Corri!

So today I sprinted.

That's not really something noteworthy until you consider the fact that its been almost 9 weeks since I was able to run. My ankle had started to get much better over the past week and I started kind of jogging 4 days ago. It's incredible. On an obscurely related note, its been impressive how much my Spanish has improved since returning from language school. Whereas before I could not even participate in a conversation, now I can understand a lot of what people say and respond halfway intelligently. But...I'm actually trying to have a conversation in Spanish right now with a guy and I realize I speak like I'm seven. But at least I'm speaking.

So all that was to say that God's been good. He's answered prayer. I asked some people so specifically pray for the ankle and lo and behold what happened. I also have been telling people to pray for the language barrier. It impressed me how fast I picked up what I was learning in language school. So really all that was to say thank you for the prayers. I know a lot of you have taken a few minutes to talk about me with God. It's helped in a practical way. I really do appreciate it in more ways than just being able to run. It's helped me further understand what it is to say God is good.

Story of the week: We have a garden at the home that has a tree with edible leaves. I was, uh, peer pressured into eating a leaf straight off the tree. Its a well known rule of thumb here that all fruits should be washed by a disinfectant to kill the maladies on the outside. I figured that didn't apply to edible leaves. Wrong. I got parasites. In my intestines. I had the skitters. It only lasted a day, but it was an epic day. Now that it's all over, I'm still kind of glad I did it. I liked the leaf, it tasted like zesty lettuce.

Hogar

So I’m back at the children’s home. We got back last Friday. It’s been incredible. I feel fairly at home here. Thus far I’ve played with kids all day. I’ll actually do work soon-ish. Tomorrow I get to work in a clinic at the orphanage with a doctor that only speaks Spanish. If it sounds like a bad idea, it probably is. That’s why I’m excited.

I also have realized I’ve never given actual information about what I’m doing. I did this because…I didn’t actually know what I’d be doing till, eh, today-ish. I’m working at a children’s home. Surprise! There are 52 kids here from ages 5-25. It is a large place; it has a school that 400 kids attend, a clinic, and a dentist’s office. I work with five other interns…who all happen to be girls. Hurray. (It’s actually been great, I’ve just started using words like “cute” and “adorable” slightly more than I used to, which was never). My official duty as an intern is to be a facilitator of the way of life the home tries to teach the ninos. We show them the love of Jesus. It’s an interesting role. Someday I will expand on that thought. My official duties are planning events for the kids, working in the clinic, and tutoring in math and science. A few of my favorite things.

So the loro is gone because I’m back at the home. I’m really kind of sad. We grew close. Yup.

Something that made me angry: I did laundry when I was in Antigua. I lived in an 8 x 10 room. It had very little furniture and nowhere rogue pieces of clothing could hide. I came here with matching sets of all clothes that require matches…like socks. When I got my laundry back I had two mismatched socks. Two!!!! One is ok. Two is dumb. I’ve probably had at least one mismatched sock in every load of laundry since I’ve been in college. I thought for sure I could keep track of my clothes living in an 8x10 space. No. No I can’t. Now my socks are gone.

Loro

So, I don't really have much to say today. I've been putting in 8 hours at the escuela (as opposed to the normal 4) because one of my fellow interns was sick for a couple days and was unable to use the hours she payed for. I, naturally, am mooching off of her unused hours for more time at the school. It was a good thing, I think it helped. 8 hours is a long time to do anything, however, but it was worth it. I now know 6 tenses and have been introduced to the compound tenses...so it will soon be like 10. 10 tenses is a lot. I suck at all of them. But it'll get better. Poco a poco como mi maestra dice.

Anyway with all the school, my mind has been thinking about nothing but Spanish and its hard to think of entertaining or deep blog material when I can hardly tell someone how old I am or what my favorite animal is...

