Un Poco de Todo (A little bit of everything)

Well, the past couple weeks have been quite busy here in Antigua and I realize that I am well behind in doing a full update, but allow me to catch up as best I can (sorry it’s so long, but it’s all good stuff):

Today is Wednesday, June 25, and I do not have school today because in Guatemala it is the Dia de Maestros (Day of the Teachers) which is a national holiday of sorts. My Spanish school has chosen to commemorate the day by giving the teachers the day off which means no class today (but I studied on my own this morning just for fun.)

First, some of the fun happenings… After four summers visiting Guatemala and El Salvador, I finally caved in and received my first haircut ever in Central America. It actually turned out well despite my not really being able to explain in Spanish exactly how I would like it cut. Even though it ended up being a little shorter than I would have normally asked for, it honestly turned out better than the last haircut I had in Cleveland before the end of the school year (which I personally thought was a bit of a disaster when I first got back from the barber). So, score one for Guatemalan barbers. The only downside is that the “rules” for hygiene on their cutting utensils may not be the same in the U.S., thus when it came time for the final trim with the straight edge razor, I found myself wondering if the blade had been sterilized recently after I saw him take it out his front pocket. At that point I just thought how glad I was that I had my hepatitis vaccinations, etc. Fortunately, the barber was proficient with his blade and I walked away without any nicks.

At Mass last Thursday at the Church, Escuela de Cristo (School of Christ) just down the block from me, the priest, Fr. Carlos, recognized me from earlier trips and stopped me after Mass to talk. He is a Diocesan priest and when I confirmed to him that I was a seminarian, he invited me to dinner this coming Thursday. On the way out of the Church, the sacristan, Alfonso, also stopped me and invited me to see the view of Antigua from the roof of the Church. We agreed to do this the following day but got rained out so this past Saturday morning around 10:00AM, I met him when he opened the Church and got some great pictures from the roof. But, that’s not even the most unique thing that happened. On the way up the bell-tower, Alfonso stopped when he got to the level of a window (we were in a circular staircase and I was below him several steps). I wondered why we stopped when all of a sudden I heard a pigeon cooing and the flapping of wings. Then, just as quickly, Alfonso drew his arm back from the window and had the pigeon in hand. I could hardly believe it. He just continued up the stairs with the bird. When I got to the level of the window, I noticed that there were two eggs in a little nest from which he had snagged the pigeon. I learned from Alfonso that he was going to sell the bird to a woman who had asked for one (the sell for about 10-15 Quetzals a bird which is roughly $1.50 to $2.00. Marta, my host “mom,” told me that pigeon meat is actually a delicacy in some of the salsas that are prepared for special occasions. No need to wonder at the bird’s fate…but, don’t worry, there are plenty more in town.

I have now seen both of the Koreans staying at my home stay depart now. Jennifer had left earlier but returned when Jenny was having her “good-bye supper.” The good-bye suppers are a treat here as Marta will usually prepare the departing student’s favorite meal from her repertoire. Marta also encourages the departing student to invite one or two of their closest friends so when Jenny left, the other Jennifer returned from Guatemala City and three young Korean men whom the women had met here in Antigua also joined us for dinner. They even prepared a special Korean soup (a Ramen noodle mix with Korean spices and flavorings). Anyway, the best part of dinner was trying to bridge the language gap. The older Jennifer definitely could speak Spanish well (not so well with English). The newer Jenny couldn’t speak Spanish, but her English was better. All three of the Korean men did not appear to be able to speak English too well, but their Spanish was still worse (with the exception of one). The nick-names of two of the men were King and Kong. Kong was the more amusing of the two and, I believe in order to bridge the language gap with humor, he kept making fun of David, the other Korean who could actually speak Spanish fairly well. For example, he kept referring to David as Kim Jong Il (the dictator of North Korea) because of how David was eating voraciously everything on his plate. The whole evening was quite entertaining and I don’t believe any international relations were harmed so we can call it a success. Earlier on my trip, the two Jennifers had taught me a couple phrases in Korean so I will be looking forward to trying this out on John Lee, the seminarian from Korean who is studying at our seminary in Cleveland.

