Yes, I'm going to talk about evil today, but first I have to tell you that I had just the most wonderful weekend and it was a marvelous combination of people and ideas intertwined. Almost like God had planned it as a package.
One of my dear friends came for a good visit. Colleen O’Toole was my co-manager at the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance camp in New Orleans about this time last year. We only worked together about a month but we packed in a lot of fun and hard work in that short time. In the many camps and managers I’ve worked with, Colleen and my time in New Orleans was the best.
Colleen is from Michigan and had volunteered as an AmeriCorps volunteer between her junior and senior years of college. After graduation she worked as a Young Adult Volunteer for PDA. Then after PDA, she went back to AmeriCorps, this time as a team leader. Right now the team she is leading is in Bridge City working for Habitat for Humanity rebuilding from last year’s hurricane on the Texas Coast. Colleen has decided she can make a career out of public service and I love watching her life unfold.
Colleen and I made a good team. We had the same management style. We were earnest and responsible without getting all uptight about it all.
We were usually able to get the camp in shape and the groceries bought by lunch on most days. Then we visited the work sites in the Ninth Ward to make sure the volunteers had everything they needed. If we had an errand in our favorite parts of NOLA we could stop for lunch. Because Colleen had worked on Katrina previously she knew how to navigate the town. Her favorite neighborhood was Magazine Street with its collection of unique shops and intimate restaurants. Mona’s was our favorite restaurant and they served great mid-eastern food. Colleen was more into humus than I was and I was all about babaganouj, which she didn’t like so much. We could split an appetizer plate, eat cheap and go home happy.
Colleen called a couple of weeks ago to announce she was stationed in Bridge City, Texas for a few weeks working on Ike recovery and would be as close to my neck of the woods as she would ever be. I think she was also looking for a quiet place to just veg- out for a few days and unwind from the responsibility as a team leader. She came to the right place. Beaven and I are about as close to living as vegetables as you can get.
However, I was on my Back to Basics kick and recently had discovered a raw milk source where I could buy milk suitable for cheese and butter making. I wasn’t surprised to find her embrace this idea with gusto and we went to pick up some milk and cream then run over to the egg lady’s house. We ended up making butter and mozzarella cheese as well as having real farm fresh eggs for breakfast.
But that’s not at all what I wanted to talk about today. Shift gears now because I'm ready to talk about evil.
Colleen went to church with us on Sunday and the whole worship was on “evil.” The youth put on a drama on the topic of evil and the preacher preached on it. The kids were fantastic and the congregation was left in tears by their portrayal of what evil can do to people.
People don’t generally like to talk about evil. It makes us uncomfortable to even think about it. Oh, I believe in evil, alright. It’s a very powerful force. I believe it to the point that it scares me to death. I don’t think of evil as the devil in a red suit with a tail and pitchfork. It wears a disguise much more clever than that. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it as much as I have felt it. I once sat in the hall at the county courthouse waiting to testify in a trial and I could feel the evil forces seeping from the walls, from the floor, drifting through the air.
Barbara Brown Taylor speaks of “prayer-soaked pews.” If we believe in those forces of good, logic tells us that the opposite forces exits. And the benches outside the court rooms have been soaked with “something” that made my skin crawl.
Just as God’s Holy Spirit flows through our lives wafting on the slightest breeze, I believe there are evil forces around us, watching us closely, waiting patiently. Evil waits, sits for a spell right beside us waiting for a time we are at our weakest. And I believe this happened with Hurricane Katrina. I don’t believe evil forces caused the hurricane as much as I am solidly convinced that it moved in and set up camp in the aftermath. In the chaos. And I think what stirred it up were the forces of good that were set in motion in the response to the storm. Presbyterian Disaster Assistance’s motto was “Out of Chaos, Hope.” I think there was enough Hope to draw out the forces of evil to push back. I could feel the pushing back and forth. Good versus Evil. Pushing against each other.
On Sunday night while we were putting together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle at my kitchen table Colleen and I talked a bit about some of the things that happened to us while we were on the staff of the Katrina recovery effort in New Orleans. We both agreed that there was something amiss. As we worked to fit the pieces of the puzzle on my kitchen table we compared notes about how some of the pieces of the puzzle of the Katrina recovery didn’t fit.
