Halfway through and the hardest of hills behind

Oct. 8, last week, marked the halfway point of my service and training. I have just 1 year and 1 month that remain officially. As I have said before, if I had to leave right now, I would be satisfied. I would feel happy knowing that I had already made a difference in people’s lives here, albeit small, and that they, the people down here, have made a difference in my life. As the Jesuit Volunteer Corps slogan used to be, I feel too as though I am “ruined for life.” How exactly I am or will be “ruined,” when I get done, that is to be seen. I get frustrated not knowing what my next step will be afterward. I am the type of person that wants to prepare and focus on something to get really good at it. I know what I am doing only benefits me, but I still cant help but feel I am wandering, whether because I am lost, exploring, or both.

The halfway point also marks the arrival of new trainees in the food security program, the program in which I am. They actually came in August as I did last year. Two of them paid a visit to two of us here in Jalapa, one to my site and the other to the other volunteer who lives close by. Just like I had done, they came to see what being a volunteer was like. The first day, we decided to make it a “weekend day” to give the trainees a little break (I remembered how it was when we were trainees). But before you say “Geeeez, that must be nice to just not work whenever you want”, you should know that yes, it is nice to be able to plan out your work schedule. Instead of working that Thursday, we worked Saturday.
So that Thursday, we went to the ecological park here. The owner, a very enthusiastic and innovative man, dropped everything when we asked him if the park were open. He was with us the entire day instead of working at his home where we had found him. We did, somewhat unexpectedly, all the high cables in the forest (I forget what they are called in English, but we used a harness and wheels that hooked onto the cables to glide down) and the wooden bridges like you see in Indiana Jones movies. Afterward, since it was actually the first time that I had got a chance to meet Randolfo, the owner (I had actually talked with him over the phone a few times to organize help for a kid who had a hugely swollen tongue that barely made it possible for him to eat and gave him the threat of choking to death. I believe it was some sort of tumor or cancer.), he showed us around his yard, which consisted of several “running” vehicles that needed just “a little work”. The masses of metal included a ford bus, land rovers, a ’59 datsun, and something that looked like it could have been something similar to jeep wrangler its day. All these things, he brought down here from trips to the US driving to and from Guatemala through Mexico. I got overly excited when he offered to take us two volunteers back home when we complete our 2 years. For me, that would be an amazing trip. I just don’t want to get too excited though since a lot can happen in 1 year and 1 month.

If I can get myself in the routine of it, I am going to try to write something down every 1 or 2 or 3 days, and then post those things on my blog every 2 weeks. It probably won’t help to make my blog very unified, but it might give a different perspective that I don’t normally write about.

Last week, the parents of the volunteer, who lives in my site and is sadly ending his service next month, came down to visit his site. I took some time to go around with them through the site and see some of the local sites, like the lake that his near by. The first night that they came in though, the dad completely, absolutely surprised me. He told me something that later on we would do that I thought would never be possible to do in Guatemala, just absolutely impossible. I thought the only place that I could ever think about doing this was back home, exclusively with my family. I had not even known that it was done in other parts of Michigan, let alone other parts of the country. What he told me was, well, here is how it went. I asked the volunteer’s parents if they had ever played cards and if they wanted to play knowing that they are quite a few good 4-player games. They named off a few, and then suddenly the dad spurted out the impossible. He knew how to play pedro! Pedro. Pedro, I could not believe what I was hearing. When he explained the game, sure enough, it was the same game. Easter hallelujahs went off in my head and I immediately gave him a big hug. The next 3 nights we played pedro (They said they really wanted to play as well, but I think had they not wanted to, I probably would have forced at least one game) and the competition was good, just like back at home. So basically, that was my big surprise for me of the month, or maybe of the year. Pedro in Guatemala. I guess anything can happen down here.