This past weekend, I finally connected with two of the seminarians studying Spanish here from the Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio and St. Menrad’s in Indiana. They study at a different Spanish school and their trip is organized through St. Meinrad’s. Tom P. is in formation for the Diocese of Phoenix at the Josephinum and Steve Hohman studying for the Diocese of Owensburg, Kentucky at St. Meinrad’s. They tell me that there are two other seminarians on their program from St. Meinrad’s but I haven’t met them. Tom, Steve and I went out for a few drinks on Friday and then on Sunday, we met to go to another small village near Antigua called San Juan Del Obisbo for their Corpus Christi celebration and procession.

Since I really had not planned any major weekend trips, when my latest house mate, Anne from Portland, Oregon, suggested that she might be interested in seeing one of the local villages’ celebrations, I decided to go along with her, her sister and her mother. Anne is an Anthropology and Religious Studies major at Santa Clara University in California so seeing a religious procession certainly fit her background.

[Kind of an interesting side story resulting from our introduction: When Marta was introducing me to Anne and I was explaining who I was, I explained that I was studying to become a priest and used the Spanish word for priest, Sacerdote. It wasn’t connecting for her and somewhere along the way she had associated that word with sacrifice. So you could understand that it seemed strange to her to think for a moment that I was studying to become a sacrifice. But, honestly, as I thought back on that, it’s really not too far from the truth in a certain sense. Catholic priesthood, which configures the person of the priest to the person of Christ, joins in the sacrifice of Jesus in a very unique way. (But, then again, so does marriage...all Christian vocations share this challenge and joy.) So, if you think about it, Anne’s first thought is right from a certain point of view.]

Anyway, Anne’s interest in the local celebrations is how the four of us and the two seminarians ended up at San Juan Del Obisbo for their Sunday celebration of Corpus in advance of their patronal feast marking the nativity of St. John the Baptist (which is celebrated universally on June 24). I won’t describe the procession since my last blog entry concerning San Antonio (Tony, Tony look around…) actually covers the general idea. The only difference I would add is that San Juan Del Obisbo’s population is more Ladinos than indigenous (that’s a local term as far as I can tell used to distinguish between those descendent from Spanish immigration and those descendent from indigenous populations native to this area.)

After the procession, we took a short tour of the museum of the Palacio Del Obisbo Francis Marroquin. That’s the palace built in honor of the first bishop of Guatemala. Its existence actually leads to the name of the town being San Juan “of the Bishop” (Trivia note: Bishop Marroquin apparently was the first bishop ordained in the Americas). The palace (renovated and reconstructed in some ways) was used as a bishop’s residence as late as the middle of the 20^th century. As a special treat, I have produced a short video (5 ½ minutes or so) of the pictures and a short video clip I took during this latest procession. It should give you a little taste of what I’ve been writing about concerning these Corpus Christi processions. (Of course, that assumes I can get the video uploaded and working correctly…if it doesn’t work now, I’ll try to get it working when I return home. If it does work, I may even add another video I made from my visit two years ago to COAR in El Salvador, the same place I’m headed at the end of this week. Keep your eyes on the lookout for both.)

After the visit to San Juan Del Obisbo, we all returned to Antigua. The ladies went on to visit the market and shop and the other seminarians and I went to a small Italian restaurant called Martedinos for lunch. We split a pizza and watched the Euro Cup match between Italy and Spain that resulted in Italy’s defeat.

Over the weekend, our house also saw the arrival of two young students from North Carolina, Matt and Zevy. They are both 16 and studying Spanish in the mornings and working on some volunteer construction projects in the afternoon. For their first time studying Spanish outside of the US, their Spanish is already quite good. They’ve both worked hard at their Spanish classes in high school and I’d say it is paying off handsomely for them. What a treat this trip is for them, I suspect. Doing something like this had never crossed my mind in high school, but I think it is great for them. The only thing it kind of reminds me of is when my friend Rob Radak and I visited Columbus, Ohio to watch Firestone High School in the State playoffs when we were both Juniors in high school. I think that was one of the first trips that our parent’s let us take “on our own.” But, Antigua is definitely not Columbus so I think these guys have received quite a blessing to be allowed to travel so far away from home at age 16.

