Hey Everyone

Today we sadly had our last spanish lessons. so we all said our last good byes to our teachers. After that we headed off to San Antonio Agua Caliente. There we had a cross cultural experience with a Mayan family. We had lunch with them, a wedding style feast and got to try our hand at tortilla's making. After lunch, Ellen and Joel had a pretty exciting experience, they got married mayan style, we all got to dress up in traditional mayan out fits and experianced the wedding of joel and ellen. we got taught a dance and learned about all the component of what the women would wear in the wedding ceremony. At this place we were also able to see parrots and a lemur. We also got to eat a ton of chocolate covered fruit which was delicious! It was a lot of fun to create realtionships with this close family.

We are going out for a traditional Guatemalan meal now,
Caleb

DAY 15

Today we started off as usual, with our Spanish lessons. Everyone is improving.
This morning we were joined by Rafael, a Mennonite pastor. He spoke to us about how Mennonites got to Guatemala. We learned that the Catholic church and State had a really strong relationship from 1482-1882. Then different churches were invited by the president. The Mennonite church was first introduced in 1970, long after the Protestants, Pentecostals and Methodists. After a terrible earthquake in 1976 a missionary founded 22 Mennonite churches by hiring Pentecostal priests. Then, because these churches did not share the Anabaptist theology, funding was cut off and the number of churches went down to 6. Eventually, the Mennonite church did establish itself in Guatemala. Today, Mennonites are still a very small percentage of the non-Catholic population.
For lunch, we drove to a community centre and ate with a class of adorable Guatemalan children. We sat with them at their little tables on their little stools. Caleb and Jess seem to have the strongest connection to the children we meet. During our meal they introduced themselves and sang nursery rhymes. After we visited the other parts of the centre. They had a bakery and to support their programs we bought some pastries for 0.65Q (about 9 cents) each. The women at the centre are also responsible for many of the Guatemalan crafts we see at Ten Thousand Villages. We saw the room full of sewing machines and materials. Some of us purchased their beautiful, creative, and hand-made crafts.
The rest of the afternoon was for us to enjoy! It was actually a little weird not having something planned until supper.
After dinner we had some "individual time" to reflect on something that has impacted us. We shared our thoughts and discussed those important moments.
We are leaving CASAS tomorrow and need to pack so...
Good night.

Trevor POGUE, and Tanya Ayala

Hello family and friends!
We are back in Guatemala City now after a fun weekend in Chichicastenango!
It was a 3ish hour drive through mountains over the edge of ravines and quite the trip. !! We visited a women's cooperative called Ruth and Naomi and were treated to a delicious second lunch made by some hospitable women. They told us about their project and showed us all their beautiful creations, which many of us decided to buy. They also had very cute children who enjoyed taking pictures of us and playing with our hair elastics etc. We also visited some ruins called Iximche I believe which were really interesting!
But Since Joel is talking more about our chi chi weekend, let me tell you about CASAS!
CASAS is so far a really great place to be. There are many ¨mission¨groups here from the states that stay at CASAS and they are very interesting. We also have really neat speakers most days at CASAS and are learning a lot of interesting things, including spanish! Our group is divided up into a couple classes and I think we are all really happy for the chance to learn more of this language.! After our week in El Salvador at the forum, I know we all wished we could speak Spanish a lot better since we were quite handicapped in those regards. So we really apprecitate our spanish teachers and the useful lessons they are teaching us .
Last week we had 2 really interesting speakers. One of them was named Hector. He was a VERY intriguing speaker who began his speech by forcing us all to introduce ourselves in Spanish. We all laughed as we struggled . .. this is another reason why spanish classes are handy..! Hector spoke to us about the history of Guatemala and the leaders and his experience in it. He was very optimistic and hopeful, which was nice because we are learning so much information that is often sad and depressing. But he pressed how WE are the change that will happen and change the future and that it is in the hands of these next generations. Anyways, he was a great speaker.
Another speaker that we also had was a professor from the Guatemalan univeristy at a Ph d level. im sorry I can´t remember his name! He talked to us about the Mayan history of Guatemala and was very intelligible. He had a lot of information about all the different Indigineous groups and it was neat to hear about. Guatemala´s history is very interesting, thats for sure.
This morning after Spanish we went to an organization that was of the families whose members had been separated. It was called GAM. It was sad to hear about all the people they work with. They are trying to connect children from aunts, uncles, parents and other relatives that they gor separated from during the violence. Its really neat that they are trying hard to reunite people when it is a bit of a risky business for them! After that we went to a park where there was a huge map of Guatemala´s terrain. It was awesome and a really friendly guide helped to answer any of our questions.
During the evenings we have been watching videos having to do with peace or violence or a totally random one that CASAS has lying around. ha ha. Either that or having latin dances with Nataly, Melany and Pablo who go to one of the Mennonite chruches here in Guate. city.
We are having a great time and really looking forward to leaving the city and going out to the country. Thanks for your prayers and thinking about us!
Sarah :)