I was there before Colleen got there and she was there after I left so, in addition to our shared experiences, we saw some things the other did not. And what we saw defied logic and could only be described as evil. I really can’t give it another word. I could tone it down a bit and just say some folks acted like typical corporate boobs, the kind that are found everywhere. But this was the church and you expect better. So I had to come up with a more generous word. Forces of evil.
Here we were at the highest level of our denomination:a place you might think of as “nearer my God to thee.” Yet we witnessed some of the best-intentioned people act in mean and petty ways. And I have to admit that includes myself at times, though I can assure you I didn’t possess enough power to affect people the way the higher-ups did. Colleen and I both sat in staff meetings where people yelled at each other and sometimes folks even ended up in tears. There were contentious and chaotic personnel moves that made no sense. Colleen and I couldn’t explain why those things happened, we just agreed that what we had seen really happened.
Ephesians 6:12 calls it, “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” The same scripture also tells us “to put on the whole armor of God” so we can resist evil.
Every day a camp manager wakes up in one of the several volunteer camps along the US Gulf Coast and gets dressed and goes out to do their best. They make sure the volunteers are well-fed and well-rested so they can work hard. They make sure the volunteers work safely and have the tools they need.
And every day people come from all over the United States to help. People take vacation time to travel across the country to help total strangers rebuild their homes. We haven’t left the recovery effort. We haven’t backed down. PDA may be imperfect but they are persistent. They came, they are still here. They are waiting for you.
Hurricane season is here. There will be destruction. There will be heroes and selfless actions. There will be a lot of good-intentioned people acting out of pure love. We will need the whole armor of God because we can be sure wherever God sends good people with good intentions there will be evil forces pushing back at us. Yes, put on the whole armor of God. Prepare for battle.
Our team from Garland will be going to Port Nueces, Texas the week of October 11-17. Let me know if you want to come with us. We’d love to have you.
About Me
- Jane
- I'm pretty much a typist for the Holy Spirit. I try to put those things into words in a blog called Jane's Journey. I have another blog for recipes called My Life in Food. Also Really Cool Stuff features Labyrinths and other things like how to fry an egg on the sidewalk.(first step: don't do it on the sidewalk, use a skillet) Come along with me as I careen through life.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Food and Drink
Well, I’m going back to Guatemala. On Labor Day. For three glorious weeks. Sometimes I wonder if I do this stuff just so I’ll have something interesting to write about here.
Almost the minute I got back, before I’d even unpacked some of my stuff, Beaven resumed his planning for his own trip to learn Spanish by immersion. He would go to Quetzeltenango, also known as Xela, for three weeks. He would live with a Guatemalan family. He would have one-on-one instruction at the school for five hours every day. He picked out a great school and the perfect time for him to go. I was basking in the idea of having the house to myself for three whole weeks. Uninterrupted Oprah watching and snacking on my favorite forbidden foods with no one the wiser.
But then he started telling me some of the cool side trips he could go on like Fair Trade Coffee farms and volcano hikes. I was still fresh from the confidence I built after a week of bi-lingual living when I begin to understand a lot of what is being said in Spanish.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened, whether it was the twinkle in his eye or in my eye but the next thing I knew he was making airline reservations for two people on one computer and I was contacting the school on the other.
This is why people retire. This is why it’s best to retire early. Thank you, God. We know how lucky we are.
So now I’ve got about three weeks to finish telling you about the trip a couple of weeks ago. Then I should be able to report first-hand direct from an internet café in downtown Xela.
Today I want to tell you about the water treatment projects we visited and the Nutrition Program. We went to three different water treatment facilities but they were all basically the same. Each one was built through an organization called Living Waters for the World.
I’ve got pictures of pipes, valves, filters, tanks and spigots. Each system is housed in one of the Presbyterian churches we’ve come to know. They take the regular municipal (untreated) water that’s piped in from God knows where, purify it and fill five-gallon water jugs. Then they seal the jugs. They sell them at cost or give them away if you can’t pay.
Giovanni (our translator) and Ludin Leon as he explains the system
Our group has known first-hand what a serious issue clean water is in Guatemala. I will never forget the year we went to visit a church that had not received training on how to take care of the gringos. We knew by the look on our translators faces that these folks had made our refrescos from tap water instead of bottled water. Linda got so sick she needed an IV for dehydration and one of the translators ended up in the hospital. And this is how everyone in Guatemala lives. “Agua pura” is the only thing people will drink if they can afford to buy it. Last week I was asking an old friend Karla Cordon about it and she said bottled water is all her family drinks but she still gets sick sometimes.