One of the things that Marta tends to do to help break the ice, especially when new students arrive, is to invite that those staying home after dinner to a game of Memory. This is basically the memory game that we all know from our childhoods except it a version where you are looking for pairs rather than identical matches (ie, the fireman goes with the house on fire and the sun goes with the moon, etc). It is actually a good way to help build vocabulary. When I first played earlier on this trip I lost quite badly. But, I am please to say that I have developed a “system” (applying some memorization tricks I’ve learned along the way) that has had me winning quite frequently now.

Well, last night I was able to have dinner with a friend I had met on my trip to Antigua last summer. Jamila (kind of like Camila but with a J) is a medical student (just finished 2^nd year) from North Carolina. She and I both stayed at the same home stay last year and this year we have both returned to the home stays we had on earlier trips. She just finished a big licensing exam and is taking two weeks of vacation here in Antigua before returning to school for her residency rotations that mark the start of 3^rd year. We decided to go out for dinner to catch up before I left for El Salvador and last night was the night.

It turned out to be quite an interesting three hours. We went to Mono Loco’s which is a restaurant/bar in Antigua in the American sense (Mono Loco means Crazy Monkey in English). We ended up getting into some great discussions mostly concerning medical ethics and I found myself explaining, as best I could, the Catholic Church’s positions on certain topics. She is not Catholic but really seemed to enjoy learning more about the Church’s teachings in order to compare them to her own views that she’s developing from medical school. (She had just completed a medical ethic’s class so she shared some of the class discussions and debates from her school). It was a good test of what I remembered from my classes on Christian Anthropology and Christian Sexuality. I haven’t had our seminary’s version of medical ethics yet, it’s coming up this Fall, but despite that, I think I was able to answer most of her questions. Anyway, it was fun to answer question after question about the Catholic faith; a good way to spend the evening. The really funny thing was that, by the time we left, the bar was packed wall to wall with people who were rapidly getting drunk (I think Tuesday night is one of the Lady’s nights or something which draws a big crowd). So, imagine the two of us discussing medical ethics in the midst of a bar that seemed nearly out of control.

Well, that should pretty much wrap up my stay in Antigua. Marta is preparing my “good-bye supper” in Antigua (at least for this trip.) We’re celebrating on Wednesday since Anne will be leaving Friday afternoon and I am having dinner on Thursday with Fr. Carlos. But, for what I come to do here, Antigua, Guatemala has yet to disappoint. Now I am set to take the TICA BUS (a Central American version of Greyhound) to El Salvador on Saturday and start my 10 days with the children and staff at COAR (see website link in my list on the right). Again, if I get the video loaded on the page, you can check out some of the scenes from my last visit there in 2006 with Patrick Anderson and Mike Denk. After COAR, you may recall that my home parish, St. Hilary’s and St. Sebastian’s are sending parishioners to El Salvador to build a couple houses and a new youth center in the village of Mizata. I’ll be joining them after my time at COAR.

[Just a note, however, realize that I may not have ready access to the internet at COAR, and almost certainly not when the St. Hilary/St. Sebastian trip begins. I will, however, do a grand update when I get home to put the finishing touches on this Central American excursion. For now, Tengan la Paz de Cristo!]

Tony, Tony look around...

Before I get too far, I want to wish a Happy Father’s Day to those of you to whom it applies (and this certainly includes the newly ordained kind).

And then there was one... Well, Chris Zerucha has now returned home which leaves me as the last of our Cleveland seminarians studying here in Antigua. By all accounts, Chris seemed to enjoy his time here and even managed a few adventures of his own. He returned home after spending two weeks in El Salvador and the past three weeks here in Guatemala.

This past Sunday, I went to the nearby village of San Antonio to celebrate their patronal feast and parish festival. Our group included Fr. Francis, a Franciscan priest who is studying at my school, Daniel, the father of another student at my school, and Cynthia, an acquaintance of Daniel’s whom he had met earlier last week in Antigua. The interesting thing about this parish festival was the setting itself. San Antonio is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Antigua and the easiest way to get there is to take a camionetta, or as American’s tend to call them, the “chicken bus.” Now, that name doesn’t arise because the drivers play chicken with other vehicles on the roads (although that wouldn’t necessarily be far from the truth), but the name derives from the fact that many of the farmers coming into the towns would bring their live chickens for sale in little crates or boxes that they would set in the overhead racks or outside on top of the bus. To be honest, I haven’t seen these to a large degree on the bus rides I’ve taken on my trips, but the name endures.

