Guatemala, and other Spanish words I know

At 3:30am this past Friday morning, Michael and I returned from Guatemala. It is a really neat country. The people are awesome. The places are beautiful. I've experienced somewhat of a culture shock since I've returned, and I'm currently experiencing a sort of 'computer overload', having just checked my email and found 150 messages waiting for me, plus about 300 more SPAM. It seems to have caused my brain to shut down a bit, and I'm really not sure what to say right now, so this may be a short entry, or I may get my words back and ramble on forever.

Some of the important things are:

It turns out that my Spanish is a lot better than I'd thought. When I have to speak, I can, and pretty well at that. I was one of the better speakers on the trip, so I would up translating quite often for people, and also just carrying on conversations that I would never have attempted in the states. I spoke with Padre Enrique in Livingston for about an hour about the mission there, the people there, the work that needed to be done, and whether or not Michael and I will accept his invitation to come join the mission as volunteers. I spoke with Miguel Angel about the jungle and the tribes and his studies that have taken him to El Salvador and back again and who he stay with and how he pays for it. I spoke with 14 to 16 year-old street vendors who told me about how they and their siblings take turns going to school while the others sell jewelry to tourist, and what are the biggest problems in the country, and how they approve of love and marriage only when the couple is old enough. I argued with the lady that tried to overcharge me for my room, and won. It's a strange thing what you can do when it's necessary, and how that will then give you the confidence to do other things that perhaps you ought, but don't specifically HAVE to do.

Also, it is clear when you are in Guatemala city that after cars have left the streets of the first world because they can no longer pass emissions tests, they do not leave the roads. Rather, they are simply shipped to other, poorer, countries, and sold there. The air in the cities and on highways is black. It turns your snot black, and once, after a 13 hour drive across country by bus, it turned my tongue black. This is not healthy, people. Our clean air standards make the air cleaner here, but we're just moving the offending polluters away from us, we're not actually getting rid of them.

The violence in Guatemala has obviously taken its toll on the country. Everything seems to be protected by men with assault rifles. The graffiti on walls is all political in nature. People without limbs are not uncommon. There are shrines to victims and martyrs all over the place. In cities, bars cover all windows.

Guatemalan people are among the absolute nicest I have ever met, regardless of whether you are in a city or a tribal village, a touristy area or a place where white people are an extreme oddity. Fr. Tom had told us to smile at everyone, that the people with machetes are our friends. He was drunk on Cuba Libres at the time; it was really funny. He was also right.

The Mayan ruins at Tikal are amazing.

We took about 1000 pictures on our digital camera.

I'll write more later. That's all I have right now.