I think you could look on the internet and get statistics that will tell you how much of the world has unsafe water sources. And then they marvel at Americans who bathe in drinking water.
So getting a water treatment source in a church is a big help in a community. We were able to visit three of these treatment plants and I think the Norte Presbytery has plans for three more. The equipment costs about $5,000 but $1,000 of that is paid by the Guatemala Presbiterio del Norte.
The other project we visited is one of our favorites that our cluster of churches began five years ago. Through the marvel of photography and skill of Nancy Gray, I can now show you a photograph I thought I had lost.
Miriam Leon explains to Loida Giron how they could do the Nutrition Project
It was 2002 and we were sitting in the courtyard of the Presbyterian Church in Usumaltan.
The year before , we had met Loida de Giron and painted the church in Berea pink. I could say it was a poor church in a poor town and I would be describing any church we’ve ever visited in Guatamala. But there was something different about the children we met that year. I’ve seen babies that were so poor they wore rags for diapers but these families were so poor they didn’t even have diaper pins and the rags were just tied onto the kids. They had a vacant stare and looked sick and droopy. Loida said we were looking at malnutrition. The only thing their mothers had to feed them was rice and beans. They never got meat or fruit. And we returned home that year with the question in our hearts, “What can we do?”
When we returned the next year we met another woman, Miriam Leon. She is a nurse and was working for the Christian Children’s fund in Usumatlan. She took us to her work one morning to show us how they track the kids’ progress and what they feed the kids to supplement their diet. The next day somebody managed to bring Loida to meet with us for breakfast and Miriam was there. And that’s when this photo was taken. I knew at the time it was a moment the world shifted, even if just a bit, even if just for a few hungry children. The lady who understood the problem met the lady with a solution and who should be watching but the ladies with the financial resources to pay for it?
For about $4,000 a year the program provides two meals and a snack for two days a week plus vitamins and parasite medicine for 20 children. The kids are weighed and measured to chart their progress. They get a bible study those days, the mothers get training in how to feed their families and three women in the host church get paid for doing the cooking and leading the bible study. One of the most exciting things to Linda and I back home was the fact that the woman came up with this plan, designed the program and run it themselves.
At the end of the year the program moves to another town, to another set of hungry kids to another family who needs a little help and education. Every year when we visit Guatemala we sit down with the Presbiterio del Norte Executive Committee, evaluate the program and give them a check for the next six months. Then, usually around December we send another six-month check.
Sometimes we wonder where we’ll get the money for another six months but it always comes. If you’d like to make a donation in someone’s honor as an alternative Christmas gift we can give you a really cool gift card. Just leave me a note in the comments section of the blog or email me.
Jesus told his disciples not worry about what they would eat or drink but He also told us to take care of each other. And this is what I think he meant.
2009 Nutrition Project kids at Iglesia de Nueva Jerusalen
Almost the minute I got back, before I’d even unpacked some of my stuff, Beaven resumed his planning for his own trip to learn Spanish by immersion. He would go to Quetzeltenango, also known as Xela, for three weeks. He would live with a Guatemalan family. He would have one-on-one instruction at the school for five hours every day. He picked out a great school and the perfect time for him to go. I was basking in the idea of having the house to myself for three whole weeks. Uninterrupted Oprah watching and snacking on my favorite forbidden foods with no one the wiser.
But then he started telling me some of the cool side trips he could go on like Fair Trade Coffee farms and volcano hikes. I was still fresh from the confidence I built after a week of bi-lingual living when I begin to understand a lot of what is being said in Spanish.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened, whether it was the twinkle in his eye or in my eye but the next thing I knew he was making airline reservations for two people on one computer and I was contacting the school on the other.
This is why people retire. This is why it’s best to retire early. Thank you, God. We know how lucky we are.
So now I’ve got about three weeks to finish telling you about the trip a couple of weeks ago. Then I should be able to report first-hand direct from an internet café in downtown Xela.
Today I want to tell you about the water treatment projects we visited and the Nutrition Program. We went to three different water treatment facilities but they were all basically the same. Each one was built through an organization called Living Waters for the World.
I’ve got pictures of pipes, valves, filters, tanks and spigots. Each system is housed in one of the Presbyterian churches we’ve come to know. They take the regular municipal (untreated) water that’s piped in from God knows where, purify it and fill five-gallon water jugs. Then they seal the jugs. They sell them at cost or give them away if you can’t pay.
