PICTURES!

Me and my friend Rebecca, who was also sick with me and unable to go to Honduras right away. We were also roommates for a week, based on random room assignments! I really like her though, and she reminds me a lot of my Becca back home.

Oh, ya know.. just tropical paradise in Roatan!

Here´s me, on the beach in Utila during free travel, nice and tan.

Amy and I before girls´night out during free travel.

Amy and I on the white sandy beach in Roatan.

Part of the mosaic of gems, glass and marbles at a bar called Treetanic in Utila. It took 30 years to build and was built among trees with lots of different levels and seating areas as well as many mosaics.

Our free travel group, from the back Giles, Aaron and Andrew, Amy and I.

Another shot of the mosaics at Treetanic. Can you find me?

Shout out to KT Rod!!!

Thumb down for my crappy cot in our crappy hotel in Honduras that collapsed twice when I tried to sit on it. I ended up sharing a bed with Amy.

Our crazy leader Jim, who has the funniest laugh, and makes sweet faces for the camera.

Cecibel, my Spanish conversation partner at EMU last year who lives in Nicaragua and I got to meet up with her again, and visit her home and church!

Sometimes I just don´t like looking at the camera when I´m on boat rides.

Dancing during a concert after the Witness for Peace delegation, the two WfP leaders are behind me.

Everyone had to break it down in the middle during one song. Lots were awkward Mennonite dancers, but lucky me, I had skills from dancin with my baby sister!

¨Don´t pee (here) like a dog and destroy our culture. Or didn´t you go to school?¨

Pretty sweet sign at a gas station on the property border of a house right by it.

Where has time gone?

Well, I haven´t been a diligent blogger for the past month, and it´s not that I haven´t had opportunities... it just hasn´t been a priority. So I apologize for all you faithful checkers. A lot has happened to so this will be a brief recap.

Last time I wrote we had 27 days left.. and now it´s less than 7! That´s crazy. These last few weeks have been hard because the end is so near, and even more so this week. It almost feels surreal.. like I can´t believe I´ll be home by this time next week. I am looking forward to a lot of things about being home, but I know it will be hard too. There´s a lot of questions and experiences I have from this semester that I will need to start or continue processing once I get back. And I´m anticipating some re-entry culture shock. I have been trying really hard to make the most of my last days here so that I do not regret anything or wish the time away.. but I am ready to be with my family and friends again.

So after free travel and spring break in Honduras we all met up in Managua, the capitol of Nicaragua. And let´s just say our 12 days there were HOT, and I mean HOOOOTTTT. One day it was 98 degrees.. and I´m sure the others were close to that. You couldn´t even stand up or sit down without sweating, pretty nasty. Managua is where Jim and Ann spent many years doing mission work with MCC so they were familiar with the area and had friends there. Our time spent there was getting to know the city, working on our independent projects, and touring churches and other places of interest. For 4 of those days we did a delegation with Witness for Peace where we learned more about CAFTA and labor laws and free trade. We also spent a night in the countryside with a host family again, but it was like living in luxury compared to Semesche, and I didn´t get sick! Nicaragua was fun but most of what I remember is the heat..

From Nicaragua we took a 12 hr bus ride starting at 3:30 am to San Salvador, capitol of El Salvador. We spent two days there and basically just toured an organic farm out in the countryside. We were also able to meet up with two EMU students, one of whom I went to high school with and is a good friend, who are biking from EMU to Paraguay. They left a few days before we did back in January and were able to change their schedule a little to meet up with us. It was really fun to spend some time with them and I think they appreciated being with people they knew. It was weird to think that we only had about 10 days left but they weren´t quite halfway done with their trip! I couldn´t be away from Momma that long!

We had one day back at CASAS in the city before leaving to come to Antigua, Guatemala for Holy Week. That day at CASAS was spent unpacking and repacking. Honestly, I´m not sure how I´m going to get everything home.. I think I will need to buy another bag to check.. yikes! We´ll figure something out though.

Antigua holds one of the biggest Easter celebrations on the Western Hemisphere, or so I am told. It has been quite a different Easter experience than all the ones I have had before in the states. We are staying in a very nice Luthern Center on the outside of town. The town is very old and has many ancient buildings that are cool, very brightly colored buildings and cathedrals, and cobblestone streets. It has a quaint feel to it. We arrived here Thursday and had the afternoon and evening to get settled in and relax. Good Friday started at 3am for us. We woke up and went out into the streets, to the main Cathedral to watch the first procession start. This involves Roman soldiers riding around in their garb and on horses anouncing the death sentence of Christ (at 2am) and then about 80 men start carrying this huge float type thing of Jesus carrying the cross. The men switch out with others about every block, because the thing is massive and very heavy. Their faces show the burden they are bearing, kind of like the cross Christ had to bear. This float is carried around throughout the entire day, up and down the streets. And following Christ is the float of Mary, carried by about 50 women.

After we watched the beginning of the processional we came back and slept for a few hours, only to get up and be out again by 8:30 watching more processionals and events. There are things called alfombras that cover the streets. They are carpet like things made out of colored sawdust shavings (kind of like sand art) and also out of pine needles and flowers and sometimes fruit. They are very detailed and intricate and beautiful. People spend hours using stencils or doing them free hand creating these carpets for the processional to walk across. It´s kind of sad that within minutes of the float going by the alfombras are nothing more than a pile of flowers or sawdust, and right after the processional comes the dump truck and men with shovels to get rid of it. It seems like a waste.. but it is their offering to God and they are quite beautiful.

