Monterrico

"We gotta get out of here. It´s been too many weeks in the city." We say that occassionally. Living in this city of four million (planned for less than a million) feels a little bit like you´re constantly on the run: racing to get to work, to get into line, to get off the street before dark, to stay safe, to get work done despite myriad infrastructural and organizational roadblocks. Though there are certainly good things about the city, they´re mostly people related - so when you can bring those people along with you (in this case, friends from work Kelly, Kimberly, and Kati), it can be a real relief to get out of the city. I guess this is just big city life, but I don´t remember feeling spiritually exhausted by New York City or Chicago or Denver or KC. Guatemala City is just tough to live in, and we feel the weight after enough time here. So this last weekend we planned/improvised a trip to the beach town of Monterrico. Here´s how it all went down.

There was no first class bus, so we rode the fabled chicken buses all the way there. 3 bucks for a 4 hour ride, but three to a seat plus people standing in the aisles.

We stayed at a place called Eco Beach Place run by a man named Luis and his family. We met his soon to be daughter-in-law, a girl from Virginia who happened to stay here one weekend on break from language school in Antigua and never left. She gets married this coming Saturday. We ate lunch as soon as we got there. (LtoR: Me, Kati, and Kelly).

Then we napped.

Then we went and played on the beach.

Down the beach was the weekly baby turtle race. Contestants buy a baby turtle for 10 Quetzales (about $1.24) and cheer them on as they race from the rope to the line.

It was a beautiful Pacific sunset.

The beach was steep so the undertow was really strong, but I went in up to my waist to play for a little bit after the race.

That night we went dancing at a club down the beach. I guess we don´t have any pictures of that. The next morning, we got up at 5 AM for a tour of the nearby mangrove swamp. I tried to take a picture when we started, and this is what came out.

And then it got lighter.

And lighter.

Etc.

That´s Kim in front.

We took a boat across the river to another town to take a different, quicker way back to Guatemala City. I guess they take cars across too.

That´s a bucket of fish in the foreground. It sat in the sun for a least two hours. I´m pretty sure the lady who brought them intended to sell them. Ugh.

Packed again on the bus back. We made it home on time to see the Superbowl, complete with Spanish commentary.

The Flower Debacle

As some of you may remember, shortly after returning to Guatemala I made a list of ways that I wanted to change the ways I live and think about life here. Point five on that list was all about searching out and creating beauty wherever possible. In the weeks since then, I´ve done a pretty good job of bringing beauty to my bedroom, my desk, and even my car. Yesterday, I accidentally (and in the end, fortunately) stumbled into an opportunity to spread some life and beauty throughout this entire windowless office.

It was 7:55 and we were just a few blocks from work. As we passed a big market on the way, I pulled into a parking spot I´d parked in before to buy some flowers for my desk (having previously bought a vase for $6 at a nearby antique store). The first time I did this there was no problem. Bought the flowers and went. This time, for some reason, a vendor had left a significant amount of flowers (exactly 12 vases-worth) wrapped up and on the ground in that parking spot. Of course, I didn´t see them until I saw them under my back tire. I got out and offered to buy them all - which seemed to confuse the vendor. I think she expected me to argue or something. She kept acting mad until a fellow vendor said "He just wants a price and then he´ll buy them all and go." Oh. So we settled on 140 Quetzales (about $18) and I went on my way.

Not sure what to do with all these flowers, we knew couldn´t leave them in the hot car all day. So carrying the flowers into the office, I impulsively offered a couple bunches to a shop/restaurant named Willy who is just one of the nicest guys I´ve ever been acquainted with. He took them and put them out on his dining tables. Boom. Beauty Bomb number 1. Then coming into the office, I arranged, with our office manager/maid, to get a vase together for every female member of the office (plus me at my desk). Everyone was really excited about their flowers and very thankful. There was even enough leftover to bring back home at the end of the day for my host mom´s birthday. How ironic that I was going to buy flowers and ended up running over them. What was at first frustrating turned out to be quite a blessing for the whole office (and Willy, and my host mom).

The whole cache. Proof that I made good on the beauty goal at the office, complete with pictures of friends, a Kansas calendar, a Rilke poem, a few photos of St. Louis sent from an old friend, a paper crane sent from Spain, a drawing of some old guy carrying wood up to a cabin, and of course, the flowers.

Bea.

Delmi.

Miriam.

Lately

A lot has happened over the last two weeks. One of our lawyers left the mission for a job closer to home, Kimberly and Kelly (new interns) have come to start their year of service, and Alex finished up his service and headed back home to Chicago. Here´s some pictures, many of which are courtesy of Kim.
We went to the beach for the day two weeks ago for Kim´s first full day in the country.

This is Alex. He just finished a year of service here as a Church Relations intern. He showed me the ropes and became a dear friend. We spent the last week hanging out as much as possible. Following our day at the beach, we went to this fondue place to kick the last week off.

