Monday June 8th 2010 - Day One!
The following occurs between the hours of 4:00 AM and 6:00 AM
Events occur in quasi-real time.
We mostly assemble at the Blue Violet. Mostly, in that Justin and John will meet us at the airport. A couple of us, myself and Cory included, have expertly packed all we need for the week into our carry on bag, and thus have an empty check-in bag for stuff to be donated. Said items include a few hundred tennis balls, so many tennis balls.
Mrs. Hustead is kind enough to drive us in the Hustead van - she also brings along Jimmy and a pizza.
At the airport:
As it happened, Justin fell from his attic ladder, bruising his arm, leg and body in the fall, but overall, he is ok.
I sit next to Micheal and John at the terminal and across the aisle between the seats, are Greg F. and Heather and Greg tells a story regarding a losing lottery ticket. Mike's solution is sell it to a blind man (A Dumb & Dumber reference - Jim Carey sells a dead parrot to a blind kid). After a bit of laughing, Greg comes over and informs him that the man sitting a few seats away is, himself, blind - awkward.
Not too long after, it occurs to me that there is a slight problem. After conferring with Mike and John (and Cory later), we all agree that there aren't enough single girls going on the trip (there were, in fact, zero).
We pray before boarding.
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM
Flight to Houston - on a small plane . . . with only one row of overhead compartments.
Whilst in Houston: Had 45 min to get to proper terminal and board. Made typical "cart jokes" and a couple of people grabbed some coffee in the interim.
Arrived in Guatemala City at approximately 11:00 AM Guatemala time (about the same as Rocky Mountain I would suppose)!
11:00 AM - 11:00 PM-ish
Cheerful reception from Armando, Karina and Mynor! They have a van from the school for most of us to ride in.
From the airport we paid visit to a local church and patronized a nearby hot dog stand (chefs note: Hot dogs with guacamole weren't too bad).
Our original plan was to climb a volcano the first day we were here - however, since it erupted the other week, we have to make alternate plans. These plans include some of us fixing up a house and the rest cleaning an area (Myself, Cory, Frommer, Lori, John, Greg F., Heather and Karina). This plan somehow went from cleaning ash to digging a drainage ditch near a compost site. We had barely begun to work when a rainstorm forced us to seek shelter. After a slightly too long period of wind-driven rain and thunder, we continued and actually accomplished quite a bit.
At the conclusion of the days event, we gathered at a house which is used by missionaries. From what I was told, they live there most of the year, but were away in the states visiting relatives. It was a nice house - really nice. It had electricity, running water (hot and cold), four bedrooms, four bathrooms (of which, only one did NOT have a shower), washer/dryer, dishwasher, inside a gated community and also had it's own wall, steel driveway door and security personnel.
To put this into a bit of perspective here:
1: Maybe half of the population lives below the poverty line.
2: Many people live in sheds, shantys and/or on slopes of hills due to lack of space that are vulnerable to earthquakes and mudslides.
3: Electricity and running water are, for the most part, luxuries whilst hot water is practically non-existent as we (in the states) know it.
4: Usually people claiming to be Christian missionaries will at least make an attempt to spend the most of the money spent toward helping the people of the country/community that they have traveled to, which usually doesn't lead to living in one of the nicer homes/apt in the area.
5: It was commented that this house is actually nicer than several apt/homes in the Beaver Falls area.
Devils advocate moment: While this house did (and for the most part was) on the extravagant side for Guatemala and what seemed like greed on the part of the home owners, there is still this part of me that wants to take a minute and make an attempt to see things from what may be their perspective.
(Note: These three points are speculative and not based on information gathered or learned.)
1: We did not know their income level or job status (or more specifically, the ratio of money used for this house - maybe $300 a month - to money used to help the people of Guatemala)
2: What possible requirements may or may not have come from the Church that may have been sponsoring them.
3: There could have been nicer/more expensive homes that we did not see.
Later on in the night - Laura and Edgar came by to visit. It was nice to see them and we had much to discuss.
(Travel note: I really haven't experienced the "culture shock" nor have I really felt like I have traveled over a thousand miles to a foreign country - I hope this means I'm at a point where I could go anywhere and do anything the Lord calls me to. I'm also hoping this is a correct analysis.)
9 years ago