In some ways the Semana Santa (Holy Week) rituals and activities here seem kind of superficial to me. I think part of that might be because of how much of a tourist attraction it has become. There were thousands of people walking around the square yesterday, from near and far, not being somber at all, taking tons of pictures, etc. And there are almost as many vendors as there are tourists. Immediately after the processionals go through, follows a processionals of people selling toys, ice cream, cotton candy, trinkets, etc. It doesn´t feel very reverent.. and yet I know for some people it is very reverent and important. It´s just very different from what I am used to. Another thing I´ve noticed is that Good Friday is the main event. They focus a lot on the suffering and pain of Christ here. Lots of people have already left town now that Friday is over. And apparently Easter Sunday is not much of a big deal here. Whereas back home, Easter Sunday is the main event, focusing more on the resurrection of Christ than the death. I guess our Easter has become quite commercialized too, with our painting of easter eggs, buying marshmellow peeps (speaking of which, Mom, can you bring me some of those to the airport? Thanks..), and chocolate easter bunnies.. I guess I just miss being at Sam Lewis for the Easter Sunrise Service and then eating breakfast together at Stony Brook Mennonite Church and seeing everyone in their Easter dresses. But it´s good for me to experience a different Easter.. and I am thankful for this time.

Following all the processionals and hoopla last night, our group had our own Good Friday service. This was a very meaningful time. We shared in footwashing and communion and lots of singing. It made me feel more and home and I appreciated sharing this with my cross cultural family. God was definitely present among us and you could tell that a lot of barriers that were built up over the semester were broken down. It was very moving and lasted for about 2 hrs.

Today we had free and most of the group went hiking Pacaya (which I´ve been there, seen that). I managed to get some homework done which I had been putting aside.. and I also met up with my boss´son here in Antigua. I am working for Schintz Photography, a mom and pop photography business in York, PA this summer. When I was hired before I left on this trip, over the phone, with no resume or references and never having met them, the wife told me that her son was living and working in Antigua and that I should look him up while I was here. His name is James but everyone calls him Jimmy, she told me. Well, I felt kind of awkward calling him this morning and telling him I was Lindsey from York, PA, and going to work for his parents this summer, did he want to get coffee? So needless to say, I called him James and not Jimmy or Jimbo (which his girlfriend later referred to him as).

We met at the fountain in the central park (I kind of felt like I was in a movie) and he had been sitting about two benches away from me the whole 10 minutes I waited there. Finally he called, saw me pick up my phone, and realized it was me. We went to a nice cafe on a roof looking out over the town. It was nice to have his girlfriend Lou (a Guatemalan who speaks perfect English) along so that the conversations kept moving and weren´t awkward. It was good to meet him and make that connection.

Anyways, there´s a super brief over view of the last few weeks. I will definitely have lots more stories and pictures to accompany that time when I get home. Speaking of which, since I am coming home so soon this is probably the last post. We have a few more days here in Antigua, with lots of free time which is a nice way to end the semester. Tuesday evening we leave for the BEACH one last time and I will wear sunscreen this time. We´re at the beach until Thursday morning and then travel back to Guatemala City to have a goodbye meal with our host families all together, finish packing, and then we leave by noon on Friday! I´m sure it will go fast. We get into Dulles airport by 10:50pm on Friday, the 17th.. if all goes well.

It´s been a good journey. Sometimes it felt like forever, sometimes it flew by, sometimes were challenging and sometimes were very relaxing.. but it´s all been part of the learning and growing process and it has been good. I´m looking forward to driving again, Isaac´s, Rita´s, my own bed, family and friends, having the option of wearing more than just 6 different shirts, and catching up on The Office. Hope you are all enjoying your family and friends during this Easter weekend, celebrating the sacrifice Christ made for all of us.
Blessings to all of you and SEE YOU SOON!
Lindsey

Back to reality after a week of tropical paradise!

Well, I am forcing myself to update this for my last 25 minutes in this internet cafe because I haven´t for a while and I keep getting distracted by other emails and facebook! Since my last update I was able to recover from my sickness and gain some of my strength back, and some of my weight.. those of us who stayed back, me, another student, our leader and her daughter, then met up with the rest of the group after two days of traveling.

We all headed to the tropical island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras for 5 days for our spring break. It was long awaited and much needed. Our little island cabins were right on the beach, looking over clear water of different shades of blue and white sand! It was gorgeous and so were the sunsets. I did some snorkeling for the first time ever in the coral reefs there and saw some amazing fish with unique shapes and brilliant colors. It was neat to discover another part of God´s wonderful and mysterious creation, although sometimes it was kinda scary because you never knew if there was a baracuda or small shark lurking up behind you! HA!

After that time was up the entire group split up into smaller groups of 3-5 people for a week of free travel. We are allowed to go basically whereever we want in Central America for this week as long as our budget of $50 US dollars a day allows for it. The point is to travel around on our own and learn how to cross borders and find buses and hotels etc while also exploring the countries we visit and learning more about their history and culture.

My group of 4 others (we have 3 of the 4 males in our group.. added security and protection) headed to a neighboring island, Utila, for the first 3 days. It was nice to make a smoother transition and not have to deal with any border crossings or taxis or anything right away. The morning we caught a ferry to that island from the mainland I was kind of hungry because we hadn´t really gotten breakfast. I said to one of my group members that I was craving a cinnamon roll. After a few minutes I started to think that I smelled one. I turned around and much to my surprise the Israeli young woman behind me was eating a cinnamon roll! I was shocked. I asked her where she got it and she said in the cafe in the building across the street. So naturally I ran over there and bought myself a cinnamon roll for less than a dollar.. it was so worth it. God really does answer prayers.

The pace of life on the island was very CHILL.. no agendas, nowhere to go, nothin to do but chill. There were lots of other tourists and Australians with sweet accents who are there for a few weeks or months to learn how to scuba dive. One day we rented bicycles and toured around most of the island.. that was a new experience for certain muscles I hadn't used in a while. Let´s suffice it to say it´s still a little tender when I sit down on hard chairs. : ) Living on this $50 budget has been a fun thing, because it forces us to watch our money and it´s fun to try and save so we can walk away with some extra cash! Yesterday we bought pancake mix and made our own breakfast for $1.50 each and then also bought mac and cheese and baked beans and fruit for lunch and all ate for about $2.50 per person! It was a day of great savings!