Cheesy deliciousness.

Alex was really sad about leaving. I tried to console him... ...everything got better when dessert came. I really enjoyed the chocolate-covered marshmallow. We had wine flights at a little shopping center named Fontabella. It feels like a tiny, tiny version of the plaza in KC. That´s Kim on the left.

Then we went to dinner at a bookstore/cafe called Sophos. They have the best salad in the world. It´s called the Paraíso. On Saturday we had a Día de Gozo, which means "Day of Joy." It mostly means we bring all the clients and their families to a church or children´s home or somewhere and play with them all day. At this particular Día de Gozo we had a clown (payaso), which was both creepy and great. He did a great job. All my other pictures are of our totally adorable clients, which you´ll just have to see when I come home.

We went dancing for Alex´s last night at a dancehall reggae club. We were busting earth-shattering moves.

My first Sunday morning at Union Church I was invited out to lunch with an older group of folks, and I kept coming. At first it was a more mixed group, but now it´s usually just three women over 50 and me. Totally strange, unexpected, and hilarious. Also a good time. It´s usually just a quick lunch after church, but yesterday we went to Julianna´s apartment in Zone 14 for cake. This is her view. I live somewhere down there in the valley. Yesterday I ran for 80 minutes to the top of that half-hidden mountain on the left and came back down to Boca on time for dinner. It was awesome. Now we´re back to the daily grind. This is what traffic looks like in the morning. It moves about as fast as this picture.

And this is where we park. It´s a tight squeeze every day.

Western Highlands

So last Friday I went with a paralegal (Beatriz) and a social worker (Delmi) from our staff to Quetzaltenango, otherwise known as Xela, to meet with a client at the children´s home where she is staying. Xela is a small-feeling (though it´s the second-largest city in the country) city 3.5 hours westward into the mountains, with a lot more Mayan presence than the capital. We worked for most of the day, and had to spend the night because we worked so late. We went out with Beatriz´s friends to a classy french restaurant where gypsy jazz/cuban jazz group (they were great!) played the night away. It was a really good time. The next morning, I caught a chicken bus to the mountain town of Almolonga twenty minutes away for one of the biggest fruit and vegetable markets in Latin America. I was soaking wet with culture. Here are the pictures.

Shenni, me, Beatriz, Lilian, Delmi

The central park in Xela.

Get your fungicide right here in the corner store.

I sort of wanna live here.

Farms amongst houses amongst businesses amongst schools and churches. Sometimes not planning leads to great planning?

Taking a break.

The market.

The bulk room.

Cauliflower.

It was all Mayan, all the time in Almolonga.

The Almolonga church.

Gente apretada.

Here´s a video of the market. Take note of leaf-on-the-head lady towards the end.

Returning Home Pt. 2

So I went home (last post) and got reinspired and reenergized for my life and work here in Guatemala. I mean, I was really, deeply encouraged. As clear as I made it that I was struggling, I want to make it equally clear that I´m in a much better place now. Certainly I will still struggle and feel lonely and even listless sometimes, but I´ve returned with all kinds of new ideas and energy and hope. In that hope, I made a game plan with some close friends for how I could capitalize on the differences of life here and not only survive, but thrive - if not in all ways, at least in some ways. So whether its more for me or for the interest of whoever reads this thing, I´ll now attempt to enumerate those ideas. Maybe you can check on how I´m doing with this stuff in a couple weeks.

* In order to feel a greater sense of purpose at work, I need to create a more important role for myself by kicking serious butt. This will be first characterized by avoiding non-work related distractions (the blog mostly exempt, however, because some of the folks paying for me to be here and/or praying for me read this thing and they have a right to know what´s going on). I will take on every task as if the entire mission of justice in Latin America rests on my shoulders at that moment. So when my team starts noticing that I´m finishing stuff really fast and really well, they´ll come to rely on me more. And that´s sort of the whole idea.


* I will appreciate what social blessings I already have here. Goodhearted coworkers. A few, close friends that care about me a lot. A darling host family. It was wrong to ever take them for granted.


* Even while getting used to the idea that I will not have 20 close friends here by the time I leave, I will seek out community wherever I can get it in hopes of having 2(ish) more close friends. I will accept almost any invitation, and go out of my way and be very bold about initiating new friendships and social opportunities.


* I will be way more consistent about exercise: pushups and pullups and situps when I wake up and before bed, waking up earlier to go on morning runs at least three times a week, joining the yoga studio and attending at least 8 times a month, checking on the once-closed and maybe open-again-by-now climbing gyms.


* I will be serious about getting enough sleep and establishing a routine that I can stick to in order to make that possible.


* I will go out of my way to create beauty whereever I can: at my desk, in my bedroom, in my bathroom, in my car. I brought some pictures of friends and favorite places, as well as a scenic Kansas wall calendar for this purpose. I´ll be on the hunt for more beautiful things to put up. (This has made an already appreciable difference. Now, when I sit at my desk in our windowless office, all my friends smile at me from the wall as if to say "Go get em´tiger.")


