Guatemala: A Hope Offering
This post is part of the Hope 2012 Blog Relay started by the indomitable Melanie Crutchfield and the not-so-subtle nudge from my wonderful mentor and friend, Melissa Tucker. The basic premise, you guessed it, is to write about hope.
So hope, the enemy of self-respecting cynics the world over. What could a sarcastic-around-the-edges gringa possibly have to say about hope from the city of La Antigua, Guatemala?
Thus far my life here has been idyllic. Each morning I've attended one-on-one language classes where every stunted phrase I've uttered in Spanish has been reinforced with a friendly nod and a "Buen trabajo" from my encouraging teacher. I've spent my afternoons meandering the cobblestone streets while sliding slippery mangos from plastic bags onto my tastebuds rapt with anticipation. I pass women in colorful woven skirts and tops pressing their palms together in the pat-pat-pat of tortilla making. The city of Antigua, where poverty is smoothed over by smiles and tourists just like the renovated facades of its 16th century architecture, makes a postcard perfect backdrop for the next year of my life.
In Antigua, the souvenirs, the coffee, and the bars are easy to find. It's the tumultuous history and subsequent signs of hope and reconciliation you have to go looking for.
I don't know how much you know about Guatemalan history, but for over 30 years, from 1960 to 1996, Guatemala was entrenched in brutal civil war. When I visited Guatemala during my semester abroad, we visited an organization committed to helping people who had lost friends and relatives in the civil war. Not an organization so much as a support group, un apoyo mutuo. Hundreds of portraits lined the walls. There were young men, old men, fat men, some merely boys. All were missing. Gone.
Desaparecidos. Disappeared.
As the leader, an indigenous woman wearing a crumpled grey skirt as crinkled as her wrinkled, weary eyes, described the group’s brave and somber purpose, I snuck back to the bathroom. I returned during the question and answer segment. I had just slid into my cold, metal chair when one of my classmates asked the question we’d all wanted to know.
“How many men have you found?” “Cuantos han encontrado?” The group was devoted to searching for the missing family members, los desaparecidos. Surely, some must have been reunited with their loved ones.
“Cero,” the woman stated matter-of-factly. “Zero.”
After the war, the Historical Clarification Commission estimated that “more than 200,000 people were killed — the vast majority ofwhom were civilian indigenous people.”
Six years later, the eyes that used to haunt me from these posters, the faces I used to call forth to justify my anger, the stories I used to tell to bash ignorant Americans, now implore me to look for a different reality. To look for hope in the scenery around me, in the life around me in Guatemala. If I allow myself to look deeper, to not be seduced by cheap tours, cheap drinks, and cheap Spanish classes, I think I will find this place I now call home to be a country of great hope. Hope against all odds. Reconciliation and healing and redemption against all odds.
If I look closely and sensitively enough, I will see that the woman wearing traje (the typical indigenous dress unique to each village and people group) isn’t just the source of my lunchtime tortillas (a gift in itself), but she is also a sign of hope.
I will see that the parade I witnessed this morning wasn't just a festive reason to yell and shout and dance, but was a symbol of the survival of a culture despite great adversity and discrimination in celebration called, Dia de los Mayas (Day of the Maya).
I will glimpse the magnitude of healing that has taken place as people who used to kill each other now walk down the same streets, shop in the same stores, and send their kids to the same schools in peace.
I will hear the Kaqchikel words a mother whispers to her wide eyed child in the dentist office not just with linguistic amusement, but with awe and gratitude that the syllables will be passed to the next generation. While driving through Guatemala City, I will see the Mayan flag waving from the palace as not just a splash of color in the cityscape, but as a sign of inclusion, a step toward reconciliation.
This year I have the chance not only to learn Spanish and eat mangos and dance salsa, but also to share meals with some very brave, very inspiring people, to hear stories of unbelievable horror and unbelievable healing, and to learn from a country that is, poco a poco, choosing hope.
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Fabulous blogger friends of mine... you interested? If you want to join the Hope Relay, let me know!
Adrian Waller: Life Before The Bucket
Caleb Wilde: Confessions of a Funeral Director
First Post from Guatemala
Guess what, guys? I am finally HERE! I am writing from my new home in Antigua, Guatemala!
Mom, Dad, and other concerned citizens: I made it safely and even got to watch a little bit of the Olympics on the plane ride over. My travel buddy, Becky, and I were picked up by her mom at the airport and made it to Antigua with enough time to (briefly, we were tired after all) go out on the town and reunite with some of Becky's friends.
On our first day, we planned out the next month that Becky will be here with me and did some recon to determine which tour companies to use for our adventures and which language school to attend and hunted out the local gym so I can keep the beans and tortillas safely away from my love handles. I also unpacked my belongings into my new room, we caught a free showing of Kite Runner (which I highly recommend), and then watched Danell Leyva win a medal (we couldn't tell which medal because there was no volume and NBC, frustratingly, did not show any final standings--I later learned he won bronze) in men's gymnastics at the only bar we could find that was showing the Olympics.
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| My morning coffee drinking view: be jealous. |
And that was Day One for anyone who is interested. But enough of the travelogue and on to my musings.
By the length of that last paragraph, it seems like I've had an eventful trip thus far. Yet I've been plagued with this sense that I'm not getting enough done. Shouldn't I be fluent in Spanish and have a million Guatemalan friends and be bombarded by job and volunteer opportunities already?