This morning we got up at 5:00 and boarded the ferry back to the mainland by 6. We are staying in the city of La Ceiba, Honduras for today, catching up on some homework and possibly exploring a nearby waterfall this afternoon. I think w´re splurging on some pizza hut for lunch too! Yum. Then tomorrow we travel by bus (I´m not sure how early, possibly at 3 am!) to the capital of Tegucigalpa where we will stay for two days. We are hoping to get to a soccer game tomorrow which is why the bus ride might have to be really early. We´ll visit a national park there and some historic sites and then continue our travel by bus to Nicaragua´s capital of Managua in two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) which is when we need to meet up with the rest of the group.

I was a little anxious about traveling on our own without leaders for this week but I have felt fairly safe and confident so far. I trust the guys in our group to protect us and figure out a lot of the details.. Hopefully all of the other group members are safe and will arrive on time and in one piece to Nicaragua on Wednesday. The only time I felt threatened so far was when I almost ran into a huge spider web containing the biggest spider that maybe I've seen in my whole life. It was a close one!

Well, my time is almost up.. this is the cheapest internet cafe I have found yet so I was very productive on it today! Again, I appreciate all your thoughts and prayers. We only have about 27 days left.. not that I´m counting or anxious to get home or anything.. haha. I can´t upload pictures right now of my tropical paradise vacations but just know that it was beautiful and you would probably be jealous! Hope all is well whereever you are this fine day.

Until next time,
Linds

Surprise! Some pictures!

So being sick has its advantages sometimes.. I was able to get some pictures uploaded since the doctor didn´t want me traveling with the group to Honduras today.. Here´s a few from our weekend trip and then our service week in the mountains. Enjoy!

Keepin it real during our Clausura - or final presentation - for our Spanish class.

We thought it´d be cute to take a friend picture under the sign : )

Dad, doesn´t it look like they had a mold of this and then just poured foam in? I thought so..

We didn´t seat on the monuments..

Here´s me, standing in front of a really huge ancient Mayan temple in Tikal.

And here´s me, squishing a really small ancient Mayan temple in Tikal.

My friend and I, we´re silly. (And we miss KT Rod)

Look at the pretty sunset from our hotel in Flores!

My host brothers during our Community Learning week in Alta Vera Paz - from front to back: Roberto (3yrs), Pedro (9yrs), and Oscar (5 yrs).

A view of the valley of Semesche (town in Alta Vera Paz where we served for a week).

Lisa! Here´s the steps your cross cultural helped build 3 years ago in front of the Mennonite church in Semesche.

If you look to the right of the big mountain on the left, you can see the Mennonite church way in the distance. This particular day we hiked from beyond that church back there, to where I am standing, to fill bags with dirt for planting trees. Everything is hills and mountains, at high altitudes, so the hiking is not easy!

Here´s a view of my host house from the road. It´s pretty hard to see but it´s towards the upper left corner. The fields and pond belong to my host family I believe. The two really tiny buildings in front of the house are the outhouses..

Here´s the bedroom room.. the family put up a curtain for us to sleep behind (and change behind). We sat all our bags on that table in the middle. There´s corn hanging from the rafters and then also an upper level over half the house where they store all their other corn. The floors were dirt and you can see from the walls it´s just wooden boards with lots of cracks for the cold to get in.

This is the kitchen and dining room and parent´s bedroom. We all sat around that fire in the mornings and evenings to warm up and to watch the women make tortillas (and we helped too).

A cute picture of my host brother Roberto... always had a runny nose :

I let the bed bugs bite... oops!

Well, in my last post I asked for prayers that there wouldn´t be foreign critters because I didn´t think I could survive that.. and surprisingly, the critters were not a problem (except the bed bug bites that I have all over my legs). However, if you combine everything else.. the food, the altitude, the strenuous physical activity, the cold, the wet... unfortunately I wasn´t able to survive all of that. I am back at CASAS for our day of ´recouping´ and I am not in very good condition. I contracted a cold on Wednesday during the week and it only got worse from there. I don´t think I´ve ever felt this sick or weak in my entire life.

Let´s start where I left off last time.. our group left for the weekend to go to Flores/Tikal to see the Mayan ruins and relax for 2 days. The ruins were incredible. It´s amazing all that you can learn about a civilization based on structures that are still standing from their time. I wonder what will be around years from now when we´re all long gone? Hmm.. The hotel and the two buffet meals we had there were wonderful. Our hotel was also on a lake front so we got to go swimming and enjoy a really pretty sunset. It was almost torture having such a luxurious weekend before a tough week, but it was needed.

So Monday the majority of our group headed out to the town of Semesche in Alta Verapaz for our community learning week. It was a rainy and cold day, so our spirits weren´t very high to begin with. We were loaded into the back of a cattle truck with all our stuff and set out on an hour ride through the streets of Coban and up into the mountains where the roads are hardly roads (Dad, remember the infamous station wagon story on that ATV trail? This is the kind of terrain I´m talkin about). We were given our cortes (traditional skirts which are basically 8 yrds of fabric strung on a rope) and then introduced to our host families. I was happy to be put with 3 other girls but unfortunately our house was one of the farthest away and hardest to get to! We hiked there in our rubber boots (the missionary couple helping us with this project provided boots for all of us which came in handy) and felt like we had stepped into a National Geographic Documentary. The area was gorgeous. Mountains and hills everywhere with little tiny houses and farms in the most obscure places. The view from our latrine at night was to die for! HA!

Our house was made our of wooden boards so there was no such thing as insulation. There were two rooms, a kitchen and eating room and then the sleeping room. We were given two beds for the four of us which was fine because we kept warmer sleeping two to a bed. The beds are hardly beds, but rather wooden boards that you lay your sleeping bag on. This means sore hip bones if you try to sleep on your side, and not much sleep for the weary.

All the meals were basically the same.. tortillas, beans, sometimes rice, more beans, cabbage, tortillas FILLED with beans, or something called CALDO (which we all hate now) which is spicy broth with cabbage and a chunk of meat. After the first two and a half days the food wasn't really appetizing to me, and I could hardly handle all the spicyness. I missed the bland Mennonite casseroles I am used to. I didn't really eat that much eat time we had a meal, which was not a good start to the decline in my health.

