{"id":871,"date":"2011-02-08T21:25:24","date_gmt":"2011-02-09T01:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crosscultural\/?p=871"},"modified":"2011-02-08T21:25:24","modified_gmt":"2011-02-09T01:25:24","slug":"report-from-guatemala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/2011\/02\/08\/report-from-guatemala\/","title":{"rendered":"Report from Guatemala"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mexico\/Guatemala<\/a>This past week has been a nice chance to settle into the routine of our lives here in Guatemala for the next while.\u00a0 Returning to the houses of our host families every night finally feels a little bit more like home, using the camionetas<\/em> (public buses) is not as daunting a task as a week ago, and Spanish classes are off to a great start.\u00a0 Every morning we study Spanish for 4 hours, and then after lunch our activities vary from day to day.\u00a0 Here is a glimpse of our weekly schedule:<\/p>\n

Mondays are our free afternoons, a nice chance to email home or catch up on that homework we put off until too late.\u00a0 Tuesdays we take a class (in English) about topics pertinent to life in Guatemala.\u00a0 Last week Professor H\u00e9ctor Caste\u00f1eda took us on a quick trip through Guatemalan history, from the pre-colonial life of indigenous Mayans through the 30 year long civil war to current issues of continued structural oppression.\u00a0 We spend our Wednesday afternoons in worship, prayer and reflection on our experience.\u00a0 Thursdays we take a field trip! This past Thursday we visited the National Cemetery, and then visited the city dump literally right in the cemetery\u2019s back yard.\u00a0 What a contrast between the grand mausoleums of the wealthy, the wall of niches for the poorer, and the poorest working in the landfill in back.\u00a0 Finally, Fridays are a chance to check-in with the larger group to discuss the difficulties of life in another culture and the adventures we have had.<\/p>\n

\"Cody<\/a> Our weekends vary, but we usually take a trip somewhere.\u00a0 This past week our destination was nearby Volc\u00e1n de Pacaya, one of the active volcanoes in the area.\u00a0 The hike confirmed for many of us that perhaps we have been neglecting regular exercise, but the beautiful views certainly made up for it.\u00a0 Unfortunately, for safety reasons, we didn\u2019t encounter any molten lava (in previous years this was a regular occurrence, but since a recent eruption eliminated the path to the rim of the volcano, current tours take a different, safer route), which disappointed some of us.\u00a0\u00a0 To make up for it, we brought marshmallows and enjoyed a mid-hike snack of volcano-roasted marshmallows.\u00a0 The vents in the ground provided the ideal distribution of heat around the marshmallow, making for perfectly toasted sugary-gooeyness.<\/p>\n

Even though we have a lot of fun climbing volcanoes and applying our developing Spanish skills, this trip is also a sobering one.\u00a0 Almost every day I am reminded, either in class or on a field trip or in an assigned passage I read, of the oppression that is common throughout Latin America, and the gross human-rights violations that have happened and still continue through today.\u00a0 Even more difficult to grapple with is the part that my own country has played in the drama of Latin America.\u00a0 In the words of the late Catholic priest Henri Nouwen, \u201cLooking at the movements of the U.S. from the perspective of this poor, helpless, and dependant country is a quite different experience than looking at it from within the United States\u201d.\u00a0 Though he was writing from his experiences in Bolivia 30 years ago, his words have an eerie applicability to the situation in Guatemala as well.\u00a0 And though the civil war formally ended in 1996, it is difficult to learn that the peace accords are selectively applied, and many Guatemalans still deal with racism and extreme poverty.<\/p>\n

We left the border between the United States and Mexico just two weeks ago, and yet here we are in Guatemala, facing even more subtle borders.\u00a0 As we continue to immerse ourselves in the culture here, may we discover how we can cross these borders.\u00a0 Perhaps then we will discover what it means to love our Guatemalan neighbors.<\/p>\n

-Brandon Waggy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past week has been a nice chance to settle into the routine of our lives here in Guatemala for the next while.\u00a0 Returning to the houses of our host families every night finally feels a little bit more like home, using the camionetas (public buses) is not as daunting a task as a week … Continue reading Report from Guatemala<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4003],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guatemala-usmexico-border-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}