Giovanni (our translator) and Ludin Leon as he explains the system
Our group has known first-hand what a serious issue clean water is in Guatemala. I will never forget the year we went to visit a church that had not received training on how to take care of the gringos. We knew by the look on our translators faces that these folks had made our refrescos from tap water instead of bottled water. Linda got so sick she needed an IV for dehydration and one of the translators ended up in the hospital. And this is how everyone in Guatemala lives. “Agua pura” is the only thing people will drink if they can afford to buy it. Last week I was asking an old friend Karla Cordon about it and she said bottled water is all her family drinks but she still gets sick sometimes.
I think you could look on the internet and get statistics that will tell you how much of the world has unsafe water sources. And then they marvel at Americans who bathe in drinking water.
So getting a water treatment source in a church is a big help in a community. We were able to visit three of these treatment plants and I think the Norte Presbytery has plans for three more. The equipment costs about $5,000 but $1,000 of that is paid by the Guatemala Presbiterio del Norte.
The other project we visited is one of our favorites that our cluster of churches began five years ago. Through the marvel of photography and skill of Nancy Gray, I can now show you a photograph I thought I had lost.
Miriam Leon explains to Loida Giron how they could do the Nutrition Project
It was 2002 and we were sitting in the courtyard of the Presbyterian Church in Usumaltan.
The year before , we had met Loida de Giron and painted the church in Berea pink. I could say it was a poor church in a poor town and I would be describing any church we’ve ever visited in Guatamala. But there was something different about the children we met that year. I’ve seen babies that were so poor they wore rags for diapers but these families were so poor they didn’t even have diaper pins and the rags were just tied onto the kids. They had a vacant stare and looked sick and droopy. Loida said we were looking at malnutrition. The only thing their mothers had to feed them was rice and beans. They never got meat or fruit. And we returned home that year with the question in our hearts, “What can we do?”
When we returned the next year we met another woman, Miriam Leon. She is a nurse and was working for the Christian Children’s fund in Usumatlan. She took us to her work one morning to show us how they track the kids’ progress and what they feed the kids to supplement their diet. The next day somebody managed to bring Loida to meet with us for breakfast and Miriam was there. And that’s when this photo was taken. I knew at the time it was a moment the world shifted, even if just a bit, even if just for a few hungry children. The lady who understood the problem met the lady with a solution and who should be watching but the ladies with the financial resources to pay for it?
For about $4,000 a year the program provides two meals and a snack for two days a week plus vitamins and parasite medicine for 20 children. The kids are weighed and measured to chart their progress. They get a bible study those days, the mothers get training in how to feed their families and three women in the host church get paid for doing the cooking and leading the bible study. One of the most exciting things to Linda and I back home was the fact that the woman came up with this plan, designed the program and run it themselves.
At the end of the year the program moves to another town, to another set of hungry kids to another family who needs a little help and education. Every year when we visit Guatemala we sit down with the Presbiterio del Norte Executive Committee, evaluate the program and give them a check for the next six months. Then, usually around December we send another six-month check.
Sometimes we wonder where we’ll get the money for another six months but it always comes. If you’d like to make a donation in someone’s honor as an alternative Christmas gift we can give you a really cool gift card. Just leave me a note in the comments section of the blog or email me.
Jesus told his disciples not worry about what they would eat or drink but He also told us to take care of each other. And this is what I think he meant.
2009 Nutrition Project kids at Iglesia de Nueva Jerusalen
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Traffic
Believe it or not, it’s harder to write when I have too much material than when I don’t have enough. I’m having trouble settling my brain on only one subject. I’m writing a report to the cluster and it's six pages long so far. So I will write about just one aspect of our trip. Stayed tuned for a report next week on water treatment. Today will be traffic.
Traffic in Guatemala is interesting. They have that same habit you see in many Latin countries where three lanes of cars share a two-lane stretch of road. There’s a lot of honking that’s more honest-to-God communication rather than angry outburst you get in places like New York City. It tells the other drivers where you are and that it’s either (1) OK for them to come ahead or (2) you are going and they should stay back. The art comes in understanding which meaning to apply to any given situation. And it doesn’t matter whether you are in the middle of the city or on a cliff-hugging mountain road there’s lots of “conversation by honking.”
