Guatemala otra vez – el dia diez

Well, let me begin by saying that I identified the wrong place of our travels on Saturday. We went to Santiago Atitlan, not San Francisco and the church was named Santiago as well . It must have been the shrimp soup that muddled my brain.
Now, on with today’s news. Today was very moving in several different ways. The day started with the normal routine until the bus arrived and two of our team members were still at home. We drove over to their house only to discover that they had a mix-up in setting their alarm. They did not realize the mistake until I knocked on the door. As I tried to tell everyone before we left on this trip – be flexible – don’t expect things to go as planned. When we got to the school, we had another teacher that joined us for prayer this morning. I believe the teachers are becoming more comfortable praying with us and they are a true blessing to our experience. We had a time of sharing before prayer and it is wonderful to experience the exchange. Our prayer time ran into our class time by 15 minutes, but again, flexibility – don’t expect things to go as planned or on time! We are in God’s hands.
Mid-way through our morning session everything began to shake. We knew immediately that it was an earthquake. News reports tonight said that is was a 6.0 quake approximately 60 miles southwest of Guatemala City. My teacher immediately called her family to be sure that everything was ok with them. She lived through the massive quake in 1976, when her family was caught in their house when it collapsed. Her father was able to pull her from the rubble just before it collapsed further. She shared with me that ever since then, when she feels a tremor, she needs to know where her children are and if they are safe. This evening I found out that Rosa Maria also lost her home in the same quake. She and her grandmother crawled under a bed. The family thought they had been crushed in the rubble, but they were safe because of the protection of the bed. This is the first earthquake I have experienced, even though for us it was only a tremor, but it is a very interesting sensation to feel the earth moving in such a powerful way.
After our break, I asked my teacher to share with me her experience of the civil war here in Guatemala. The war lasted 36 years and hundreds of thousands of people were killed with many being tortured. She gave me a complete history of the war beginning with the attempt to reclaim land, organizing the Mayans, and ultimately the establishment of the guerilla movement. She shared that within her family her cousins were fighting against each other, one in the guerilla force, the other in the army. The cousin in the guerilla force was killed but the army insisted on a closed casket at the funeral. It turned out that his body was not in the casket and they don’t know where his body is located even to this day. She also shared that many of the people living in the rural areas have strong feelings against the military and the government because as children, when they were taught to read and write, the first sentences they would learn were: 1)I love my mother. 2) My mother loves me. 3)The soldiers killed my father. 4)The soldiers violated my mother. 5)The soldiers killed my brother. 6)The soldiers violated my sister. You can imagine the sentiment of the people when the children were beginning school with this emphasis.
After our break this afternoon, we watched a movie called “Hija del puma” (Daughter of the Puma), which was a story based on the civil war in Guatemala. Just prior to the start of the movie, we felt another minor tremor. The movie prompted a great discussion on our experience here in Guatemala and the issues that we might confront or need to address concerning immigrants in our communities upon our return. Overall, today was a good day. It was the first day that I didn’t take any pictures or visit any markets. I would say that was a good day!