Remember when (I feel OLD starting a post with those words...) halloween was about stretching creative muscles, finding a unique costume, and having fun. Specifically, I think of the year I went as a bubble bath. Yes, I found a cute ducky shirt, a shower cap, cut out the bottom of a laundry basket, filled it with balloons, and went as a bubble bath. Creative and fun.

Today I got a first hand look at halloween minus a dress code. This year's theme: slutty _____. You name it and I saw the slutty version of it. It was so sad because it reflects the girls' images of themselves. If, at first opportunity, the girls lose as many clothes as possible and come to school looking like a whore, that says a lot about how much they value their bodies. Heartbreaking, and teachers can't stop it.

Overall, I am adjusting to life in CPS. I'm learning how to pace my lessons, what to emphasize, and that there are situations out of my control. I can only do so much without students putting forth effort. Every day I am seeing the reasons why God has me in this placement: the one Christian in my fifth period class who is asking me about Trinity; the two boys in my sixth period class who are failing miserably but for some reason are doing work pretty well for me; the opportunities to witness through what I am NOT saying in the teachers' lounge.

We all have opportunities--small and large--in our daily lives to live for Christ. The question is, how are we using the opportunities?

From GUATE to GANGS

As a person who usually does extremely well with transitiong, the past two weeks have been hard. Really hard. I had about two days between returning from Guatemala and starting my new student teaching placement at Kelly High School--the largest and most overcrowded Chicago Public School. Picture this: 3600 students with capacity for about 2600; 40 students/class with adds about every week. Not the most beneficial learning environment.

Beyond the size of the school, the culture of it was a bit of a shock as well. To sum it up, the majority of the students just don't care. Attendance is spotty and investment in learning is fairly non existant (with the exception of my one honors class). Nearly 50% of my academic students (aka not honors) are failing because they just don't come to class or do work. The apathy stems from many sources: a lot of kids have no desire or ambition for college, so why does high school matter? some work nearly 40 hours to support their immigrant families; some kids are so deeply imbedded in gang life that school takes a far second to survival.

I was giving a kid a hard time about not using class time for homework. Another kid said, "but Miss Witte, it's better for me to have homework. It will keep me off the streets." Wow. That should not be the life of a 15 year-old. And, this comes after a Tuesday gang fight in the halls and a Wednesday retaliation fight. My response: "I can load the homework on if it will keep you off the streets; let me know what you need!" It turns out that his original work was a little sketchy so he still had some work...but that is his daily reality: find an excuse to stay off the streets.

It's overwhelmingly hard to teach in that environment, but I do know that the need is SO GREAT. It's hard to keep giving when there is no response though. We had a reading at church on Sunday that really gave me a gut/perspective check. One part of it said:

Because confusion can reign inside us, despite our faith; because anger, tension, bitterness and envy distort our vision; because our minds sometimes worry small things out of all proportion; because we do not always get it right, we want to believe:
Goodness is stronger than evil
Love is stronger than hate
Light is stronger than darkness
Truth is stronger than lies.

No matter how hard it is to go into this school every day, I have to believe that the goodness, grace, and truth of Jesus Christ in me will make a difference--even if only in the life of one or two students.

Odds and Ends

Well, I am back in the US and am thinking and reflecting on Guatemala constantly. I deeply miss the people there, the community, and all the relationships that are still in such a formation process. (BUT I have thoroughly enjoyed my time catching up with people here too).

I thought I would post a few more pictures and stories--as my entries do not even begin to touch on the magnitude of my experience, and I kind of slacked off in the last week.

First, this is a picture of me with the best kind of man possible... :) No, but, this gives an idea of indigenous Mayan dress. Each region of Guate has a slight variation on the typical dress. It's a part of their culture now, but was originally imposed on the people by Spanish settlers as a way of distinguishing between low class mayans who had guidelines on where they could go and when, and the Spanish.



Saying good-bye was hard (and most of my pictures are still on my camera). But, this was the farewell from the bball team. The best farewell gift was that we won our Copa (conference, essentially) by beating a team we had lost to by 40 two weeks before. The girls made a "defense" cake because I led them in numerous shuffling drills, etc. and gave me some awesome team pictures--and a toenail (another story, another time...it's gross though).




Antigua: The last "big" trip I made was to Antigua. Antigua used to be the capital of Guate, but it was destroyed by natural disaster numerous times; therefore, they moved the capital to Guatemala city. Antigua remains in the old colonial style, so there are regulations on what colors and style any new buildings can be in. It's a beautiful city full of amazing architecture and history. One interesting thing I heard about was how Guate celebrates 'Dia de la muertes" (day of the dead). While we were wandering Antigua we saw lots of skeletons and death masks and statues of Satan. It was a little spiritually oppressive--but their tradition is to where these masks and sweep all the trash out in the streets, light it on fire, etc. It's the ritual that "cleanses sin" before semana santa, or holy week, aka Easter. The reason it felt spiritually oppressive is because a lot of the people who practice this do it for ritual sake and don't believe or mean it--the spiritual warfare involved without people realizing it is very frightening to me.



To continue that story...the Catholic churches in Guate are extremely beautiful and have a rich history...but they are not like Catholic churches in the states. In order to entice the Mayans, the Spanish intermingled pagan Mayan religions with Catholocism...as a result, there is no pure Catholic church. If you look at this picture, you see the pagan moon on the bottom and stars on the top...surrounding Mary. While the Catholics saw Mary, the Mayans saw their gods. The mixing of faiths created a huge tendency toward idolatry over iconography. Again, a little overwhelming to be in those churches and realize that most of the people are not believing in Christ, just through a different means...they're actually lost.






And last but not least, a look at a pretty typical meal: rice, guacamole, and kebobs with chicken and tropical fruit--the meal that I will make the lucky winner to be named after I count up all the posts!!!!