On this trip, the city traffic provided little drama and there were only a few cliff-hugging moments on the mountain roads. It was the stops, the times the road shut down completely,that ruled our lives.
It started on the third day. We had been to church and worshipped God together; we had studied and analyzed the bible and our lives at a workshop. We’d even visited a couple of water treatment projects. And then we finally got around to doing what I really wanted to do on the trip: just sitting around and visiting. We had lunch at Carlos and Dora’s house on Monday, which was really our third day into the trip. Dora put on a big spread of grilled beef, rice, corn and other vegetables and fruit with about three choices for dessert. Most of the men and kids had filtered out to other parts of the house for other amusements. But the women hung around the table for the best part of any meal—the coffee and conversation. We finally talked Dora into sitting down with us. We were settling down and figuring out a way to get rid of our male translator who couldn’t have enjoyed our conversation and convincing him that Phyllis could interpret for us. I had just asked Dora how she and Sonia had met. I knew that they had known each other a long time and I was interested to know how their friendship compared to some that I enjoy.
We were entering the estrogen zone and about to happily frolic about with tales of children and church when word came around that there had been an accident on the highway and we’d better head home if we wanted to get there before dark. PRESGOV has a rule that we can’t drive after dark. And we knew Central American Highway Nine would be full of trucks bumper to bumper going back and forth to Puerto Barrios, the main shipping port in Guatemala. So we packed up immediately and left.
Sure enough, toward the middle of the drive back to the hotel, traffic stopped.
And as soon as we settled into the wait I saw two things I’ve never seen in a traffic jam in my life. Men in black carrying automatic rifles appeared out of nowhere. There had been a couple of ambulances whizzing past us but I didn’t remember police, especially enough police cars to discharge this many men. And what were they there for? Did crowds get unruly in traffic jams? Before I could ask around I spotted the other amazing thing: children and women walking from car to car offering snacks for sale. Corn roasted in the husk, roasted cashews (that Linda immediately warned against eating on pain of some sort of digestive death), sweet treats and bottled water. It gave a carnival atmosphere to everything. People were starting to get out of the cars and walking around. It was getting hot on the bus so walking around outside seemed fun. A group of our younger members heard that the accident was only 100 meters ahead and they decided to walk to see what was going on. By this time we had heard the wreck was caused when a truck lost control on a curve and lost its load with the load staying behind, turned over, and the cab skidding ahead by itself.
The entire Speck family (Grandmother Phyllis, one daughter, one daughter-in-law and four grandkids in their late teens or early twenties) hiked up to the wreck...
After about thirty minutes I decided to go join them and headed out. Then I noticed Rumaldo Lopez running up to catch up with me. I realized he didn’t want me to be alone and came to accompany me. Rumaldo is a nice guy on any day but this day his kindness was really comforting even though I didn’t feel in any kind of danger. We passed the cab of the truck lying on its side in a crumpled heap. Then another 100 feet ahead of that was the load of the truck. It appeared to be mostly cardboard boxes, which the neighborhood families had descended upon and were carrying off to their homes. When we met up with the Specks they had stopped a few yards short of the trailer blocking the road. There was a wrecker trying to maneuver it off the road. The only problem was there wasn’t any place to move it to. On one side of the road the mountainside dropped off to a sudden death for anyone who chanced it. On the other side of the road was the mountain. And the mountain wasn’t going anywhere. The only chance of moving the trailer was to inch it back and forth into someone’s front yard. Let me tell you, it takes a while to “inch” a 53-foot trailer. There were probably 656 inches to move.
Meanwhile, the Specks were taking the opportunity to do a little Michael Jackson memorial break dancing there on the highway pavement and shooting videos of it all. The performance they enjoyed the most was Guillermo’s, our favorite accordion playing preacher. Then Phyllis, who is approaching her eighties, decided to try it. Once their performances had been recorded they spent the time watching it and laughing. I'm sorry to say I didn't capture any of this on video for you.
I was watching the “police” watch us. Then someone told me these weren’t police but security guards who had been riding in the many trucks now in line like beached whales. It’s not unusual for a company to have a security guard ride with the cargo. That’s why I never saw them drive up in police cars—they had been sitting in the cabs of the trucks the whole time.
