans, the typical Guatemalan breakfast. After that we hopped on the back of a pick-up, that took us to our coffee farm where we worked for about three hours. There we picked beans and we learned the process of how they decide which beans are good and which are not. The work was not that hard becuase it wasn't as strenuous as digging and moving rocks that were heavy. They gave us each a basket and let us go to pick coffee beans, and when we were done we were able to filll a whole bag that was 100 pounds.
We got back on the truck and went back to the mission. When we arrived back we went to our rooms and grabbed the donations we brought and put them in the back of a truck to be shipped off to the storage room, where we and the rest of the volunteers sorted out all the clothing and supplies.
For lunch we had meatloaf, egg salad, and fruit (pineapple and cantalope). Every day they have a schedule of whose turn it is to do the dishes between all the volunteer groups. Today it was our day to do the lunch dishes so Hvidhyld, Fee, Kelly, LeMay, and Zimmermann did them. After lunch we had a break so we hung out at the mission and played cribbage and dice, and at 3:30 we had the opportunity to have a meeting with Father Greg Scheaffer.
There he told us the meaning of our visit to Guatemala. We learned what it truly meant to be here, and how we need to get to know their culture and how we can help them get to know our culture. He taught us that the five human rights were: Food, Shelter, Education, Healthcare, and Work. He told us stories of how he started his work down here, and how he experienced each human right.
After that we sat down and had dinner with the rest of the mission. We had this stir-fry with plantaines and brownings. All in all it was a good day and we're looking forward to what is coming up in the next few days we have left!
____________________________________________________________________________________
~ From: LeMay and O'Donnell
Wednesday, January 20
After a relaxed night and a new focus, we woke up this morning ready to work. After breakfast, we headed to the road work site where we began clearing dirt and moving rocks. We earned the reputation of working efficiently and proved our dominance over the other volunteers. The workers on the site joked with us making the work much more enjoyable. We basically dug out an entire side of the hill, moving it from one side to the other.
Along with clearing rocks and dirt, some of us helped to build a wall made of small rocks and concrete. Even though the work was strenuous, we were still able to have a good time and do much more than was expected of us. After finishing at the road we headed back to the mission where we enjoyed a lunch of mashed potatoes and beef stew. Unlike previous days, upon finishing lunch we headed to another work site and prepared for our first full day of work. We spent the afternoon making rebarb, learning from our friend Elde. While we worked, our new friend David did a great job of entertaining us and some us some of his favorite bike tricks.
After an exhausting day of work, we are resting up for our scheduled soccer game tonight after dinner. We hope to play aginst a team of guys from the road work site. Based on our previous games, we difinitely expect to hold our own against them. The trip has been amazing so far and we only hope that it can keep getting better. See ya tomorrow.
____________________________________________________________________________________
~ From: Hvidhyld and Kelly
Thursday, January 21
Bueños Tardes from San Lucas Toliman
After last night's epic battle of Pacific typhoon (Mr. Rogers' game) and a full day of work, we all woke up a little tired but still ready to work. For breakfast we had eggs and black beans. It was our day to do the dishes, so LeMay, Zimmermann, Fee, Kelly, and Hvidhyld were assigned to do them. After we completed the dishes with ease, we headed to our job site and continued working on the road. Work was really fun because we had the chance to talk with our friends from past days of working, Luis (el Portero-goalie), Juan and Ideli. We spent most of the time with them joking around and calling people names, for example, Patricia, el toro, perroito, elephante, and Rambo (Thie). For work today we had to dig up dirt along a hill and level it out, so the workers can construct a road someday so they can trasnport coffee beans up the hill efficiently.
For lunch today we had rice mixed with some green peas and carrots, and we also had a salad and some chicken. After lunch we had some time to relax so we all decided to lay out in front of our hotel and tan for a little bit. Around 1:45 p.m. we finished up and started to head to our next job. For our afternoon work we had to construct rebar columns for buildings and walls. Some of us constructed the triangles and squares to hold the columns together. Some of us tied the squares and triangles to the rebar to hold it together, and some cut ties and metal to be used.
Right now it is 4:30 in the afternoon and we are headed over to the sports complex to play the University of St. Thomas in a friendly match of futbol. We are hoping to pull out a W and possibly pay for the pay. After dinner we will begin packing for Antigua tommorow and then have a celebratory bonfire for our successful week in San Lucas Toliman. Thank you for taking the time and keeping up with us here in Guatemala. We miss you and can't wait to see you soon.
___________________________________________________________________________
~ From: Mr. Rogers and Ms. Reuter
Saturday, January 23
Thursday night was our last night in San Lucas. For devotions, we had a fire outside our hotel and discussed how this trip had changed us and what we would do differently back home. We also did our best to make some faux s'mores! Friday we did another half day of work up on the road near the coffee processing center. The boys threw themselves into the work, and by the time we finished, we could definitely see the huge progress we had made throughout the week. We said our goodbyes to the workers, and some of the guys handed over their workgloves to them.
Then we headed to lunch, packed up our things, and headed for Antigua, about a two-hour drive from San Lucas. Antigua is the old Spanish capitol of Guatemala; it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1773 but has been slowly rebuilt over the centuries. The city is ringed by mountains and volcanoes, and its narrow cobblestone streets are somewhat reminiscent of Sienna or Venice. The boys had about two hours in the evening to see the sights and do a bit of shopping, while Ms. Reuter and I tracked down a good restaurant for our last meal together. We ended up having a late dinner together at Cafe Sky, an open-air restaurant at the north end of town. All 12 of us crammed together around a small table and talked about the high points of the trip. Then it was back to our hotel for devotions, during which we each affirmed each other's contributions to the group.
On Saturday morning, we had about 90 minutes to walk around the city before our shuttle left, and we took advantage of it. Some headed to the sprawling Saturday market, while others wandered around the ruins of the old cathedral and took photos. The trip from Antigua to Guatemala City was very short, about 60 minutes, and about half of the trip was through beautiful mountain landscapes similar to the Black Hills. Checking in for our flight to Houston was a bit of a hassle, however. We went through no less than three separate security checks.
Our flights back to Houston and Minneapolis were mostly uneventful. It is enough to say that we returned home and are now all safely with our families. This trip was an incredibly fun and challenging experience, and those of us who went agree that it was definitely worth going. We worked, learned, laughed, and allowed ourselves to be changed by what we saw and shared. We are returning more aware of the poverty that exists in the world, and how people working together from different cultures can help defeat it and build up the Kingdom of God.
As our plane climbed through the sky over Guatemala and we each said our own private goodbyes to the country and its people, we were treated to one final moment of beauty: four volcanoes towering over the country, floating on a bed of white cloud. It is our sincere hope that for each of us who have gone on this trip, this is not "Adios, Guatemala!" but "Hasta luego, Guatemala!" We'll be back.
