On any given day here there is more to tell than I can communicate in a blog post. A hundred scents tell about the clean rain, the food scraps we save for the pigs, the burning matches from searing bracelets, and the fresh white paint on the doors of the new nursing clinic.
The noise of vehicles honking outside our window, kids yelling and running around, and quick Spanish flowing off tongues all around me bombards my ears.
The language barrier can be a bit intimidating at times. I am learning and I feel like Spanish is an easier language to learn than many others, but it's still a challenge. I faced my anxiety about that barrier head on last Saturday. I needed to find Jami, but had to walk into a crazy room full of women and girls, all speaking Spanish. The results of that endeavor...
These ladies are Erica and Estri. They were part of a women's group from zona 19 in Guatemala City who came to give gifts, cook food for, and pamper the girls of La Promesa (the casa I spend most of my time in). Apparently this treatment included anyone serving in the casa, so they lavished us with love. Working to bridge the language barrier (kindly working with out broken Spanish), they asked if I wanted my toes painted then proceeded to give me an entire pedicure. They didn't rush any step...treating me as family or a friend, instead of someone they just met. I was very moved by their care and hospitality.
We also watched the older boys and a couple of the adults from CB (Casa Bernabe) play on a soccer team at a field a few minutes down the road.
Obviously, futbol is a huge part of the culture here. Not only did we watch the casa team play,
and go to Pollo Campero (the Guatemalan equivalent of KFC and Pizza Hut in one) to watch the
US v. Mexico game, but we also went to a professional game this Tuesday. The Guatemalan national team had a special kids' day when all the children of Guatemala were invited. The entire orphanage had the opportunity to go if they wanted. A younger Guatemalan team played El Salv
ador and the Guatemalan national team played South Korea. They played or sang "You Raise Me Up" by Josh Groban at least four times, and the South Korean Team (named simply "Alleluia") did choreographed dance moves to the song "God is Big," which we translated into Spanish and sang even after returning to the orphanage. Just picture an entire team of professional soccer players mimicking an elephant while dancing and you can imagine how much we laughed.
This little guy is the soon-to-be adopted son of Edgar, the "head honcho" and a really great guy.
On Sunday, we had church. It was a visit day when many of the children's families come to visit. Most of the kids here aren't technically orphans. They actually have parents who can't or won't care for them. It's difficult to see kids with the families whom they won't get to go home with.
This was also the first day I had the opportunity to spend time with the chicas of Casa la Promesa. We had the opportunity to go to Edgar's house with the girls he used to be a house parent for (he used to live at la Promesa). We watched a movie about...you guessed it...soccer. We drank Guatemalan coffee and played ping pong.
Cultural difference # 17: The kids (at least at Casa Bernabe) love to be tickled. They practically beg for it. So we spent so much time tickling, playing keep away with a balloon, and a modified version of hide and seek. As the tallest person at the casa (and almost anywhere else when it's only me and Guatemalans), I won that game...until the girls got stools to stand on or use to poke the balloon. During hide and seek they had us hiding behind clothes, under beds (where I got stuck), and in showers with puddles of water and dripping shower heads. This time was probably my favorite time in Guatemala so far.
Jami and I both agreed that we feel stuck in limbo between languages. As I try to learn Spanish, I struggle to communicate and remember how to speak. When I switch back to English, I am still in the mode of trying to learn Spanish so my mind and mouth fails me with English as well. I feel as if I can't communicate at all. It's a funny situation to be in.
That's where God often likes us to be...in places that make us uncomfortable and stretch us. He wants us to be where we have to fail and rely on Him, or where we have to confront things in ourselves that keep us from serving Him fully.
