Guatemala – report from Lake Aititlan

Coming into the last 2 weeks of our time here with our host families and Spanish classes it seems that some of us are starting to get anxious for the end. For others it seems sad because they are just getting to really know their families and they already have to leave. It is so hard to believe that we have been in Guatemala for almost 7 weeks. I, for one, am very excited to be going on free travel at the end of next week and then after that heading off for Chiapas, Mexico for two weeks of living in a small rural community.

This past weekend we went to Santiago Atitlan right on Lake Atitlan and stayed in a hotel with an amazing view of the lake. We left early from CASAS on Friday at 11:00 a.m. and had a 4 hour bus ride up to the lake. On the way to the lake we stopped in at a coffee cooperative and they talked to us about what they are there for and all the different work they do advocating for change in labor laws and helping organize coffee workers on their land so they receive a better and fairer wage. We arrived in Santiago at around 5:30 p.m. in the evening and had a little bit of free time before dinner. As I mentioned earlier our hotel had an amazing view. We found ourselves on the roof of the hotel taking tons of pictures of the sunset and mountains/volcanoes around the lake. That night we had dinner at a little restaurant and after that the group split up and some of us found our way down to the docks and others went up the hill to the central park which was full of little stands with people selling everything you can imagine. You could buy anything from fried chicken, French fries and something that tasted kind of like Cracker jacks to mangos, used clothing, tamales, corn-on-the-cob with salt, mayonnaise, ketchup and lime, and lots of hot and cold drinks.

Saturday we got up bright and early and headed to breakfast back at that same restaurant. After breakfast we went up to the church and looked around and then learned about the priest who was murdered by the Guatemalan army during the civil war. Then we were taken on a tour of Panabaj which is a tiny little town outside of Santiago. Our guide worked with the ANADESA cooperative which is there to help the community and talk with the government to help get things done, especially after a devastating mudslide a few years ago wiped out half of the community. Many houses were buried and many people died. Slowly they are rebuilding their community. We ate lunch with them and then afterwards had time to buy natural shampoos, cleaning supplies and bead jewelry which they make and sell to produce income.

Sunday we were again up bright and early and off for breakfast. At 8:30 a.m. we got on a boat and headed across Lake Atitlan over to Panajachel. The boat ride took about 40 minutes and once there we had the rest of the day to shop on the main street. A lot of people wanted hammocks so Javier (the brother of one of the CASAS staff) took us out to try to get the best deal we could. At 12:30 p.m. we all met at the end of the street and loaded up the bus to head back to Guatemala City and complete an awesome weekend.

-Peter Labosh

The past and present in Guatemala

Throughout our stay here in Guatemala, we’ve been learning about Guatemala’s violent history. This week we had a lecture about human rights in present-day Guatemala, and we’re learning how the past is affecting present-day Guatemala. I have had a hard time comprehending the extent and intensity of the violence, but one experience last week helped me to understand this violent history a little bit better. We had the chance to visit the Forensic Anthropologists Foundation, which works to exhume bodies of individuals or of mass graves. The bodies are identified when possible, examined for trauma, and returned to their families for a proper burial. We were able to see a few skeletons currently under examination. Then we went to a storage room filled with boxes. Rows and towers of boxes stretched from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, only leaving enough room for pathways to pass through the room. Each box had an identifying case number, a date, and a place. Each box contained a skeleton that was waiting to be examined. Walking through that room was a sobering experience, and somewhat unnerving. Knowing what was in the boxes, it was difficult to walk through the room. I would have rather been somewhere else, but it helped me to better understand how the past is affecting present time. Guatemalans cannot forget or escape from what happened in the past. Thousands of families whose loved ones disappeared or were killed still to this day do not know what happened or where the bodies of their loved ones are resting, waiting to be unearthed and given a proper burial.

As a citizen of the United States whose family long ago laid roots in the US, I can assume that my ancestors have not endured much persecution, if any, in the last several decades or centuries. As a US citizen, I was born with rights and access to medical care, security, education, housing, and so much more. I have the right to have a name. I have access to capital. I have opportunities to study and travel, to spend a semester in Mexico and Guatemala. I can live in relative freedom and peace. I take these things for granted. These are things that some Guatemalans do not have.