One of the other factors I mentioned was the cold and wet.. Monday was the worst because it rained. After that it cleared up and the days were mostly sunny but the nights were cold. I don't handle the cold well so I think that's what started my stuffy nose and cough. Tuesday night I had a coughing spell from 3-4 am and woke up with a pretty congested head. On top of all that, we were at a very high altitude and that gave me problems with my breathing. We would have to hike every single day, up very steep hillsides and on muddy roads and sometimes I felt like all I was ever doing was walking. It took a toll on my body. I would have to stop to catch my breath pretty often. The boots did come in handy but also had their pitfalls.. mine were too small and so when I wore my warm socks they pinched me and gave me blisters. For this, I spent one afternoon sitting in my house alone while the group hiked to a cave, because I couldn't handle the pain.

Thursday we had to hike 3 and a half hours to another village (which ended up being a pointless trip) and that was not smart for the condition I was in. I spent most of the day Thursday once we got there resting, as well as all day Friday. Then Friday evening the missionary wife finally took me and Amy (who came along to take care of me but also ended up getting sick) back to the closest town to her friend's house. We stayed there Friday night and Saturday night. All day Saturday Amy and I were stuck in bed, sleeping and occasionally muttering things to each other. I was very weak and could hardly sit up to eat. Even when I tried to eat it was an internal struggle because I had no desire to eat and no appetite but I knew that was the only way I would get better. At one point I managed to get some food down and then went to take two sinus pills and couldn't get them down and ended up losing all the food I had just successfully eaten. This was discouraging. If it hadn't been for Amy I think I would have been worse off, because I was very emotionally discouraged and depressed. I don't think I've ever missed or wanted my mom as much as I did when I was in that bed all day Saturday.

Sunday the rest of the group came back and we traveled back here to CASAS. My professor leading the trip who is also a nurse told me I needed to get some more foods in me that had protein and fat in them. She got me half a baked potato and some yogurt. That was the most I had eaten in about 4 days. My body still feels incredibly weak and it's hard to be motivated to do anything. I have very little energy. I am still pretty depressed because I hate being sick and feeling weak. I just wish I felt normal and could be packing and getting everything ready to travel for the next month. I'm not sure how the next few days of travel are going to go for me.. I'm a little worried. I hope that I will be able to get enough rest and enough nutrients in my body so that I can recover. I would covet your prayers for healing of my body and my mind. I am still very discouraged and always feel on the brink of tears. It's hard for me to be weak emotionally.. and physically.. and right now that's basically all I am.. weak. Perhaps this is a really big huge lesson from God that I need to slow down and depend on Him for my strength more than my physical body which can clearly fail. As Psalm 73:26 says, "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." I'm holding tight to that promise.

Now, all that depressing news aside, there were some highlights during the service week. Clearly my current physical and emotional state taint my perception a little.. but I will pretend I am healthy and it is Tuesday of this past week.. The people of Semesche lead a very simple life. This does not mean they are simple people. Their life is slow paced, but they are extremely hard workers. Meals are always shared together, and family is central. Everyone knows their role.. and corn is their most important crop. The men work the fields to get them ready to plant corn, they plant the corn, tend it, harvest it. Then the women husk the corn, shell it, clean it, cook it with limestone, mash it up, and make it into tortillas. And finally, everyone eats the corn. They plant to eat, eat to live, and live to plant their corn.

My host family had 3 sisters and 3 brothers and they were all very beautiful people with warm smiles. Monday when we were hiking down to our house the oldest host brother Pedro - 9 yrs, came back and asked to carry my duffel bag. I told him it was alright cause it was pretty heavy and I didn't think he'd be able to handle it down the steep hill. However, he insisted and so I gave it to him, he put the strap across his forehead, and carried it like that on his back the whole way to the house. I was shocked, how strong he was! Another touching moment was when we were walking to our service assignment the one morning and it was a little muddy out. We had to hike a steep hill every morning to get up to the main road. I was carrying my water bottle and also holding up my corte from dragging in the mud at the same time. My second youngest host brother, Oscar - 5 yrs, offered to take my water bottle, so I gave it to him, and THEN he reached out his hand to hold mine to 'help' me on the slippery parts. It was so precious, and even cuter because he ended up being the one that was slipping in the mud, and I was fine. Also, on our 3 hr group hike, we had helpers from all the different families that carried all our bags and sleeping bags and blankets. It's incredible how much weight these men can carry and make look easy. I was very grateful for their willingness to help in this way. I don't think some of us would have made it if we had had to carry our own things.

Well, this is getting too long. I´m not going to have time to get any pictures up, but you can check www.emu.edu/crosscultural and look at the Latin America 7 album in a few days which will have a lot of my pictures from the week. If you don´t see those, you can see mine when I return in 39 days! Tomorrow morning we leave at 4am to catch a 5am bus to travel to Honduras. We'll be there for 3 days doing some visiting of people our leaders know and then we have our SPRING BREAK, finally, on the caribbean island of Roatan. That will be from Friday the 13th until Wednesday the 18th. A CASAS worker and Lancaster native who also loves fishes in the Susquehanna at Wrightsville told me that Roatan will be good for my health and is almost comparable to the Susquehanna.. and he said that with the utmost respect for the Susquehanna.

Again, keep me in your prayers. I'll try to update this when I have opportunities and let you all know how my health is doing. Since we'll be traveling until April 6th I won't have much opportunity to respond that frequently, but you can keep writing me! I always enjoy hearing about life back home. I hope that all of you are in better health condition than I am, and that you feel blessed in your daily activities and relationships. I really do miss you all, and am looking forward to wrapping up this trip and coming home. Perhaps if I wasn't so sick I wouldn't be so anxious to get home to my momma. Who knows!?

Until later,

Lindsey

Time to leave my host family? Already? Really?

