Thursday, July 30, 2009

Day 4 from Cindy and Greg

From Cindy Marty:

As you’ve probably already read, 12 of us spent a week in language school in Antigua before meeting up with the rest of the team here in Guatemala City. Our group included at least a couple who had NO Spanish language capabilities…..I was one of those. As I enrolled, the school administrator asked me to tell her my Spanish level….I told her I was a beginner. She proceeded to tell me I needed to take a Spanish test to make sure I was placed in the appropriate level…..I guess that was my first Spanish language “misunderstanding” (there have been PLENTY more since then)……so I explained again that I was a beginner and just needed to start at the very beginning!

My teacher was a wonderfully patient woman, Silvia. I learned lots of vocabulary words, but have had lots of trouble putting the words together in sentences. Fortunately, my host family in Antigua and our Guatemalan brothers and sisters in ministry this week have also displayed great patience with desire to use my new words….and my limited abilities to use them correctly or in complete sentences. For example, today I tried communicating with one of the dear women who have been working in the kitchen each day preparing our delicious and ample meals. I tried to explain that Karley was my daughter (but found out I really said she was my sister) and also tried to tell her that Danny was my nephew. Her eyes lit up and she proceed to respond with a series of wonderful questions…..in Spanish of course…..fortunately Danny and Karley were willing and able to translate and respond to her additional questions! As part of the family of God, we all have something unique and special to offer the team….part of my gift just happens to be spreading lots of laughs as I attempt to use my newly acquired language skills!

From Greg Liggett:
The sun beats down relentlessly as its rays bully their way through the compassionate, shade-giving clouds. Speaking of clouds, the sky here is absolutely AMAZING. Due to high barometric pressure resulting from the fact that this is Guatemala’s rainy season, the magnificent nubes (“clouds” for all you gringos reading this) have flat bottoms and the rise like great regal fortresses. As I have recently acquired a camera, I find that the vast majority of my photographic endeavors have been spent attempting to capture in ten megapixels the sheer wonder of the element over our heads. (see photo in separate post)

The sky is a great way to take my mind off of the numerous cuts and scratches that I have on my hands and arms from the wonderful, wonderful rebar. For those of you who don’t know (and I don’t know if it has already been explained in detail on a previous blog. If so, my sincere apologies), rebar is basically thick iron rods, anywhere from ten to thirty feet in length (with the exception of today, when they thought it would funny to see the gringos struggle with two pieces welded together to make a forty-five foot lance of death) and we have to tie these pieces together with metal wire. The wire, however, comes in long coils and each that is cut has incredibly sharp edges. You may see where this is going. We wind a doubled-up piece of this wire around all rebar intersections and then twist the wire until it is tight and the little tail end that we are twisting breaks off—even sharper, woohoo. So, with my inherent drive to do all things as fast as I possibly can, coupled beautifully with my apparent lack of sense for self-preservation, I raced along the metal behemoth, securing its monstrous limbs together, not noticing or caring when it reached out with its unassuming claws to snare me. Hmm…I sure hope none of these cuts get infected. Maybe I’ll go grab some alcohol swabs for later.
Alright, a general group update: Danny is not feeling so good—as long as throwing up and sickness that can keep such a trooper like Danny off the construction can be considered “not so good.” Other than him, however, the sickness has been kept mostly at bay. Yes, an hermano or hermana will fell in the pits every once in a while and I think there has yet to be a day where there has been no one sick at all, but considering that my first Guatemala trip over three years ago saw at least half the team stay at the hotel one day, I’m considering this trip a smashing success so far. Everyone in the group is phenomenal as well, always volunteering for shopping, or working on the other site, or handling the kids at VBS (Vacation Bible School), we do, after all, have over 200 kids. You read that right, >200. Yikes. But so much fun! While the heat is no fun and the bugs are annoying and the humidity is hard to stand and the exhaustion is creeping up, I can’t think of a single moment where someone has consented to a task without a huge smile on their face. Alright, it’s off to pizza for the team and my goal is somewhere between 6 and 8 pieces. Please keep the team in your prayers and keep the States under control until we get back!

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