For those who may not recall, the Camionetta or “chicken bus” is, in many cases, a “retired” school bus sold at auction and shipped to Guatemala from the states or one that has been refurbished and rebuilt from the chassis of these buses. It’s funny because some of them are the same old yellow buses we used to ride to school. They still have the names of their school districts on the sides and many of still have, “School Bus,” written in English across the front and back. The ones that have been refurbished or rebuilt are actually decorated quite colorfully.

So, once we arrived at San Antonio, we walked down the block or so from the drop off point to the main plaza to find that the big celebratory Mass was just beginning. The presider of the Mass was one of the local bishops and he was assisted by four priests. The church is actually quite small so this Mass was being held outdoors with most of the assembly sheltering under the trees in the central park to avoid getting fried in the sun. The weather was actually perfect blue skies with just a few white clouds. With the sun out, you would be quite toasty after a few minutes if you didn’t have a spot in the shade.

The people of San Antonio are roughly 90% descendent from the indigenous populations and this is reflected in both their look and their dress. For example, most of the women there wore more traditional woven shirts and dresses with their distinct colorful weaving patterns. It is also very common for the women to fold a woven blanket up into a big floppy square (about the size of a twin bed sheet folded up) and use it to cover their heads. The men, most of whom I believe are probably farmers, were dressed in more contemporary trousers and light shirts (and jackets in some cases)

San Antonio is still a pretty traditional parish and their celebration reflected this. After the Mass, there was a 2 ½ hour procession around the entire parish. One of the unique things about this was that at the head of it was a little band of musicians. The man at the head of this group was about 5’ 2” and played a little wooden flute almost non-stop for the entire two hours. He had a small base drum looped around his arms and over his shoulder that was being played from behind by one of his companions. They were flanked by two other instrumentalists and the four of them, in suit jackets and without hat or sunglasses under the noontime sun, marched along announcing the way of the procession.

The main part of the procession also included an honor guard of women marching along on either side of the procession carrying candles and/or censers for incense. The altar servers with more incense and bells came next followed by the priests and then the bishop carrying the monstrance with the Sacred host inside under the little tent provided to shade him. Behind the tent with the bishop and monstrance came a more formal marching band. And thus the procession went to all parts of San Antonio before arriving back at the church. As is part of the tradition, the procession stopped at several chapels built along the way. In a very traditional setting, the first two chapels and the last two are more permanent chapels that surround the church in a large square. Imagine the big plaza/park in front of the church and the first two chapels were in the corners of the park opposite the front of the church. The last two were in the mini-plaza or ally behind the church. Drawing a line between all four would make a big square around the church.

We decided to have lunch in town and so asked one of the locals where to find a good place to eat. They directed us to one of the small store-front restaurants located right along the main plaza. This is a much, much simpler setting than Antigua. The restaurant was basically one of two front rooms of a house operated by the family residing there. The other room was their little tienda to sell snacks and basic supplies. The room we ate in was about 14’ by 14’ that was basically just a whitewashed room with a few simple tables and folding chairs in it. The specialty meal for festivals like this is called Pepian, which is basically a meat or meats of some type (usually chicken) baked in a special sauce comprised of at least seven special spices and ingredients. Basically, you get the piece of chicken served in a bowl of this sauce and plate of rice on the side. We were also served a type of tamale with beans inside. The whole thing with a drink cost about $4 dollars.

After lunch, we strolled around the street surrounding the main plaza and observed all the different carnival games, food booths, and tables with artisan crafts for sale that were set up especially for the festival. It really felt like an old-time country fair or country parish festival. Later that night they would have their big dance in the square. What a beautiful experience for a picture perfect day. Just a short chicken-bus ride later we were back in Antigua for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

El Gripe!