Well, tonight it was time to pack up that huge suitcase again. I could hardly believe it.. feels like I just got here a few days ago. And yet, I also feel like I´ve been here for months and months. Weird. This also means that tomorrow I have to say goodbye to Ixi and Pablo for a while. I will see them the day before we leave to come back home in April, because we´re having a celebration dinner for all the families. But it will still be hard tomorrow since I´m leaving their house and won´t be spending time with them again like I have been. I have really grown to love and appreciate them, more than I thought I would. It´s ok to cry though.. that´s what I´m telling myself.

So yes, our group is leaving tomorrow afternoon at 3pm to travel to Tikal - Mayan ruins and jungle here in Guatemala, also REALLY hot there. We´ll be there for the weekend and then travel onto Cobán, in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala for a week of service. It will be rainy and very cold there. And we will be bathing with a bucket, possibly with warm water, possibly not. Our leader for the service trip, Rob Cahill, MCC, told us that if you tell them you have your period you get warm water because the Mayan have a belief that you shouldn´t mix hot with cold and when you are menstruating your body is hot. Weird, but if I have to pretend I´m ¨hot¨ to get warm bathing water, I´ll do it!

I´m anticipating this week of service to be a stretching and growing experience. I will be living out of my backpack, with only two different t-shirts and no beauty supplies! Also, they speak a language we don´t know.. but apparently it is easier to learn than Spanish, so maybe I´ll come back fluent in 3 languages! From the pictures we´ve seen the area is beautiful and I´ll be able to get lots of good photos. We´ll be walking among cloud forests and mountains. I am excited for a change of scenery and pace. Also, we will be eating some mixture of beans and corn/tortillas at every meal. I can´t say I´m terribly enthused about this, but I will survive. I stuffed some pringles and smarties in my backpack, just in case. : ) Also, us ladies will be wearing (and get to keep) a skirt made out of about 8 yards of fabric. Basically all the fabric is on a string and you just keep pulling it tighter and tighter and bunching it up around you. I think it will be very heavy. Rob told us that if we didn´t feel fat before, we will when wearing this. I´m pretty excited that I will finally look like every typical Mennonite girl doing service in a Latin American country should look like... native skirt down to your feet, sneakers (of course), a tshirt that doens´t really match the skirt, and hair pulled back in a bun. All I´m lacking is a covering!

Anyways, back to the present. We had our final Spanish exams today and I feel pretty good about how I did. I have now completed 6 credit hours of Spanish! Yay! Tomorrow morning we have our ´Clausura´ which is a party basically where every class has to present some humorous skit or song or story about their semester and what they´ve learned so far. I am excited for that.

Tonight 8 of us sang a few songs at Casa Horeb Mennonite Church for the 25th Anniversary celebration of Semilla, the Anabaptist seminary where we have been studying Spanish and spending all our days. It was fun and I got to wear the new dress I bought here! During the middle of the program (which was long, given that it was in Central America) Pablo came in and wanted me to come outside with him to play. I was glad to. Except that it was FREEEEZING outside. So at one point I told him I was cold, and he wanted me to pick him up and hold him so that I stayed warmer. It was cute. He wrapped his legs tight around me and was laying his head on my shoulder. I asked him, ¨Me vas a extrañar?¨ Are you going to miss me? And he said, ¨y tu a mi?¨ Will you miss me? And I said yes and he said yes. Then he just looked at me for a while, puckered up, and kissed me right on the lips! HAHA. It caught me off guard. I think I was probably his first kiss...

Well, it´s 12:19am here, and I had just finished packing and wanted to update this before I went to bed. Unfortunately, 6 hours of sleep will not be sufficient. Perhaps I can sleep on the bus or plane tomorrow on the way to Tikal, though this is doubtful. We´ll return to CASAS for a day March 9th to unpack, wash clothes, take HOT showers, repack and get ready to travel for a MONTH out of the same backpack (uh oh), so on that day I will check my emails and update this again, hopefully with some pictures from my week. I´ll definitely need and appreciate your prayers this coming week as I will definitely be more out of my comfort zone than I have been so far. But I am going to carpe the diem and make the most of this experience! Having a positive attidute is the only way I´m going to survive!!! Please pray I don´t encounter any strange creatures in my bed at night.. I actually don´t know if I could survive that. : )

Hope everyone enjoys their last two days of February. Seriously, where has the time gone? Today was day 50 so we are exactly halfway done with our trip. Looking forward to hearing from some of you!
Hasta luego until later,
Lindsey

Truth is...

Truth is...
...coming into this semester I was expecting a great life changing event that I´d come away from with a new passion or a new confirmation that I should keep studying photography and ESL or that I would learn something completely new about myself. And maybe I will.. but probably not until I´m looking back on it. And that´s ok.
...I have seen a lot of new things that have at least challenged my way of looking at things or how I´ve always believed what I´ve been told in History about the US which really isn´t the WHOLE story.
...I´ve gotten a lot more attached to Ixi and Pablo than I thought I would. I knew the time would fly and I would only be here for a little. And I wasn´t trying to put up a wall of defense or not get close to them.. I just didn´t feel like we´d hit it off at the beginning. But slowly, without even realizing it, I´ve grown to love them and the thought of leaving in one week is CRAZY. I´m glad she works at CASAS so I will still see her every time we come back through there..
...the people I´ve encountered here have opened their homes to me and accepted me and loved me just as I am, without knowing hardly anything about me. And that is powerful.
...We´re only 44 days done out of 100, and it feels like it´s been forever, and I kinda wish I could take a jet plane home for a weekend.
...I knew there was a chance of getting sick off the food but I always assumed it wouldn´t happen to me. Well, I just got pretty sick last night and today, I think food poisoning, and that made me really miss my mom.
...this is probably the hardest cross-cultural academic wise out of all of them at EMU.. and part of that might be our leaders. I used to resent this and complain about all the work, because it is an enormous amount. But now, I feel confident that somehow it will all get done in the end, and even if I am stressed, I will appreciate all I was required to do later on.
...sometimes it feels like we´re getting so many new experiences and so much information that it´s just all bouncing around my head and I don´t know how to process it all. For this reason, I think I will have a lot of processing to do when I get back home.
...I´m looking forward to traveling to the other countries in a week but not to living out of a small duffel bag for a month with limited internet and laundry access. This will be a stretching experience.
...(for the Grosh family) on Valentine´s day I ended up playing air hockey and pool with my host mom´s brother and his girlfriend. The dancing and drinking would have been later in the night, in Antigua, but even they didn´t end up going then. Phew!
...it´s hard being away from my family and friends, but I think it´s been good for me to have been stripped of my physical support system and been forced to rely more on God and the prayers of those back home, rather than their physical presence.
...I´ve still been able to entertain my OCD habits of plucking my eyebrows every 2 days, and counting things. I don´t know what I´d do if I couldn´t.
...I´m excited for what the rest of this trip holds and I thank you all for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. I need em!