To my knowledge, none of my ancestors’ towns or villages have disappeared. Unarmed communities were not attacked or bombarded. No one had to flee to survive, and no one disappeared. None of my ancestors endured physical or psychological torture. My ancestors did not have members of their community turn against them. They may have had to fight for some rights, but future generations reap the benefits, and forget any struggles that their ancestors may have endured. My ancestors did not live in fear of violence. They may have faced hard times, but most likely their lives were nothing compared to the lives of Guatemalans here who have faced these atrocities in recent decades. My ancestors did not have to live through a genocide. Unfortunately, many Guatemalans today have.

In the past, some Guatemalans were afraid to stay, while others were afraid to leave. Many were afraid to say what was wrong, and those that did may have faced persecution, discrimination, or torture. Life was not easy. However, life here is improving. It’s a process, but Guatemalans are discovering and using their voices. The indigenous are no longer invisible, and they’re becoming active in a society where Ladinos, or those of European decent, are much more powerful. Programs have been implemented in school to help the younger generations become aware of what happened. Some people today still don’t realize or believe the extent of the war, but more are learning the true reality of everything that has happened in Guatemala’s history.

Through reading books, visiting places here in Guatemala, and hearing lectures, our group is also learning more about what happened here. Sometimes it’s not easy to hear what happened. Even after being here for several weeks, it’s hard to fully understand how the violent past has affected present-day Guatemala. As I’m learning about what happened here, I’m taking the time to think about my own life, my country’s history, what my family has or hasn’t endured, but most of all, how fortunate I am. I’m grateful that I have the opportunity to live here for a few months, to study the language, but also for many more things including this country’s history. Most of all, I’m grateful for my rights, and I’m trying to figure out how to not take them for granted as I live in this country where many people are still fighting for their rights.

-Melanie Sherer

From Palestine to Israel

This past week we have been staying at Jerusalem University College (JUC) and begun studying Biblical geography, history, and archaeology. The transition from Palestine to Israel has been tough for me, but JUC is a wonderful place to be staying and I wish we could be here for more than two weeks. The JUC campus is beautiful and we have enjoyed meeting the students who are here for the semester. The purpose of our time here is to begin to understand the way the land of Israel influenced the Biblical story and the people who inhabited the land. In the first week we explored around Jerusalem, including the original City of David, Hezekiah’s tunnel, the Mount of Olives, and Mount Scopus. We also traveled to places like Shiloh, Beer-Sheva, Arad, Madaba, Qumran, En Gedi, Ashkelon, Azekah, and Beth-Shemesh… the list could go on. The volume of information we have been given is overwhelming.

The first day we arrived in Jerusalem was my birthday (as well as Jamila’s – it was awesome to get to celebrate our birthdays together!). That Sunday, I woke up in Beit Sahour and realized that about 2000 years ago Jesus was born within five miles of my house.

I have been trying to understand the significance of this – that I celebrated my birthday in the land of Jesus’ birth. On that day I saw Bethlehem and Jerusalem, where Christ was born and where he died. I am starting to realize how importance the incarnation is to my faith; how important it is to me that I could have met God on the road to Jerusalem, that he walked in the Judean hills, that he might have known the burn of muscles from hiking through Wadi Qelt. Being in this land that for some reason is important in a real, eternal, mystical, crazy way to the story of humanity and God and redemption and love and life – being here is making me love the incarnation. It makes me love that Jesus had a body that probably ached at the end of long days (maybe he helped clear fields of rocks like I did at Tent of Nations; maybe he helped his father plant some grape vines like I did that day). I love that Jesus lived in a place with thorns and that he didn’t shy away from pain. I love that I can envision my savior with the dark hair and expressive eyes of the people who live here; that when I pass an Arab man on the street I can think maybe Jesus looked like that. I have found a piece of a crazy, hard, strange religion that I love and this helps me understand the weird parts (like, for example, the story about the Benjaminites’ wife-snatching that we read at Shiloh).

It is so good to be able to read passages from the Bible in this land – especially after visiting Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. We read the story of Samuel at Shiloh, about David and Goliath at Azekah, and Christ before the crucifixion on the Mount of Olives. I think I can speak for our whole group when I say that whatever our faith looked like when we first drove into Jerusalem, we will leave changed.