Segue. I did want to update those concerned about the Loro situation. We have been getting along better. He does, however, still let out this moan when he wakes up. Our house dad told us he one time ripped off the beak of a smaller bird they had, so its possible the sound could be an imitation of his latest victims dieing scream. He's not very nice evidently but I like him. I took some pictures. If he looks evil, its because he is. I couldn't get too close because I would like my nose to stay on my face, but we are friends, really.

We return to the home de ninos Friday. I'm ready to take a few days off of school and help some people. Best kind of education there is.

Viajo.

So I'm still in Antigua, still learning Spanish. I've recently acquired a new linguistic goal that is a little above the level of a 10 year old. I need to be able to talk to a doctor. There is a clinic in the children's home that I will be able to work at, except the doctor only speaks Spanish. One of the other interns also works there, but she speaks the language just a tad better. The doctor lets her help with minor surgeries and delivering babies. I'd love to do that, but I'm afraid the doctor would like...hand me a newborn and tell me rock it gently and I think she'd be saying to dunk it in a tub of water. So there's yet work to do.

Today we took a trip to a volcano called Pacaya. It was incredible. There is a dried up lava field that still has little streams of lava running down the side. We could walk up next to it and poke it if we so desired. I wanted to poke it and fully intended to, but as I was walking up to it our tour guide started yelling that it was time to go. I turned around and went back, but I regret doing so. Now I can't stop thinking about what the consistency of magma would be like.

I have met a lot of interesting people walking around Antigua and traveling and such. Its been incredibly interesting and has kind of made me think. I've met a lot of young, inspired college kids like myself that are traipsing around Guatemala eager to either live life to the fullest or change the world. I met a Canadian studying to be a physical therapist, a quad-lingual Swedish girl teaching school in a small Guatemalan town, a couple of Notre Dame students, one minoring in poverty studies, and missionary after missionary working in different clinics, children's homes, and social work organizations around the country. A lot of these people remind me alot of myself in their thought process, and the way they live life, their desires and goals, even their rhetoric. We also recently toured a macadamia nut farm. The tour itself was like 10 minutes long and the lamest thing I've ever seen, but the man that owns the farm happened to be there and talk to us about all things not-macadamia. He's an old man with a pride issue, but he runs a very successful farm and has a lot of green farming projects going on to help save the world. He was incredibly interesting and kind of a jerk all at the same time. The speal he gave us was about changing the world and doing things that matter and he gave all sorts of examples of how he was doing that. The best way I could describe the feel of it was humanistic and selfish. The problem was, it also sounded a lot like me. I want to change the world and make people's live better, like he was talking about, but there has to, I thought, but a difference between me and him. There is a Difference - and it has to be capitalized. To solve a disease, like the world's problems, you don't just treat the symptoms, you treat the source. Everyone agrees about that. What people disagree on is the source. To the old man people were the answer, not the problem. We were the ones that had to fix things, we were fighting against this cold, hateful universe. We were the beautiful product of elegant evolutionary processes. That carries a lot of responsibilities. I, however, tend to not think that highly of people. Looking inside myself I seem to be fundamentally flawed. The deepest part of me isn't right. Any problem I have directly comes from stuff inside of me or inside of someone else. So it seems the stuff in people is what we are fighting against. Change the people, change the problems. Thats the Difference. So this incredibly long paragraph is really about wasting life. Its easy to be inspired and try to battle the evils of the world. Many college students, like the ones above, are like this. The difference comes from what you are battling. I don't want to battle the wrong thing.

If you've read this far you are obviously a faithful reader and are also obviously wondering how my relationship with the parrot is. Well, he's still waking me up, but he's been nicer about it. He likes to yell the spanish word for parrot, "loro". Its really kind of cute. Things are looking up.

Some pictures are on my facebook.

Escuela.

So I'm in language school. Aprendo espanol. I learn Spanish. It's in a town called Antigua which is a about 45 minutes away from the language school. Its snuggled up right next to a dormant (I think) volcano ironically called Agua. I'm here for two weeks and then I'm thrown back into hustle and bustle of a thriving underprivileged children's home. These two weeks are muy importante because my ability to help and affect these kids lives seems to hinge on the all important communication barrier. All I need to be is proficient enough to talk to a 10 year old and I'll be great. It seems like a long way off. I'm working hard though, it'll happen.