Feel free to send emails ANY TIME! I love hearing about things back home.
I hope that everyone is healthy, safe, and happy.
With love,
Lindsey

The lake at Santiago Atitlan, where our group went for a weekend.

Sweet pants Amy and I bought in Santiago Atitlan that are really comfortable. I had my rolled up cause of dusty roads.


Our spanish class singing a spanish love song to Loren and Pat Swartzendruber - the president of EMU who came to visit for a weekend. I was only pretending to play guitar..

Our spanish class won the Valentine´s Day card competition! Our card was pretty simple looking compared to others so we were shocked. We won cause of participation, and use of grammar. The inside was a love poem I wrote. Maybe I´ll put it on here and translate it sometime. Our prize was a box of chocolates... gross!

The ring I bought myself on Valentine´s Day shopping with Amy!

My bedside stand, complete with roses I bought myself for Valentine´s day.

Bec, tonight Pablo came into my room and looked at this picture and started singing, ¨Estas enamorada! Estas enamorada!¨ which means ¨You´re in love, you´re in love.¨ And I said, ¨No, that´s my sister.¨ ¨Porque parece como hombre?¨ (Why does she look like a boy?) I told him it was cause he couldn´t see your hair. I had to laugh a little though. Sorry!

Thanks for the roses Jake! HA, syke nah, bought them for myself. : )

This is my little brother. He´s pretty hard core, and I love it!

Waste of space

Today at the mall I observed something new about Latin American women..
It seems that generally speaking, if there´s extra room in the legs of their pants (if they are baggy at all), it is a waste of space. They like pants that FIT.. really well.
And that is all.

Story time!

GOOD NEWS! I finally found 100 (and 101 too) on a license plate today. This is extremely rare, especially that I find two in one day, because there´s only 3 numbers on each plate.. so I got lucky. I had been looking for days.

Ok, this post is going to be lots of random little stories.. mostly humorous ones.

The other night at a church meeting I was playing with Pablo outside because he was getting antsy and disturbing our mom. We played all kinds of things from Pato, Pato, Ganzo (Duck, Duck Goose), Power Rangers, Pikachu, freeze tag (kinda hard with two people), and Veo, veo (I spy). Earlier that night I kept hearing Ixi say ¨Fijate¨ to Pablo and then he had been saying it to me. So I asked him, ¨Que significa fijate?¨ What does fijate mean? And he responded, ¨Cuando tu mueras y vas al cielo, Dios va a decirte que significa fijate.¨ When you die, and go to heaven, God is going to tell you what fijate means. HAHA! So he wouldn´t tell me. It was a pretty clever response though. He´s always making me laugh. I did later find out that it means pay attention or look here.

When I ask Pablo questions like this, he always says ¨Tu no entiendes nada!¨ You don´t understand anything! and lets out this huge sigh. Oh well.

That same night, while playing pikachu (a chinese action figure), I pretended I didn´t know what pikachu meant. And every time he said the word pikachu I´d say ¨salud¨ bless you. He was getting really annoyed and kept saying ¨NOOO.¨ I thought it was funny though.

Lots of Pablo stories.. the other day we were waiting to leave for school and we were looking out the window at cars and he yelled ¨CUCARACHITA!¨ COCKROACH! and punched me! I looked and saw a VW bug. Apparently they play the punch buggy no punch backs game here too. Cause every time we see one he yells that and punches me.

He´s a very curious boy and every day on the way to school he asks his mom different questions about what stuff means (kinda like me), and one day he asked her what ´person´ meant. It was cute. He was also asking about turn signals and when Ixi explained it to him he said ¨I´ll understand when I´m bigger, right?¨ : )

Sometimes Pablo is correct in saying that I don´t understand anything. The other night I had gone to the University here with my mom´s brother and his girlfriend. They are students there and showed me all around which was a really good experience. I found out it costs them about $12 per year here for school. Did I already say that in another blog entry? I forget. But I was shocked when they said that. And likewise they were just as shocked when I told them what my schooling costs. Anyways, they took me to Burger King afterwards and were asking me random questions. His girlfriend, Ligia, asked me ¨Te gustas pintarse?¨ And I thought she was asking if I liked to paint... since I´m a photographer major and artsy kinda. So I told her ¨No, not really. I´m not that good at it.¨ and she asked, ¨What about anyone in your family? Your mom? Sister?¨ and I said, ¨No, not really. My dad a little. He´s pretty good at it..¨ Well she gave me a strange look and didn´t say anything for a little. Then she explained that she meant ¨maquillarse¨ which is make-up. So apparently here when they say pintarse they mean to paint yourself, and I had just told her that I didn´t like to wear make up but my dad did a little and he was good at it. OOPS! Sorry dad! At least I know now..

Ok, two more stories. Tonight we were about to leave my mom´s parents´house to go to her grandma´s for our weekly tradition. I was putting my purse on my shoulder and the strap was caught on some of my hair. So I went to pull my hair out from under it and felt something strange in my hand. I didn´t look right away so I grabbed it a little tighter to pull whatever it was out of my hair. Well, I have no idea where it came from, but when I looked at my hand I realized I was holding a cockroach. Uhh, yeah. I immediately flinched and dropped it, managing to keep my shock and disgust inaudible. I kicked it to make sure it was real.. it was. BUT, it was dead. Which made me feel a little teensy bit better about the situation. But still.. GROSS! And where did it come from.. ick.