A few other interesting things: we got to see the Stutzman’s boat SailingActs in Ashkelon, we were able to swim in the Dead Sea, we’ve been seeing military people everywhere, and our bus broke down one afternoon. One final thought: as we enter into the second half of our traveling and some of us are growing weary of continually packing our things up and moving out, I find it meaningful to think about how in the Bible, from Abraham to Paul, God seems to be especially present in the lives of those people who are consistently on the move.

-Emily Harnish

I cannot describe what I felt. I can only describe what I saw. Jesus’ town, Capernaum, nestled along the shore of the lake. Big rocks he might have envisioned building with, water he might have splashed in. A rainbow appeared and birds flew past as I watched the waves creating spots of white water across the lake. A scene he might have enjoyed on a winter afternoon on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, remembering the rainbow’s promise. I walked through the ruins of the synagogue. Jesus was here! And then the courtyard, stone floor and open space, the deep carvings of lines in the ground where the children played games as their parents prayed. Jesus taught here. He spent time here. I looked over the village, the stone houses built together with common walls, like city rowhouses almost. Which one was his? My eyes rested on one close to a synagogue entryway. Maybe. Again I scanned the village, looking at the basalt stones in place upon each wall. How many of these did he touch? How many did he himself- the builder- put into place? Inside each house lived a family, a family he interacted with, visited, fixed things for. My Jesus lived here. This was his chosen home base.

This past week in our field studies at JUC, I saw Jesus in a completely new light. Learning the context and how some of the things we have come to take for granted might be imprecise translations has completely changed my idea of who Jesus was. His life seems so much more concrete and real now. So much more realistic. Easier to imitate, even. After learning so much about the context of the Bible, I now look forward to reading it again with new insight. The last two weeks were intense, but definitely worth it! And now we get to enjoy free travel.

–Jamila Witmer

Palestinian Ponderings

We have reached the end of our stay in Palestine, or the Occupied Territories, or the West Bank, or the Disputed Territories, or Occupied Palestine. Many names for the same small strip of land. I have spent the last week in Beit Sahour, a Christian village near Bethlehem. The group has scattered, for evenings at least, into separate host families; I stayed with the Qumsieh family. It is rather nice to be in a home rather than a hotel. The group still reconvenes for daily escapades. We have been working with the Alternative Tourism Group, and they planned a “nice” week for us.

I use nice in a loose sense, because here in the West Bank, the fact of occupation and the forces of conflict simply cannot be ignored. On Monday, we went to Dheisha refugee camp outside Beit Sahour, and met with a man who had spent most his life within that small arena, wanting to return to his family’s land. Then we walked through the crowded streets to meet with the camps Imam, who spoke to us about Islam, and how he viewed the situation. On Tuesday, we met with the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (Arij) which supplied figures and proof of land confiscations and methods of demographic dominance. That same day we went to the town of Hebron, where settlers occupy the city center, and thereby throw the entire city into chaos. Walking through the souq, our heads were covered by a net put in place to keep settlers from tossing items down on the heads of Palestinians below. As we came out of the souq and headed to the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, we passed through three checkpoints and three additional security screenings. We ate lunch in Hebron with Hashim Al Aza, a man whose house is almost surrounded by settlements, is in a part of the city controlled by the Israeli Defense Force, and who is under constant attack. His house is attacked, his trees are chopped down, his children are attacked on the way to school and he and his wife have both been assaulted multiple times.

But despite the signs of brutality, the picture is not without hope. Hashim Al Aza is an advocate for non-violent resistance. The farm we visited on Thursday, Tent of Nations, might be the brightest beacon. The farm is situated on a hilltop; the only one in the area not controlled by settlers, and has been in the family since the Ottoman rule. The farm came under physical attack, but when that failed, the settlers switched to legal harassment. But yet they run a farm, and serve as a witness for peace. Every summer, they hold a children’s camp and teach them the way of peace. The rock by the entrance, painted in three different languages, says their message best: “We refuse to be enemies.” There is hope.

In addition to our emotion-bending trips, we also have been honored with lectures relating to Palestine. The topics have ranged from the history of modern Palestine to the Palestinian woman. They were given either at the Alternative Tourism Group’s study center, Bethlehem University, or Bethlehem Bible College. Regardless of subject or location, they were all informative and interesting.

