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!!!!