So, now we had this carnival on the road of uniformed guys with guns, break dancing grandmas, snack vendors and bumper to bumper stalled traffic. I was almost disappointed when they got the trailer off the road and everybody ran hell-bent-for-leather back to their cars. But I knew I was going to need a bathroom pretty soon and didn’t want to have to go in somebody’s bushes behind their house—especially with the mountain drop-off and everything. We had been stopped for over two hours.
The next day it happened again. This time the truck was still in one piece but there weren’t any snack vendors. We tried a little more break-dancing but our hearts weren’t in it this time. The bathroom possibilities were better since the houses were a bit nicer and there was even a church service right off the road. We were stopped over four hours this time and it got dark so we all piled back on the bus until the road cleared.
Then the day after that we passed a truck that lay on its side against the mountain, a brand new wreck that hadn't stopped traffic yet. Everyone yelled in unison, “Keep going!” As we passed, Carlos explained to us that this driver was very skilled.
Huh? Our third accident in three days and Carlos was telling us how skilled the driver had been? Here’s his explanation: These wrecks aren't necessarily due to bad drivers. The trucks aren’t maintained properly and many times the brakes go out. When this happens the driver has about three options: going off the mountain, hitting another car in the oncoming lane or running against the mountain to slow the truck down. Then, if you’re really skilled, you can just lay the truck on its side as close to the mountain as you can get so other cars can go around you. And that’s what this truck had done. Carlos was very proud of him.
And this driver hadn’t delayed our ride back to the hotel so he got high marks from this set of gringos.
That’s more than you ever wanted to know about Guatemalan traffic. Maybe next week one particular idea will surface and I’ll be more interesting. There's lots to tell.
Traffic in Guatemala is interesting. They have that same habit you see in many Latin countries where three lanes of cars share a two-lane stretch of road. There’s a lot of honking that’s more honest-to-God communication rather than angry outburst you get in places like New York City. It tells the other drivers where you are and that it’s either (1) OK for them to come ahead or (2) you are going and they should stay back. The art comes in understanding which meaning to apply to any given situation. And it doesn’t matter whether you are in the middle of the city or on a cliff-hugging mountain road there’s lots of “conversation by honking.”
On this trip, the city traffic provided little drama and there were only a few cliff-hugging moments on the mountain roads. It was the stops, the times the road shut down completely,that ruled our lives.
It started on the third day. We had been to church and worshipped God together; we had studied and analyzed the bible and our lives at a workshop. We’d even visited a couple of water treatment projects. And then we finally got around to doing what I really wanted to do on the trip: just sitting around and visiting. We had lunch at Carlos and Dora’s house on Monday, which was really our third day into the trip. Dora put on a big spread of grilled beef, rice, corn and other vegetables and fruit with about three choices for dessert. Most of the men and kids had filtered out to other parts of the house for other amusements. But the women hung around the table for the best part of any meal—the coffee and conversation. We finally talked Dora into sitting down with us. We were settling down and figuring out a way to get rid of our male translator who couldn’t have enjoyed our conversation and convincing him that Phyllis could interpret for us. I had just asked Dora how she and Sonia had met. I knew that they had known each other a long time and I was interested to know how their friendship compared to some that I enjoy.
We were entering the estrogen zone and about to happily frolic about with tales of children and church when word came around that there had been an accident on the highway and we’d better head home if we wanted to get there before dark. PRESGOV has a rule that we can’t drive after dark. And we knew Central American Highway Nine would be full of trucks bumper to bumper going back and forth to Puerto Barrios, the main shipping port in Guatemala. So we packed up immediately and left.
Sure enough, toward the middle of the drive back to the hotel, traffic stopped.
And as soon as we settled into the wait I saw two things I’ve never seen in a traffic jam in my life. Men in black carrying automatic rifles appeared out of nowhere. There had been a couple of ambulances whizzing past us but I didn’t remember police, especially enough police cars to discharge this many men. And what were they there for? Did crowds get unruly in traffic jams? Before I could ask around I spotted the other amazing thing: children and women walking from car to car offering snacks for sale. Corn roasted in the husk, roasted cashews (that Linda immediately warned against eating on pain of some sort of digestive death), sweet treats and bottled water. It gave a carnival atmosphere to everything. People were starting to get out of the cars and walking around. It was getting hot on the bus so walking around outside seemed fun. A group of our younger members heard that the accident was only 100 meters ahead and they decided to walk to see what was going on. By this time we had heard the wreck was caused when a truck lost control on a curve and lost its load with the load staying behind, turned over, and the cab skidding ahead by itself.