This is not to say that our stay has been all work. We have visited most of the tourist sites: the Church of the Nativity and the Shepherd’s Field. We also saw several craft workshops, several olive wood factories and one of the Hebron glass factories. ATG also treated us to a night of Palestinian music. Beyond that, there was getting to know our hosts, which was a pleasure. As a side note, my Arabic is about on par with my four year old host cousin. Next comes two weeks of study at Jerusalem University College.

– Joel Nofziger

Visit to Tikal and reflections on the Guatemalan civil war

This weekend was a second one in a shoreline Paradise, as our group descended upon the mostly undeveloped rainforest region of Tikal in the northernmost part of Guatemala. This past week we finished our first section of intensive Spanish and we will all be moving up a level and changing around classes in the week to come. Tikal was a welcome respite before we start the new challenge of our second four week intensive Spanish courses. We walked through the rainforest and visited excavated ruins of the once thriving Mayan empire of Tikal. Huge mounds of dirt covered in trees and vegetation are scattered all over this jungle region reminding visitors that only a fraction of these ruins have been excavated in the archeological process that has been going on since the 1950s. Our guide told us that in Tikal there are more than four thousand ancient buildings right in the middle of the rainforest. We met quite a variety of flora and fauna, my personal favorites being the spider and howler monkeys we encountered munching on trees and holding conversations with each other. The proper description of a howler monkey is a mixture between a scream and a roar that continues without end for several minutes. We witnessed two of these howling at each other, and my group mates commented ¨that can’t lead to healthy family dynamics.”

As I relaxed on the lake outside of our ecological hotel (complete with hammocks and mosquito nets) I was reminded of the title of one of our cross cultural group’s books ¨Paradise in Ashes¨. This book details how not long ago in the 1970s and 80s poor Guatemalans without land migrated to another lush jungle region in the north of Guatemala to make a better life for themselves. Not long after they settled a small guerilla force brought Guatemala’s 36 year long civil war to ¨Paradise¨. We have been reading and discussing the harrowing accounts of the massacres and genocidal tactics of the Guatemalan government army during the 1980s that occurred in the northern jungle regions.

This war was one of the ¨hot¨ parts of the cold war and the Guatemalan government received full support from Reagan and the US government during the 80s to suppress the communist guerrillas who fought during the civil war. The whole war was wrapped up in the poverty and social problems of this country. An incredibly inequitable land ownership system, virtual slavery of the rural landless population, and an oppressive government that US based United Fruit Company helped install in a coup, drove many to sympathize with the guerilla movement. When I try to put myself in the shoes of the rural poor who joined the guerrilla movement I have serious problems believing that it was because they believed in Marxist ideology. Rather it was the burning of villages, destruction of crops, massive killings of civilians, ripping open of pregnant women, and rape committed by the military during the civil war that drove people to either flee the country or take up arms to defend themselves.

The label ¨communist¨ has been used here to do a great number of horrible things here in Guatemala. Priests and pastors that worked with the poor, village cooperatives, and peaceful change movements were all likely to be denounced as communist and their leaders killed. Peaceful change was impossible in this country and could get you killed, so joining the militarized guerillas did not seem like such a bad deal to many and the poor and oppressed often saw no other way than violent revolution to change their circumstances. My host dad told me that people could still use his involvement in protest movements during this time against him to this day, decades after the peace agreement.

Our group thoroughly enjoyed the jungle of Tikal. It is hard to image that only thirty years ago massive oppression and the most horrible cruelties known to man were going on in these jungle regions of Guatemala. We have been struggling with the questions like, why does God allow such brutality to go on in our world? And what is our responsibility to our neighbor in this world? Our group continues to grapple with the issues of poverty, oppression and migration that are our southern neighbor’s daily realities.

-Joel DeWald

Three reports from India

I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve had at the Sarang Center. Each of us takes Hindi class, cross-cultural psychology, and a third class each day. I, along with Kerm, Ryan, Laura, Carmen, Tessa, and Rachel, take cooking class from our Hindi teachers, Anu and Gautham, every day. I’ve really enjoyed class as we’ve learned how to make deep-fried bananas, parathas (like a tortilla), assorted teas, vegetable curry, and many other amazing dishes. Gautham is web-designer, web-developer, Hindi teacher, cooking instructor, and in his free time learns about agriculture and health, sings, and is learning Spanish, and still has time to raise his adorable bacchi (baby) Herahnya, who is less than a year old.