Today we visited a cultural anthropology lab which exhumes bodies of those that died during the massacres in the time of violence. Families who lost someone approach this organization hoping to find the remains and have a proper burial. Here they are funded by the european government to dig up the bones of family members who were killed in genocides and masacrars. By digging up these bodies, the people of Guatemala are able to prove that these events did occur, and fight for their right to justice. Our group was esspecially intrigued by this event because it made the history and stories we have been hearing so much more real. We felt so privelaged to be able to walk through the lab and stand right in front of the bodies they were investigating. Jennifer, the anthropologist taught us that you can identify so much just by looking at the bones. We were able to take a look at a 30-40 year 0ld man, who had been shot through the head and burried deep in the ground by the army. Often times family members would flee from the military and hide in the mountains, if they would die of starvation in the mountains the family members would quickly bury them in the night and keep on running. Their are many families now who remember where they were burried and want to dig them up to give them a proper burrial.
When viewing the bones of a child it really hit me. The spine vertibraies were about the size of a nickle, and the ribs were as small as twigs you would see on trees. I couldnt belive that any human being could kill something so small and new to this world. Never should a child ever deserve to die. Seeing this made me feel sick to my stomach. It clicked in that they were people and not numbers, I was able to relate to them, they had families and friends just like us. These children played hopscotch and catch just like us.
Jennifer says right now they are on a very low rate of digging bodies because of past financial issues, 1-2 per week. The Guatemalan government does not support investigations of these masacars financially or otherwise. Jennifer also says that when there is enough funding from outside sources , they can have up to 10 exhumations or projects at once.
Although seeing this was difficult emotionally, we found that we are so greatful for this learning experience because so many people back home are unaware of these events. Through these experiences we are able to see that we are brothers and sisters with those who have suffered, and although we seem so distant and far away, we are very connected. In this way, we have discovered that apathy is no longer an option.
Ellen Reesor

Chichicostenago

Yesterday morning, we woke up high in the mountains in the town of Chichi. After slipping on our crumpled dress shirts, after a very early wake up. we struggled out of bed and headed into the city centre for catholic mass. At the church there were many different rituals being performed that would not be found at a mennonite church. Apparently a lot of their rituals were rooted in the local indigenous culture. One example of these rituals visible in the Catholic church was the men who stood at the front of the church. In the traditional Mayan village these men would have been the Elders. Another difference was that instead of playing an organ all the music was traditional Mayan music with an instrument that sounded a lot like a xylophone. Also the service was in both Spanish and Quechi (the traditional language of the Mayans).

After mass we went to the infamous Chichicostenango market. It was absolutely insane, if you even glanced at something a vendor would start shouting random prices at you or even begin chasing after you while shouting things like "THIS IS BUSINESS!". At first a lot of us were kind of reluctant to bargain but when we realized they were way overcharging us we really started bargaining and made some really good deals. Thankfully I didn't keep any money in my pockets because if I had it would have certaintly been stolen because at every busy section (which was pretty much everywhere) I felt people feeling my pockets to see if there was any money in them. One thing that was very hard for many of us were the kids that would continue to follow us everywhere begging us to buy something from them or even if they had nothing to sell they would ask us for money. At the end of our market buying most of us ended up with some pretty cool purchases but also some stupid ones just because we got so into the bargaining.

After these past few weeks there are many things that I have discovered about the Guatemalan culture. I'd love if our Canadian way of life could incorporate more of the friendliness, and openness that I have expereinced here. I am really looking forward to the places we will be visiting after CASAS such as climbing the highest volcano in all of Latin America!


Hasta Luego!
Joel

Contrast tour

Greetings to all!
Yesterday our group had the opportunity to visit the city dump. The dump was basically a once beautiful ravine filled almost to the top with garbage. The smell was overwhelming and there were vultures swarming everywhere. The most shocking thing were the throngs of people digging through the garbage, trying to find something valuable to sell so that they could survive. We were told that people once lived practically in the dump and that children too took part in this money making scheme. This is illegal now but we wondered where those people went and what those children are up to now. It was an emotional visit.
After we had the oppotunity to visit the dump we went to a huge mall. The idea was to show us the huge contrast between the social classes here. Coming directly from the dump where there was suffering all around us to something so North American and consumeristic was shocking. The mall was the biggest one that I had ever seen, more clean and proper than the ones at home. The stores were air conditioned and smelled too clean and new. I felt overwhelmed and kind of panicky to be in such a huge snobby place when we had just come from a place where people had nothing. It was hard for us to see such differences and to make sense of them. I think that this tour was a good learning opportunity for all of us and helped us to get a better view of the social situation here.
Christine

Hector CastaÑeda

Hola!
I (jess) am going to be writing about this past Wednesday when Hector Castaneda gave us a lecture (i use this word lightly) about the history of Guatemala.
Up until this point we have been hearing about really heavy topics, which i know is really important when we are learning about a new culture, but it can be very overwhelming at times. Hector has a sense of humour. When he walked into the room he immediatly began talking to us in only Spanish, which was a little scary but he was funny about it.
Hector spoke to us about the history of Guatemala in a very easy to understand way. He explained things bluntly and to the point, and i was actually sad when it was over. I hope when i get to university theres speakers like Hector.
i have at least two pages of notes that i could talk about but heres the jist of it... Gutemalteca (guatemalan) people who are not rich have been taken advantage of for a very long time and have not been treated the way humans should be treated. its very angrifying actually. But im so glad that i get to learn about this.
We also started spanish classes on wednesday and as usual for me, the first day was confusing and hectic, but i enjoy classes now. i think im better at spanish for the 2 days that ive been learning than the 2 years of german ive been taking. but im not sure hehe.
After our spanish classes we (finally) went into guatemala city near the palace and churches and got to know the city a little bit. It is a really nice city with beautiful people.
Im so glad that i applied for this trip. No regrets. I reccomend that you all try out Guatemala at some point in your life.
Adios for now,
jess.