Lastly, while we were at her grandma´s house eating dinner they were talking about new shoes Ixi´s sister had bought today. Ixi asked me a question and I was having trouble understanding what she meant. I knew it had to do with shoes and me.. so I thought she was asking how much they usually cost in the states. I told her it depends but usually around $20. Well, everyone kinda reacted strangely and then she explained that she meant what shoe size do I wear. I had told them I wear size 20.. gotta love those confusing language situations! We got a laugh out of it though.

Well, those are all the stories for now. Oh also, whenever I need some comic relief here or get tired of reading my boring history books, I turn to my buddy Patrick McManus and read about shooting canoes. I´m very thankful I packed that book last minute! Well, it´s 11pm here and I still haven´t started my two page essay on migration that is due tomorrow.. written in spanish. Some things, like the fact that I procrastinate, never change I guess. To all the Groshes - enjoy butchering weekend! I pulled up my butchering project website from last year and showed my mom and her boyfriend all the pictures last night. Can´t say my mom was too enthusiastic about the whole thing.. especially the ones with red blood. But now they know a little bit more about me! I´m sorry I can´t be there. To everyone else - enjoy your Valentine´s day, while you´re NOT butchering.

Love to all,
Linds

Greetings to all my faithful readers,

Today we had a free afternoon and were going to take Loren and Pat Swartzendruber (our college President and his wife, who came to visit for the weekend) to the central market. I was excited and ready to spend some cash! On presents for friends and family, of course. But, there was lots of traffic and by the time we didn´t even get there.. it was basically time to turn around. So 4 of us came back. While we were walking to catch a bus back here to CASAS I saw a woman at the street we were stopped at waving at me. I thought she was telling us we could walk in front of her. Then I realized it was my host mom´s best friend! What are the odds.. in such a big city, of seeing someone I know? It was crazy. She asked where we were going and if we wanted a ride, but she would´ve had to let us off before our stop.. so we just grabbed a bus. But when we grabbed a bus, not long after a couple got on that had been on the same bus going to the central market. Again, what are the odds in such a huge city? It was crazy!


Also, I´m up to 100 on my license plate number game.. which is really inconvenient.. mostly because the license plates here only have 3 numbers and 3 letters.. so from here on out it´s hit or miss. Mostly miss though.

This past weekend our group traveled to Santiago Atitlan and it was kinda like a vacation. We had to listen to some speakers and met with some missionary couples (one that were EMU grads) but mostly we relaxed. Saturday we had free time to shop a little and going swimming in the pool at the beautiful hotel. It was freezing though. However, I did dive in, and stayed in for a while.. you would´ve been proud Bec! Then Sunday after our group worship service we boarded a boat and headed over to Panajachel.. a touristy town for more shopping. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I had spent all my money the day before.. so I didn´t buy anything. But most of it was the same things I´ve been seeing all semester anyway, so no loss. I did manage to make a fool of myself though. I wasn´t watching where I was going and some silly Guatemalan put TWO steps at this one spot instead of one.. and I missed it.. falling forward. Luckily my wrists broke my fall and NOT my camera. I walked away with only a severely bruised and sore knee.. hurts to bend it.. oh well. Oh, and I got burned again. But I´m not complaining.. number 1 because it will turn to tan.. number 2 because I should have known better. 3rd time´s the charm, right?


We started our second semester in Spanish today.. woo hoo! I already have an essay due Friday. All our Spanish classes did short presentations for Loren and Pat in front of the whole group. My class sang a love song in Spanish and gave them flowers. I pretended to play guitar. It was awesome! There´ll be pictures on the EMU website sometime in the next week..


Well, I suppose the Grosh family is getting ready for butchering this coming weekend. I´m sad that I won´t be there. What a fun Valentine´s day activity! I was talking in Spanish class about it. My teacher Albertina wished she could come too.. and eat our meat cause she said it´s probably better than the meat here.. she´s right. She was all into it! I´ll have to show her the website of the photo project I did on it last year!


Spiritually I was challenged this weekend during some quiet time to think about what it means to live a grateful life. Too often I just say quick prayers of thanks each time I feel guilty for taking something for granted. But I don´t wanna keep doing that. Hearing stories and seeing firsthand the poverty and injustices here has really challenged me.. especially in my Western consumeristic tendencies. I feel blessed to have parents who have asked me ´Do you NEED this, or do you just WANT it?´ because that question has stuck with me and I have put things back on the shelves when I haven´t been with them.. It´s also interesting thinking about the fact that I only brought about 8 shirts and 3 pairs of pants with me and I´m surviving with this limited wadrobe. Meanwhile, I have dozens of shirts back home (that Becca is probably wearing all the time..) that I don´t actually need! I guess this is just something I need to keep wrestling with..


Today is the 33rd day here so that means we´re 1/3 done with our entire trip.. crazy! Well, that´s all for now. I probably won´t write again for about a week since our free afternoon was on a Monday this week! Hope you all have a great week and a good Valentine´s Day spent with the ones you love! I´ll be thinking about you all and missing you this weekend.

Con amor (with love),

Lindsey

Here´s me being enthusiastic about my camera and being on a boat in the sun in Santiago Atitlan this past weekend. Jin, don´t make fun of me for scrunching my nose!

Technology! GRR!

I´m experiencing technical difficulties at the internet cafe with uploading images. I have about 15 to put up. I might try my profesor´s computer if I get a chance before the weekend. Our big spanish final for our first 3 credits of spanish is tomorrow. I´m not too nervous but maybe I should be! We´ve been here a month now, but it feels like much longer. It´s crazy that our trip is almost 1/3 done! Amy and I got pedicures today during our free afternoon and it was wonderful!!! I´m starting to feel pretty comfortable here and more like my host house is ´home´ for now. I think it´s gonna be pretty hard saying goodbye to Ishi and Pablo. The other night I taught Ishi and her brother and his girlfriend how to play taboo! It was so fun. We were laughing and having a great time. I think I´ve opened up more around her and her family which feels good. Well, one minute left on here so that´s all for now. Hopefully some pictures SOON!!!
Love,
Lindsey

Finalmente, algunos fotos.