Aside from classes, power-outages have occupied quite a bit of time during our stay here. At first they were really awful, especially at night when the fans weren’t on and it was extremely hot with 11 guys in the same room. As the days have gone on though, most of us have grown to accept the blackouts; a process made easier by the wonderful rain we’ve had the past few days. The air cools off significantly after the downpours, and it’s nice to see precipitation after such dry weather.

-Eric Broderson

Narrow streets, barely wide enough for two people to pass. Houses the size of a master bathroom (and some of those would be much bigger, still). Clean areas to walk. Occasional bad smells. Smiling faces. Rubble. Stacked bricks and tarp.

Yesterday we had the privilege to visit two slums: one thriving and one that had just been demolished. I’ve always heard stories about people who live in extreme poverty: extreme generosity and joy amidst the struggles of life, but until one actually experiences it, it’s never a reality. While at the demolished slum, I was picked out by a girl who wanted to introduce me to her family and show me where she lived. I went to a relative’s ‘house’ first, then her own ‘house’ (stacked bricks from the rubble for walls, and tarp for a ceiling). At both places, I was given chai – her mother actually sent her son to buy chai for both myself and herself. This girl showed me her life, talked of her dreams, gave me gifts – both material and spiritual. What more could one ask for on one’s birthday, especially when the bestower of the gifts is unaware of this fact?

-Krista Townsend

On Thursday, February 10, 2011, it finally happened. We arrived at the long awaited Sarang Center. Only it wasn’t exactly the Sarang Center and it wasn’t exactly what most of the group had been looking forward to for several weeks.

During the first part of the trip when we were hopping from town to town every few days even the most spontaneous among us realized a deep desire for routine and habit. We took trains, rode rickshaws, and drove in buses from place to place finding hope in the promise of continuity offered by our two and a half week stay in the south of India. We waited for classes at the Sarang Center like we waited for Christmas break at the end of fall semester.

Several days ago after a bus trip of considerable length which included exactly one bus breakdown, we arrived at the Sarang Center. Rumors had been circulating that we weren’t actually staying at the Sarang Center and those proved true. After a brief introduction to our teachers for the various subjects we are studying including Hindi language, Yoga, and cooking among others, we climbed back into our bus for the final leg of our journey to a nearby Hotel Management College where we are staying.

I may have been the only one who was surprised by our accommodations but I don’t think that was the case as I heard several of my fellow travels exclaiming over the cold bucket showers, firm to rock solid mattresses, and cabin camp room set up.

Since the initial surprise I would say we have settled in well and are for the most part enjoying our classes and our teachers. This group of people has so far demonstrated a remarkable capacity to adjust and adapt so we have quickly made the dorm building a lively place where we all crowd into the bathroom to look at all the funny bugs we find and songs can be heard echoing through our hallway.

Despite our mildly touristy beginnings the (not) Sarang Center is providing us with many experiences that could definitely be termed “cross cultural” and I’m sure will quickly become group jokes and good stories we’ll tell all of you. So when you’re in your steaming hot shower, think of us with our buckets and laugh because that’s what we hope to be doing here.

-Katie Landis

Guatemala – a day at the beach

I can’t believe it has been seven weeks since our trip began. It has been exciting. Every day there is something new to learn to and to see.

Right now I am learning a lot of Spanish, a lot about Guatemala, and am getting to know my host family. I have a Mom, Dad, Grandma, and a sister who just turned seventeen. She is a lot of fun. I’ve never had a sister before so this a great experience. My family is very friendly, my mom is a great cook, and they all know a little bit of English. So that’s very helpful at times when my Spanish fails me.

I have never used a public bus system until now. I live about an hour away from the school and I have to take two buses to get there every day. It was a little hard to get used to at first especially when there is usually no room to move on the buses. But I am getting used to them and I don’t mind them as much anymore.