I have a tendency to get ahead of myself. I still remember my freshman year roommate and I kicking ourselves because we hadn't managed to solicit a committed surfer boyfriend three days into New Student Orientation. (To our defense, one girl on our hall had secured a boyfriend in that time and they are now happily married with a beautiful little girl.)
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| My new home! |
If I've learned anything since then, it's that things take time. I mean, it's been eight years since I unloaded my tropical print, extra long comforter from Target and tacked posters of my favorite Christian boy band and Olympic gymnasts on my dorm room wall with University-sanctioned blue tape. I've outgrown the Christian boy bands, and I still have a weak spot for male gymnasts, especially the medal winners, and it seems I still I have a problem with expecting too much, too soon.
That boyfriend is still nowhere to be found. And that's okay. My boyfriendless status means I am free to be here, in Guatemala, experiencing a new adventure on my own. Things take time. And that's okay. Things don't always work out as we expect or demand. And that's okay.
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| My room is behind the bottom window. |
It will be awhile before I feel at home even though I am very blessed to live with amazing, hospitable friends who already feel like family. It will be awhile before I can conjugate my Spanish verbs fast enough to actually maintain a conversation to the level of my liking. Before I make friends of my own and can walk the streets of Antigua like a pro, where the navigational trials produce less and less errors and unexpected detours.
For now, in my second day of expatriotism, I am content with the fact that I am here, drinking coffee on the patio overlooking the lush courtyard where plants doggedly climb the stuccoed walls and birds call and caw to each other at Segundo Avenido 6B in Antigua, Guatemala, my new home. I am here, and for now, that is more than enough.
Light Floods: Darkness, Dreams, & Daylight
The Darkness
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12 NIV)
The darkness flooded strong and heavy. Torrential.
Before Plant With Purpose wiggled its way into my heart, I wanted to live abroad. I dreamed of Antigua’s cobblestone streets, flowering woven shirts, bright skirts, distant volcanoes, and a day when I would dream in Spanish. I hoped to call Antigua home. And that hope burrowed down deep within me, determined.
But I was scared. I was content, even joyful, to serve at Plant With Purpose. So I stayed silent. Stayed put.
About a year and a half ago I felt God calling me to ask if it would be possible to work for Plant With Purpose remotely from Guatemala. To ask if my dreams could come true. After an initial yes, I was given a final no.
I. felt. so. foolish. for thinking I could get what I wanted. That I wouldn’t have to choose between the job I loved and the country I wanted to call home.
And so, not ready to leave my job, I stuffed in the disappointment. Swallowed it down. Tucked it into a pocket. And went back to work.
Could I dare to hope again?
Night Vision
I spent one and half years in grief and burnout, trying to discern if the call for Guatemala was God-given or God-thwarted. Was I being too selfish or were my dreams too small?
I learned to name the grief, the ache, the burnout.
I learned to see God in the dark.
As my sight failed, my Hope grew. I learned to don my night vision God goggles, my hope growing wide as my pupils.
At a prayer workshop at my church, I was given a vision of light, of freedom, of joy:
"Someone is running in the dark, past all of these closed doors. But God rushes in and takes your hand; suddenly you are running with him in the light—free."
I was running in the dark, past closed doors. I was running so hard and so fast and so desperate. I couldn’t see the light, but knew the light was coming. I kept running anyway. What else would I do?
I was promised light.
The Light
I know this is a lot of background and you’re probably wondering why I don’t just hurry and up and tell you already how the story ends, how God has made a way, but the darkness is what makes the light so sweet.
In the last few weeks of praying and pleading, of discerning and deliberating, I sensed a calling to let go. To loose my fists that clench too tightly around Plant With Purpose. To silence the voices that tell me I am nothing without my job, without this identity as a social justice do gooder. To quell the fear that Plant With Purpose is the best part of me, the only good part of me. That alone I will unhinge, disappear, disintegrate.
And so I decided to leave. To let go. To step forward.
I have friends who live in Guatemala who have graciously offered their home to me. I have roommates who have graciously agreed to let me leave halfway through our lease. I have a family that has graciously encouraged me to follow my dreams, even if it means I’ll see them less.
And so I told my boss I will be leaving Plant With Purpose at the end of June.
And so I told my roommates I will be moving out in the middle of July.
And so I told my friends I will be coming to live with them in Guatemala.
Just as soon as I made these plans, as I took this step, the light began to flood in. God answered my prayers for confirmation, my heart cry for meaningful work.
I have been given the opportunity to work as a freelance writer for other non profits. Over the last few months, the dark months, God has been building connections and giving me time to cultivate relationships that will allow me to do what I love to do in the country I would love to call home.
I have been running in the dark for so long, banging closed doors, and now I see the light. Like the woman at the prayer workshop told me, it is as if God has rushed up beside me, grabbed my hand, and we are now running in the light.
FREE.
I stand here astonished. My vision flooded with light, with gifts, with promises fulfilled.
Ful-filled. Filled with fullness. Only the Great of Greatness, the Holy of Holies, the true God of True God, the Deep of Deep can fill with fullness. Is Fullness Himself.
The light floods quick, burns pupils. I am left, face unveiled, squinting out the glory, whispering gracias, gracias.
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