AND FINALLY, SOME PICTURES! The first few are a blast from the not so distant past..

Here´s Dad doing what he does best the day I left for Guatemala..

Jake squeezing me one last time!

Family picture (minus Eric and Lindsay, sorry).

Our Spanish class and 3 others went to the zoo one day.. this picture is for papaw!

Dad, ´Como se llama?´ How´s your llama?

This monkey reminded me of my sister.. HA! Just Kidding.

Here´s a picture for Meme!

This is my Spanish class.. Me, Anna, our teacher Albertina, and Allison. Also some giraffes for mom!

A shot of the hot springs 5 of us girls visited one Saturday while the rest of the group hiked a huge and difficult volcano!

How´s that winter weather? (P.S. I´m getting sun burned in this picture)

Aerial shot of the hot springs from the top of the building you could climb. There were 11 pools of varying heats. Did I also mention we got massages? All for the low, low price of $20.

Here´s my brother, trying to run from the camera. He seemed to think it was a fun game, even though I just wanted one good picture of him!

Now Pablo´s trying to duck out of the way of the camera. He makes me laugh!

And a confused look.. not sure why. But at least he stood still!

The picture Pablo took.. of his power ranger. It´s funny when he sings the theme song in English. He also likes to change into ´turbo´ and then fight me.

Yesterday Amy and I went to get pedicures in our free afternoon. So good!

All smiles after getting pampered!

Hi everyone, LOVE YOU ALL! Also, look how tan I am - you can tell on my wrist where I wear my hair ties while tanning : )

Ok, so now that I finally got those up I wanna write a little bit about a typical day..

I get up around 6:55 and shower and almost always get back to my room from the bathroom at 7:26.. it´s kinda creepy actually. Then I make my bed (which I never do at home), finish getting ready, and go eat breakfast. Most mornings I eat breakfast alone but sometimes the other two are ready when I am. My last box of cereal was OH´s which reminded me of grandma and grandpa and the beach. We usually leave the house around 8:15 and we´ve been driving instead of walking lately cause we have to drop Pablo off at school which is close to my school and Ishi´s work. Everything with Pablo is a contest or a game. We always ´race´down to the car from our 3rd story apartment, and we race to the apartment when we get home in the afternoons. Naturally, he always wins. Usually I let him, but on the days I wear skirts and heels, he wins legitimately. I always pretend to fake cry and he calls me ´chiona´ which means cry baby! It´s funny.

I get to school right before the bell rings and have Spanish class from 8:30-10:30. We usually talk about a story we read the night before, or do grammar exercises (my fav.. not), or talk about random topics such as our weddings and families back home. Then we have a half hour snack break at 10:30 and we can only talk in Spanish with our friends. We usually have some kind of sweet bread or chips and dip.

We go back to class from 11-12:30.. more talking, usually some games, and listening to a spanish song and writing down the words then singing it. Then we have lunch, which I usually eat most of.. and always consists of some kind of rice, tortillas, sometimes beans and usually foreign meat. I usually ask for no meat.. I much prefer Heindel meat that I´ve helped butcher..

After lunch we have a little free time until our group activity. Mondays are history class with our leader Jim. Tuesday´s are a field trip with CASAS to either the MCC office, a church, museums, or something like that. Wednesday´s are our free days.. when I go to the internet cafe, get ice cream, check email etc. Thursday´s are another CASAS activity, usually a native person comes for a lecture. And then Fridays we have group debriefing. We talk about relevant topics, homesickness, our weeks, announcements for the weekend, and usually have a time of worship at the end.

Most days we´re done by 3:30 or 4 and then I wait around for my mom to get off work at 4:30. We go home and I either do some homework or take a quick nap. Then we usually have something in the evenings. Some nights we have meetings at her church, or activities like an Oriental Night at her church this past Tuesday. Every Wednesday we go to her Grandma and Aunt´s house.. with her parents. It´s their family tradition that they said they´ve been doing forever. I really like it because it reminds me of the Grosh family Friday tradition. We always eat eggs, beans, cream and bread.. It´s my one authentic Guatemalan meal each week! Other nights we might go to restaurant with Ishi´s boyfriend or friends, and occasionally we do stay at home.

Ishi doesn´t really cook that much.. and when she does it´s usually pasta (which is fine with me), or frozen dinners heated up.. Or she makes me grilled cheese and pb&j! I feel like she is always cleaning.. her family was teasing her about it the other day. She brooms the floor, mops it, and dusts, collects the garbage, and does the dishes just about every single day. It´s crazy! But our house is always clean. I think that´s kind of cultural.. buut maybe not because Amy told me her host parents never clean and there´s always clutter.

I usually finish up homework after we get back home around 8 or 9.. or after dinner. Sometimes I watch part of a movie with Pablo but he´s always changing them 20 minutes in! Oh well. I normally get to bed between 9-10 which is nice. And then start all over again!

It has started to feel normal and like a routine. I feel comfortable in my host house and with my host family. It´s crazy that a month is already gone.. and we only have another month being stable here in Guatemala. I´m not looking forward to saying goodbye to Ishi and Pablo..

Alright, I have about another hour until my oral part of my spanish exam today. The written part and paragraph part went really well. I feel pretty good about them. I am kinda nervous about this oral part though. We´ll see how it goes!!

I always appreciate getting emails.. and I can receive mail here at CASAS too.. (ask Mom for the address if you want it). Hope everyone had a good Groundhog´s day. Also, today is my half birthday.. so HAPPY HALF BIRTHDAY TO ME!
Much love and prayers from Guatemala,
Lindsey