This past Saturday Ben Nyce’s host parents invited us to go to the beach for the day. Most of us were able to go and we all packed into one of the school vans and headed off. The beach was two hours away. It was beautiful and very relaxing. The sand here in Guatemala is black because of all the volcanoes in Guatemala. So it is really hot if you’re not wearing shoes. Ben’s mom, Betty, made us a delicious lunch which included “shukas”, which are otherwise known as hot dogs. On our way home from the beach we were going up a hill and the van broke down. We waited in the rain while Byron and Ben’s family tried to get it to start again. They were unsuccessful. So we had to get to Antigua which wasn’t very far away, maybe 15 miles. There we could rent another van to take us home. But we all couldn’t ride a bus to Antigua. So Ben’s mom waved down a pick-up truck and asked him he would take some of us to Antigua. He agreed. So Deanna and Dylan sat in the front of the truck and Ben, Peter, Rose, Brandon, Joel, Cody, and I got in the back of the truck. It had stopped raining thankfully and it was one awesome ride. I am sure we looked a little out of place to most people. Eventually we all arrived in Antigua safely and had dinner there. We found a van to ride home in and were on our way. It was a very exciting and memorable weekend.

So this week we are studying and preparing for our Spanish finals which are on Thursday and then on Friday we are headed for Tikal, which should be a lot of fun. On Monday we will begin our second round of Spanish classes. Blessings to you all and keep a look out for the next update. Hasta Luego!

-Audrey Hoover

Bedouin night and Petra

Although many of us were not quite ready to say goodbye to Damascus, we were all excited for what was to lie ahead in Jordan. We spent the first two days in the capital of Jordan, Amman, where we had time to explore the city and meet with the MCC representatives in Jordan. We got to hear many stories from them as they have been living in the area for a while and could give us another perspective to some of the conflict in the region. On Wednesday, we went to Petra which is probably one of the coolest places that I have ever been in. This ancient Nabatean city was completely carved out in the side of several mountains and was very well preserved. We spent all day exploring and hiking the trails in the city which led to some really beautiful lookouts of the surrounding area. In one of the churches that was carved out in the mountain, some of the group began singing some familiar hymns. This was a really powerful moment for not only the group singing, but also many other tourists that walked by and stopped to listen.

Just when we thought that we had reached the high point in the trip when we visited Petra, we traveled to Wadi-Rum to stay with the Bedouins for a night in the desert. When we got there, we unpacked our stuff and loaded up onto three jeeps that were going to take us out into the desert. We started out just driving on the road and then we picked up some speed and headed for the sand. You could tell that the Bedouin men that were driving the jeeps were having as much fun as we all were riding in the back. We were riding around for a while and had several stops so we could climb some of the rock formations and sand dunes. At one of the stops, one of the drivers motioned to Linford to hop into the driver’s seat and take it for a spin. I’m pretty sure that Linford thought we were racing and it was obvious that he was not going to settle for last! At our last stop on the jeep tour, we climbed up onto one of the rocks and watched the sunset. It was a great end to the jeep rides. We then got back to the camp and had a delicious dinner followed by some singing and dancing. Once again, Linford didn’t fail to provide the entertainment. In the morning, we ate breakfast and set out for our camel rides. I was a bit anxious about this as I heard that camels can be very unpredictable and not the most comfortable. We all had a lot of fun and found out that both of those rumors are correct.

The week we spent in Jordan was full of adventure and many memories. We were also very fortunate to have such an awesome tour guide in Jordan as he was very willing to answer any questions that we had (and also a lot of fun). We are back in Amman for the night before setting out to Palestine Sunday morning. We are all looking forward to what is to come with a week of home stays in Palestine.

-Steve Burkholder

Mayan spirituality and culture

This week our theme was Mayan spirituality and culture. We started out by hearing some of the history of the Mayans and how they’ve been influenced by Western ideas and practices. Even the people who do still practice Mayan spirituality have incorporated other doctrines and traditions. I never really knew much about Mayan spirituality, but something that stood out to me from what we learned was that they call their god Ukux Caj, meaning “heart of heaven” or “what is most important in all that there is.”

Later in the week, we visited the Mayan Language Institute, an organization that is working to preserve the 22 different Mayan languages spoken here in Guatemala. The man who presented there talked about how language is such an integral part of one’s worldview, but how many Mayans feel pressured to abandon their heritage and conform to the more prestigious ladino culture, including the use of Spanish. In some ways it reminds me of the legislation in my home state, Indiana, that is promoting the use of only English.

Over the weekend we took a trip to Chichicastenango, stopping to see some Mayan ruins along the way. The absolute peace of the ruins made it hard to imagine the war and conquest that once took place there. In Chichi, we stayed at the Ruth and Naomi Artisan Cooperative, one of the suppliers of absolutely beautiful bags and textiles to Ten Thousand Villages. We also visited a widows’ cooperative further out in the country where they weave and embroider scarves, traditional clothing, purses, belts, and so much more. The sheer amount of color was almost as amazing as the fact that these women have found a way to successfully support their community.

