Thursday, February 24, 2011

Halfway!

Sorry I have done such a poor job of updating.  This week was pretty much finals week for our first Spanish class.  Not a whole lot of fun but way less stressful than having five different finals to worry about.  I can definitely tell I've made progress with Spanish though.  It's still hard to understand when a lot of people are talking or when people don't speak clearly (which happens a lot), but I was able to understand almost all of a sermon this past Sunday without using a headset for translation.  We had learned last week about the Neo-Pentecostal movement here, so on Sunday some of us visited Casa de Dios, one of several Neo-Pentecostal megachurches in the city.  It was kind of like a concert and kind of like youth convention.  The pastor, "Cash" Luna (no joke), talked about loving our neighbors.  He used the example that we sometimes have a favorite piece of jewelry that we keep apart from the rest because it's so special.  In the same way, each person is one of a kind so we need to love them all accordingly.  Or something.  Right before the offering Cash talked about God's mercy vs. God's justice.  He said we only want God's mercy when we do something bad, but when we do right we want justice, we want to be rewarded for it.  And he said, GOD IS JUST.  You will receive in relation to what you give.  It's an interesting theology, a bit different from the reality that so many Guatemalans face.  Apparently back when this movement was starting, a bunch of Catholics left their church because they thought it focused too much on the poor and they liked this way of thinking a little better.  I'm used to hanging around for usually quite some time after church, but as soon as the service was over, people were outta there.  Hmm, what else...  This weekend, a few of us tried and failed to go to a discoteca.  That'll have to happen another time.  Byron came over and met my mom, and we had a nice long conversation after he left.  I feel a lot more at home with her now, but it just depends on the day how much we talk.  I found out that another guy who's studying at CASAS but is not with our group is living with someone just down the street from me.  I love taking the bus every day!  On the way to school I pass a huge mall, some awesome grafitti, soccer fields, and an enormous thrift store that I've visited a few times.  It seems like not too long ago that I was terrified of not being able to recognize my stop, but it's great to more or less know what I'm doing now.  One day my Spanish class visited the University of San Carlos and talked a bit with students there just as practice.  One the bus ride back, I fell into some guy's lap when the bus jerked forward.  :P  Anyway, I hope that's enough to keep you busy for a while.

Monday, February 14, 2011

EMU Blog

For this week's update (and if you want to know more about the things I haven't written about here):
http://emu.edu/now/crosscultural/2011/02/17/mayan-spirituality-and-culture/

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Accostumbrarse

I am finally falling into a routine here.  I can take the bus by myself and I am starting to feel more at home with my host mom.   Honestly, I had been expecting a family, but as it turns out I just have a host mom, Olga.  She's Catholic, she sells cleaning products, she knows some words in English.  She has two kids who each have kids so there are occasionally other people in the house, plus sometimes neighbors or other friends come over. 


Today we climbed a volcano and roasted tropical-flavored marshmallows in its heat.  :)