The entire Speck family (Grandmother Phyllis, one daughter, one daughter-in-law and four grandkids in their late teens or early twenties) hiked up to the wreck...
After about thirty minutes I decided to go join them and headed out. Then I noticed Rumaldo Lopez running up to catch up with me. I realized he didn’t want me to be alone and came to accompany me. Rumaldo is a nice guy on any day but this day his kindness was really comforting even though I didn’t feel in any kind of danger. We passed the cab of the truck lying on its side in a crumpled heap. Then another 100 feet ahead of that was the load of the truck. It appeared to be mostly cardboard boxes, which the neighborhood families had descended upon and were carrying off to their homes. When we met up with the Specks they had stopped a few yards short of the trailer blocking the road. There was a wrecker trying to maneuver it off the road. The only problem was there wasn’t any place to move it to. On one side of the road the mountainside dropped off to a sudden death for anyone who chanced it. On the other side of the road was the mountain. And the mountain wasn’t going anywhere. The only chance of moving the trailer was to inch it back and forth into someone’s front yard. Let me tell you, it takes a while to “inch” a 53-foot trailer. There were probably 656 inches to move.
Meanwhile, the Specks were taking the opportunity to do a little Michael Jackson memorial break dancing there on the highway pavement and shooting videos of it all. The performance they enjoyed the most was Guillermo’s, our favorite accordion playing preacher. Then Phyllis, who is approaching her eighties, decided to try it. Once their performances had been recorded they spent the time watching it and laughing. I'm sorry to say I didn't capture any of this on video for you.
I was watching the “police” watch us. Then someone told me these weren’t police but security guards who had been riding in the many trucks now in line like beached whales. It’s not unusual for a company to have a security guard ride with the cargo. That’s why I never saw them drive up in police cars—they had been sitting in the cabs of the trucks the whole time.
So, now we had this carnival on the road of uniformed guys with guns, break dancing grandmas, snack vendors and bumper to bumper stalled traffic. I was almost disappointed when they got the trailer off the road and everybody ran hell-bent-for-leather back to their cars. But I knew I was going to need a bathroom pretty soon and didn’t want to have to go in somebody’s bushes behind their house—especially with the mountain drop-off and everything. We had been stopped for over two hours.
The next day it happened again. This time the truck was still in one piece but there weren’t any snack vendors. We tried a little more break-dancing but our hearts weren’t in it this time. The bathroom possibilities were better since the houses were a bit nicer and there was even a church service right off the road. We were stopped over four hours this time and it got dark so we all piled back on the bus until the road cleared.
Then the day after that we passed a truck that lay on its side against the mountain, a brand new wreck that hadn't stopped traffic yet. Everyone yelled in unison, “Keep going!” As we passed, Carlos explained to us that this driver was very skilled.
Huh? Our third accident in three days and Carlos was telling us how skilled the driver had been? Here’s his explanation: These wrecks aren't necessarily due to bad drivers. The trucks aren’t maintained properly and many times the brakes go out. When this happens the driver has about three options: going off the mountain, hitting another car in the oncoming lane or running against the mountain to slow the truck down. Then, if you’re really skilled, you can just lay the truck on its side as close to the mountain as you can get so other cars can go around you. And that’s what this truck had done. Carlos was very proud of him.
And this driver hadn’t delayed our ride back to the hotel so he got high marks from this set of gringos.
That’s more than you ever wanted to know about Guatemalan traffic. Maybe next week one particular idea will surface and I’ll be more interesting. There's lots to tell.
Friday, August 07, 2009
Guatemala Report 2009
Photos as I get them downloaded..........words later You probably already figured out that this is Miriam. Best hugs in the world.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
wow
It´s been two years since i´ve been to Guatemala and stayed at this hotel. A lot of things have gotten so much better here. Specifically, there is internet in the restaurant. So, i might be able to post, after all. Except i haven´t figured out the shift key. So maybe i can just post a little each day. Except today was so fantastic I´m not sure how to describe it. The language barrier has gotten easier for me. Spanish is coming easier and I find myself even sometime thinking in Spanish.
I´ll try to process a bit more and post as thoughts come. BTW the iPhones are Not working in this country. Nobody´s is.
I´ll try to process a bit more and post as thoughts come. BTW the iPhones are Not working in this country. Nobody´s is.
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