We wrapped up the week by attending a Catholic mass in Chichi. This was just one example of how Mayan culture has blended with other influences. Certain parts of the service are done in K’iche, the Mayan language of the region, and there are various altars around the church that have significance for Mayan believers. After church, we were set loose in the market. The colors, the maze of vendors, the persistent kids who followed us around, the people trying to shove through the crowd, and the bargaining made for a whole different experience. Each purchase felt like a victory, but at the same time I couldn’t help but wonder if the vendors were really getting a fair wage. After a full weekend, it was a relief to finally come back home.

-Ruth Maust

The final week in Syria

Sa’lam Everyone!

Sadly we had to say goodbye to Syria this week. We had our last Arabic class Wednesday where we had our final exam which was just a short conversation with our teachers. I’m happy to say that we all passed the class and are now at level one. It’s sad to be leaving this place where I feel comfortable and semi- at home but I am excited for the next parts of our semester.

One very exciting thing that happened this week is that we all went to a Haman or public bath. The guys (including Linford) went Sunday with Ben the MCC rep and the girls (including Janet) went Tuesday with Amber, Ben’s wife. It was really fun and very relaxing. Okay, so this is what goes on, and it’s basically the same for men and women except the men’s hamam is bigger and the attendants aren’t as nice lol. We got the all inclusive package which included towels, shampoo, soap, the stream room, water area, a scrub, a massage, and then tea afterwards. First you sit in the sauna/stream room for awhile and then you go to the water area. There they turned the steam on also and there are basins with hot and cold faucets and basically you just pour hot and cold water or a mixture on yourself and sit in the steam for while to loosen up your dead skin. It was really relaxing and felt amazing. After that, whenever you were ready, you went and got scrubbed; this is the fun part, kinda. What happens is you lay on the floor and they go at you with a pad thing that feels like sandpaper and just scrub all the dead skin off. It hurt a little but wasn’t as bad as I expected and was well worth it. Once you’re scrubbed you wash yourself and hair and get all nice and clean. Then you go and have your massage which was basically like a full body rub for 5 min. Then you get towels and go sit on the benches in the sitting area and dry off while drinking tea. 🙂 While the girls were in the hamam there was a girl there who was getting married in 2 days. She had her mom and bridal party there with her. Usually brides will go to a hamam with their bridal party a few days before the wedding. They bring food in and will spend all day in there having a party. It turns into an all day spa day basically.

On Thursday the group traveled to Aleppo which was a 5 hr bus ride from Damascus. In Aleppo we went to the Citadel which is a castle from before 200 AD, basically really old. It was huge and had an awesome moat on the outside. You could see a lot of how it would have looked from how the ruins were arranged. We also went to several Mosques around the area. The next day we headed to Palmyra. Before we got to Palmyra we went to St.Simon Cathedral. St. Simon is a saint who sat on a column for 40 years teaching people about God, and the cathedral was built around his column after he left. It consists of 4 separate churches, and was very well kept. After that we went on to this huge Citadel called the Krak De Chealivers. This castle was just amazing, really well restored and in good shape. It was so huge and the outside wall was basically all intact. There was a wall that surrounded the castle and then the castle itself. The castle was surrounded by 13 towers. You could see the places where they dump hot oils down on enemies. It was great, better than the one in Aleppo. On Saturday we went to the Palmyra museum which had lots of artifacts recovered from the old city. Everything was very detailed and must have taken forever to make. Then we went to the temple of Bel which was huge, and also saw some tombs; tower tombs and underground tombs which are just as their name says in a tower or under the ground. After that we then toured the old city of Palmyra; it was really spread out and I was surprised by how much of the city remains or has been uncovered. You can see the main arch where caravans and camels traveled through which was lined by pillars many of which are still there.

As a way of reflecting on my time in Syria I created a list of some of the top experiences or things from this past month. So here they are in no particular order.

1. Food
2.The people
3.Sweets
4.Hamam
5.Berlitz language study
6.Shopping in the Souk
7.The Old City of Damascus
8.Kamal- our cook at St.Elias Monastery where we stayed
9.Traveling to old archeological sites

-Olivia Nussbaum

EMU Intercultural Learning