Well, Guatemala is on yellow alert and the kids are off from school because the country has pretty much been drenched by rain caused by the after affects of a hurricane and another tropic storm. I’m not sure of their names, but they’ve done a good job of soaking things here. I think as a result of the on-coming change in weather, I developed a cold, or as they say so menacingly in Spanish, un gripe…that’s pronounced, “gree-pay” with the accent on the first syllable. I can’t help but get a kick out of the appropriateness of paring this word with its meaning in English. Of course, I’d never gripe about my gri-pe. It was gone after a day with a nice long siesta in the afternoon!

Over the weekend I went to the 12:00pm Mass at San Francisco church and discovered that there would be a wedding as well. Here in Latin America, Catholic weddings are usually done during an ordinary Mass that is open to the public (which is actually the way the Church intended the Sacrament to be celebrated…in the presence of the whole faith community, not necessarily just the families of the happy couple). This particular couple seemed to come from a family living in Guatemala City, the capitol which is about 45 minutes away from Antigua. As I learned from Marta, my home-stay “mom,” many couples from the city come up to Antigua to celebrate their weddings in the big stone churches here that were built during colonial times. I guess the idea of coming down a long aisle in a memorable setting is catching on with some of the wealthier Guatemalan families.

As it is a relatively open Mass for the community, decorations are not too extreme. I noticed that some of the poorer indigenous Guatemalans (meaning descendants from the native Mayan population) were helping drape streamers over the pews along the aisle. My hunch is that the families of those being married offered them a little money for their assistance in decorating. The only real problem I saw with the wedding party being from the city was that over half their family and friends arrived late for the Mass. There was a steady stream of participants at the Mass arriving even after the rite of marriage had taken place. On the whole, though, it was very nicely done and the couple, as is almost always the case, was beaming with joy as they walked down the aisle at the conclusion of Mass as husband and wife.

My home-stay now has two Koreans! There was one here when I arrived and we received the latest this week. So among five students, we have two Koreans, a couple from Quebec, and me. For ease of communicating, the Koreans have told us that their names are Jenny (the latest arrival) and Jennifer (the former). Jennifer, has been in Guatemala for almost five years working with a church mission and her Spanish is excellent! Jenny just arrived from Korea and didn’t know any Spanish. But, it’s been great having them in the house because when I don’t feel like studying Spanish, I ask them to teach me phrases in Korean. So, I should be able to greet John Lee (our seminarian from Korea studying in Cleveland) properly when I return home.

Just out of curiosity I decided to sum up all the nationalities of students I’ve meet here in Guatemala at my homestays: 4 young men from Seattle, 1 woman from Japan, 2 women from Germany, 2 women from Turkey who were living/working near Washington, D.C., a woman from France, 2 different couples from Quebec, 2 women from Korea, a man from Nebraska, 2 women from Holland, a woman from England, and a woman from North Carolina. That’s 21 people over the course of four summers.

All else being equal...this is a pretty quiet week here in Antigua.

Muy tranquillo en Antigua

Really not too much to update you on as I stayed in Antigua and had a pretty quiet weekend. I did see David DeJesus and John Mullee off on Friday. We went out in a group for a last night on the town before they took off Saturday. Then Saturday night I went out with two friends of Patrick Anderson's, Shannon and Kathy, from St. John Neuman's in Strongsville. They were here vacationing and were returning home today (Sunday). Heading out this weekend gave me a good taste of what happens here in Antigua the most...you meet people from all over the world (or at least from Holland) and talk.

The other thing you might notice about Antigua on the weekends is how many of the young and "up-and-coming" Guatemalans come to Antigua to hang out on the weekends. This is one of the places for a weekend away or a night out for many Central Americans with some means. Thus, the population increases quite a bit on the weekends. But, thankfully, Monday comes soon enough and things quiet down to the point where it is mostly the student populations that are visiting from Europe, Asia, or America.

So, I have had some great conversations this weekend with new people and we've talked a little about everything and nothing. Not a bad way to spend a weekend. Next week, I'm working on trying to visit a local prison with a priest from one of the Churches here. That should be eye-openning. I'll let you know. Back to studying Spanish...enjoy the pictures!