* I´ll be active in creating beauty. I´ll be disciplined about writing and recording music. I´ll try writing more poetry. I´ll even try drawing or painting or something visual.


* I´ll be disciplined about getting better at guitar - my new flatpicking instructional DVDs will help with this.


* I´ll not believe that indulging in material things will make me happier - but I will enjoy a movie, a weekend trip, or a meal out whenever it is appropriate.


* I´ll keep in touch better, calling at least one person every day if possible, and keeping up with emails, blogging, and maybe even snail mail. (If you want to kick off an exchange of the latter, my address is: David Burchfield/Misión Internacional de Justicia/13 Calle 2-73, Zona 1/Guatemala/GUATEMALA; If you really want to talk to me on your own initiation, you can also call my Guatemalan cell phone via Skype or Google or whatever: (502)4912-6121).


* I will do my darndest to reserve some time for just me and the Divine in the morning and at night - in meditation, scripture and other literature, intercessory prayer, journaling, dancing alone, whatever. I may begin fixed-hour prayer.



* I will read voraciously, to improve my knowledge of the world and God and people and agriculture and justice and the human story in general. Fortunately I feel the slightest, completely appropriate, bit of pressure here because of the 10 or 15 books that have been given or lent to me for this time. (I´ve finished "No Impact Man" and knocked out a good portion of "Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes" in the last 4 days. A good start.)


* Perhaps most importantly, I will seek the courage to change the things I can, accept the things I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.


There´s my game plan. Check up on me in a little while, okay?

Returning Home Pt. 1

It is my second day of work in 2010, and my third day back in Guatemala. I went home for 17 days that were richer than I could ever hope to describe. Almost every moment of every single day I was with people, knowing that I´d have plenty of time to be alone when I got back here. I even spent some nights with people, slumber partying a few times. The coldest, snowiest Kansas City Christmas of my entire lifetime was in many ways also the warmest.

I´ve been struggling down here, and that´s not such a big secret for many of you. I, a pretty extreme extrovert, have been limited to a much, much smaller (though very good) group of people to interact with here, let alone interact with in my first and most comfortable language. I feel uncharacteristically quiet, withdrawn, and pensive here. Maybe those are good things in some ways, but they've also been incredibly difficult to adjust to. There is also, of course the cultural adjustment and new work environment, not to mention the end of a very important relationship. So I´ve been grieving that, and struggling with all this newness and differentness and I felt like I was going crazy with doubt and a loss of connection to the reasons that I came here in the first place - and then I went home.

I think words like Hallelujah were made for occasions like this. We know what it means, but it still seems to grab the edge of that ineffable elation we feel when we feel loved, or inspired, or purposeful, or all of the above together. I dove right in with friends and family, laughing and celebrating the goodness of Christmas and America and Kansas City and Togetherness. I moved forward through some of that grief and pain and confusion and cried a little in the presence of people who care quite about me and could actually hug me at the end of our time together, rather than just say goodbye and hang up the phone. I was so blessed to be loved, and so blessed to have the chance again to love my people in person - with affectionate touch, or gifts, or even just eye contact.

I was healed in some really significant ways by community, and reflected on the magic of Christmas. In the middle of this messy world, and my messy life, God incarnate came to Earth to give us direct and complete communion with him - which we often find through each other. We are the Body. Get it? I felt like I really did (and do) get it.

Heading home

That´s right. I´ll be home for just a bit, arriving tomorrow around noon and leaving around 4 on January 3rd. I can´t wait to be there and spend time with my friends and family, more than anything, really. But just for fun, here´s a list of some other things I´m looking forward to:

1. Oklahoma Joe´s
2. A friend´s wedding
3. Jacob´s Well (which, for all that it means to me, could be a list all its own, including the following 2 items)
4. Lunch Bunch
5. Sunday Night Jam
6. POC
7. Cigars with the boys
8. A moment´s quiet, without the honking of buses and their accompany fumes, the barking of dogs, cockadoodledoodling of roosters, screams of children, blaring reggaton, or the tv. just peace and quiet, particularly in the following two situations:
9. A walk all by myself on my favorite trail at Shawnee Mission Park
10. A trail run at Swope with an old friend
11. Some possible late night escapades with the good ol´ bike gang
12. The Hot Club of Cowtown Dec. 30th at Knuckleheads
13. Christmas (duh)
14. Real beer
15. Real cheese
16. Plaza lights
17. Lavender Lace Tea
18. Broomball (let´s make it happen people)
19. You Say Tomato
20. McCoy´s
21. Being cold

And on and on. In the interest of tying up my last loose ends, I´m gonna leave this at 21 and finish up before I head out! If you have anything to add to the list, put it down der in the comments section. Love you guys!