All Saints Day- Part One

Today we “helped” the community. A group stayed by the church to help in the construction of the latrine… but think to yourself… if a group from Guatemala came to your church and asked to build a shed or a garage what would you do? Probably patiently give them tasks that would present the possibility of a major mistake. Yet, we North Americans have a need to do… so we did a little =D Another group went to find and bring back palms for decorating the church, and two other groups went to fetch wood for the kitchen.

John, Vicki and I went out with Teodoro, Felix and Salmo to cut and bring back wood. We walked for thirty minutes and then the men attempted to cut the wood… Vicki attempted to shew away the cattle, but when she put her hand out they thought she had salt so only came closer until Teodoro gave her a large stick. The men gave each one of us what looked like just a stick to carry back; they tied each end to some bark strips and showed us how to place the middle of the strip on our forehead and let the stick rest on our back. The wood pieces looked insultingly small, until we tried to pick them up and realized that the “little” sticks were actually about 40lbs each. The men knew our limits and even pushed them a bit even as they picked up logs to bring back that were easily 150lbs if not more.

That afternoon as we rested and talked in the courtyard between the church and kitchen, several of the women in our delegation brought out some fingernail polish. Once we found out it was acceptable, all the little girls received a coat of paint on their nails. It was a beautiful sight to see each little girl receive special one on one attention from a woman from Texas. They, both the girls and the women, just beamed as one after one in the crowd of girls received her coat of pink.

Eric, Lindsay and I attempted to teach American football to three of the men from Aurora 8 de Octubre. We laughed and actually managed a few plays. There are a lot of rules in American Football and frankly I would not know how to teach in English let alone in Spanish but nonetheless it was fun.

Thankfully, soccer is easier to understand and play without too much knowledge… So we played a game together… international relations… Guatemalan vs. American with a few people crossing over to play for the other country. None of the women from the community played but three of the American women played which I am sure was an eye-opening experience for the men in the community. After all Lindsay had played for Gustavus in college and I had played for St. Olaf… so we actually held our own… The best part was that the game ended in a tie after about an hour and a half of play!

After our soccer game, and showers, we looked on as the women demonstrated how they croquet the morrales. It turns out that Santo, male, was the first to learn how to make the bags. He taught his wife and now she is teaching others.

Community building, making connections… stretching eachother and caring for one another.