This Blessed Life

This week has been met by many moments reminding me of how unique this experience is, and how blessed I am to be here. It may sound like I write that a lot, that I am blessed to be here, but I really am. It’s important to recognize that this experience isn’t the norm, and that it demands a lot of thankfulness on my part. Brooks and I have now been here for more than two months, and the time is flying by. Although I’m struggling with not looking to the future too much and not planning post-Guatemala life too much, it’s weeks like this that make me want to live in the moment, and make me realize how much I am going to miss this place when I leave.

On Wednesday, I had an incredible day at the orphanage. I have learned from being an Oregonian, where sun can be rare, that I am most likely solar powered; I am always in much better spirits when the sun is shining. And on Wednesday, we had one of our first afternoons in a while at the orphanage where it was not pouring down rain and completely dreary outside. This sunshine brought me so much joy, and it animated the kids as well. I was reminded again that I love these kids SO much, so much more than I have ever loved children before. Something about this experience and the beauty and the pain that we see at the orphanage just makes my heart explode with love for these kids. Wednesday I did the same things I do most other days; play with the older kids and spend some time in the baby room, but somehow this day felt so much more joyful, and it was just the kind of encouragement I needed.

On Thursday, instead of going to Fundación, Brooks and I spent the afternoon with Brooks’ host mom, Cony, at a fair in Chiantla, the nearby town. Cony is an amazing woman, and she is so fun to talk to and spend time with. She is one of those people that make you love life. She was actually on her way to a funeral after the fair, and told us, “Enjoy life; it’s too short to spend worrying; you never know when it will end”. Normally, that would be kind of morbid advice, but from Cony it just made me want to live as vivaciously as possible. At the fair, we spent our time walking around, looking at booths, buying sweets, and meeting people. We weren’t even in Huehue and Cony still knew everyone; she is a well-loved person. Toward the end of our time at the fair, we sat down in a portable restaurant and enjoyed enchiladas and horchata, which Cony treated us to. It was a refreshing evening; it’s so important for us to get out of our routine every now and then and see things outside of our bubble. Brooks and I are both people who appreciate routine and being able to anticipate what our days will look like, but obviously it is necessary to mix it up sometimes.

Friday, I had my last Spanish class with Sheny, and I was quite excited to reach this landmark. We had been taking classes two hours a day, five days a week for the past four weeks, and I was ready for a break from this schedule. The classes were incredibly helpful though; although I was a Spanish major in college, I have noticed it is so hard to learn another language in a classroom in the States, and is so right to learn a language through a class-intensive and immersion experience. We covered all the Spanish grammar tenses as well as common errors, such as ser versus estar, and I know I am so much more equipped to have good conversations in Spanish now. After our normal routine of class, gym, lunch, and nap, Brooks and I headed to the orphanage with our bags packed for the night. We hung out with the kids for a couple of hours, and once our stomachs started to rumble, we decided to treat ourselves to Telepizza for dinner instead of mass-produced orphanage food. Our Telepizza experience is one for the books; Telepizza and a restaurant called Pollo Campero (the most popular fast food restaurant in Guatemala) share a store here in Huehue, and although Pollo Campero is fast food, they actually have waitresses and service at the tables! It’s kind of a mix of McDonalds and Red Robins, and was one of the strangest fast food experiences I have ever had. The pizza, though, was amazing. We walked back to the orphanage after having our fill of pizza, and spent the night reading books in the different rooms and getting ready for bed. I chose to stay this time in the Kinders room, and thought it would be sweet to snuggle with some of the kids for bed. This may or may not have been a good idea though… I started with two in the bed with me, one who fell asleep instantly and I moved to his own bed, and another that was being a little fussy and moved between her bed and mine a couple times. Once she finally rolled around enough to fall asleep in my bed, and all the other kids were asleep, I thought I would get some sleep. But, of course, I was wrong. First of all, I always underestimate how loud common sleeping rooms are, with 12 people including myself breathing, moving, and talking in their sleep. I was in and out of sleep, selfishly with earplugs in half the time, and out the other half so I could hear if anyone cried in the night. Another thing I underestimated is how often three year olds wet the bed. Yeah, Ingrid, my bed buddy, wet the bed. Luckily it all stayed on her side and the blanket was thick enough to act as a wall between us, but the overwhelming smell of pee (the room already smelled like pee, and the kid next to me was wetting his bed as well) was too much for me to comfortably sleep through the night. I more or less drifted in and out of sleep, waiting for 6am when I could go home and sleep on my own pee-free bed. Note to self: ALWAYS move the Kinder out of your bed once they have fallen asleep. Rookie mistake. 

Saturday came and went mostly uneventfully. We were both tired from our evening at the orphanage, so we just followed our typical Saturday routine of sleeping, reading, writing, going to the grocery store and working out. As usual, the thing that I was looking forward to all day was watching an American movie that night, with treats to accompany. We had bought a pirated copy of “Super 8” at the fair, and it did not disappoint. I highly recommend it.

Sunday again is moving by slowly, but with me in better spirits than yesterday because I slept much better last night. Sunday became laundry day, reading, sitting in the sun, and attempting to attend church in the afternoon. Today is elections day in Guatemala, and Brooks and I had both heard rumors it’s a dangerous day for foreigners to be wandering around; we decided to live cautiously and just stay home, aside from leaving the house once to head to church. Our attempt at church was a fail though, because our church is located so close to a voting center they decided not to have a service that evening due to the voting traffic. Voting here in Guatemala is like nothing I’ve seen before; people were all dressed up, and there were food booths set up outside of the voting center (an elementary school) for people to get snacks and talk around. Tons of groups of people were standing around outside of the school, most likely discussing their votes and the future direction of Guatemala. Hearing about the governmental system here has been disheartening, and most likely everyone was discussing, “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if this election actually mattered, actually changed something? Did you vote for the more corrupt guy or the less corrupt guy?” It’s not uncommon for politicians to buy votes here, and the last elected mayor of Huehue actually went into hiding two years into his term, still receiving his fat paycheck for doing nothing. After checking out the elections scene, Brooks and I bought popsicles, defeated again by another failed attempt at attending church, and headed home (Side story: Ironically, every time something has happened that prevented us from attending church, I was always wearing the same blouse. I think it might be cursed). We decided to listen to a sermon on CD Brooks had from Bible Lectures, given by his college pastor about how young people are leaving the church. It was an excellent sermon, and made me feel an emotional excitement I haven’t been feeling at the churches down here. It’s so interesting to me that I feel like I am finally doing what Jesus wants of us – to go out and live, love and serve – and yet this has honestly been a kind of a low point for my faith. I feel like my faith is currently a quiet constant versus a passionate emotion. And sure, I read by Bible everyday, pray, listen to Christian music at the gym, and both Brooks and I feel like our one-on-one relationships with God are currently at their best. But both of us have realized it’s the lack of Christian community we have here that is affecting our ability to feel the emotional excitement we used to get from going to church and having coffee dates and Bible studies. And although neither of us could really figure out a solution to this dilemma – something about the language and culture barrier is making it difficult for us to feel integrated in a church – it was good for us to at least express this confusion to each other. All in all, though, I would say God is teaching me some pretty amazing things down here, and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.