Getting away…

I just returned yesterday from the community of Aurora 8 de Octubre near Coban (kind of) with a delegation from Texas… Rev Steve Youngdahl and members of the congregation of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Houston and Rev Eric Youngdahl and members of the congregation of House of Prayer Lutheran Church in Austin.

So in the next few blogs I will do my usual and relate some of the experiences in the community. This time the getting there was not all that exciting… but the return was a bit. We left the community at 9am and headed toward Chisec which was about 2 hours away mostly on gravel. In Chisec, we found out that we might not make it through Coban because EX PAC members were staging protests throughout the country, mostly in rural areas. EX PAC, briefly and over simplified, were civilian para military during the war. They basically were Big Brother and watched the community for the government, turning in anyone expected of being a Guerilla or organizing people. At times they also participated in making people disappear. They were conscripted for the most part and are now demanding payment for their services… which is being contested. Well, thanks to the rain the protest on our road ended early (in other areas roads were blocked all day) and we made it home without incident.

Well… one incident. In Chisec, we stopped at a restaurant… the same who had stopped at on the way to Aurora 8 de Octubre (named that being of a massacre on that day). The restaurant had a monkey tied up and many members of the delegation were standing near it without a problem. I joined the group, thinking nothing of it… and suddenly the monkey was climbing up my back, trying to bite me… I was a bit scared and did not want to move in case moving would make it bite hard enough to break my skin. Then it tried to bite my head while it grabbed two fists full of my hair. Eric was able to pull it off me, only to have the monkey grab his shirt and start for his head as well… I was fine or was Eric; the monkey did not break through my skin with its teeth. Other than an elevated heart beat, messed up hair and a new respect for the strength of a monkey’s hands, I was fine. We even had a doctor in the delegation who made sure that I was indeed okay.

Tomorrow, I will write about the bombs that went off every morning to wake us up and during worship as well (do not worry, they are good bombas!)