I've been thinking that its weird that there is all this stuff that must be taken care of before going about the business of the Lord's will. Then I thought, well gee , I suppose this is the business of the Lord's will. I'm here to affect some kids, I thought, but it turns out I'm here to serve wherever I am with whatever I am doing. The Lord is constantly about going ten thousand miles an hour, he can be praised in the tranquil as well as the busy. This time of chilling (by chilling I mean studying Spanish for 6 hours a day) is my preparation, my 40 days of fasting before my ordained time of ministry. Except a little Guatemalan woman serves me food and the devil only makes fun of how I speak Spanish. But...He won't give me more than I can handle, ya? No se, pero I'll praise him even while learning language.

Three of my fellow interns and I are all staying in a house together. Its a quaint little Guatemalan casa. Its like half outdoors. Theres an office, 4 bedrooms, and a kitchen that surround a little outdoor courtyard with a drain in the middle because it rains everyday. So, I walk out of my bedroom, and I'm outside. In the kitchen there is a table with a piece of glass as its tablecloth. In the morning the sun reflects off it and I can see all the scratches from the glass plates that we eat with. I feel sad for the poor table. I'm real careful with anything I pick up because the table...cries out in pain every time I set anything down. I swear its going to shatter after I take a drink one day. There is also a parrot that lives right outside my room. He doesn't have a cage, he just chills in the house, which is actually outside. He likes to yell. He's woken me up twice by yelling. There is a little 11 year old boy that lives in the house and when I first was woken up by the yelling I thought it was the kid right outside my door. I was going to get up and say stern things in English to him, but then I realized the yelling was coming from my roof. I asked the parrot today to stop yelling. We'll be friends eventually.

Anyway I don't really have access to the internet at mi casa and I'm writing this post in the biblioteca at my school. If its a little disjointed I apologize. But yes, life is good in here. I've got 9 more days to become comparable to a 10 year old. Oh and I've taken pictures. One day I'll post them...sorry mom and dad.

De Guatemala

So. I'm in Guatemala. I'm here to do the Lord's will. I'm at an orphanage called New Life Children's Home that has 52 kids and an incredible ability to help their lives become something worthwhile. It also has a school that over 400 kids attend and a clinic that provides services to the community for little to no money. Its an incredible thriving community. And how I fit into it? Mmm, I mostly make funny faces and weird noises right now till I get the Spanish thing down a little better. On Sunday three other interns and I take off for two weeks of language school which, good Lord willing, will vastly improve my speekin' skeelz. It's ok though, because I make really good faces. Anyway, I'm here to do the Lord's will.

Guatemala is an interesting place. Breathtaking beauty walks down the street hand in hand with abject poverty. Hundreds of thousands of people live in ramshackle housing thrown all over the sides of tired hills struggling to cope with the burden of their lives. When mother nature gets violent, people die. Mudslides are a common occurrence that routinely kill thousands of people at a time. The government, of course, is too preoccupied with their own internal power struggles and schemes of killing their next political opponent to worry about the lives of a few million people. Organized crime and gangs are prevalent. I don't get to walk down the street to the store because I'm white, which obviously implies I have money, and an easy target. Though, for all its problems, Guatemala is enchanting. God's working here; it's become obvious to me he speaks Spanish well. I get to be some small part of that work. So yeah, I'm here to do the Lord's will.

On a similar note, I ate some sort of chicken casserole today that was held together by solid mayonnaise. Seriously, it was like a glue. It could have turned into an arts and crafts project had I brought glitter. Luckily, even though I hate mayonnaise, I hate glitter more so I was happy when it didn't turn into an arts and crafts project. Going off that segue, I'm going to post pictures of this place..as soon as I take them. One day I'm going to use my camera, I won't promise it will be soon, but one day.