Guatemala Day 2

4 August 2008

We started the day with our third meal of black beans and eggs. Yesterday for breakfast, last night for dinner, and today again. The difference was the eggs-scrambled, with potato, and boiled with a sauce. After breakfast, we had devotions together. Justin lead us in a devotion on one of the names for God.

We met with Rob to discuss our next few days. We will be driven out tomorrow at 6:15am and then get on the trail. Our goal is to reach out hosts before it starts to rain in the afternoon. Rob's biggest suggestion was for the ''single'' women--"Don't fall in love with Cesar!" Cesar is going with us on tomorrow on our trek and, according to Rob, he's a real hunk and we'll be more prone to fall in love on the mountain at the high altitude.

We took off from our home away from home this morning and crossed the street to catch a bus. Rob actually flagged down a driver he knows and we went to Chamelco where there is a Mennonite Middle school. It is for the Q'eqchi peoples. A few years ago, there were only 9 girls and 50 boys. Now MCC has invested and invited many more and there are now 51 girls and 49 boys. They has been a new girls dorm and they have an amazing garden that has provided scholarship work for the student and has provided a market value of 170,000 Quetzal (local money). The purchase price for this would have been 5-6 times more. MCC wants the school to be close to self-sufficient. Tonight we are going back to see a presentation by the kids.

We took the bus back to Coban and stopped at the first church built in the Alta Verapaz. It was built in the 1500s and was built on a Mayan worship. In Coban, there was a big festival going on. We went to the town square and Rob explained that the 4 "powers" of the city--church, city, police/army, and financial/economic. He talked to us about the history of Guatemala which involves alignments and fallings out between these powers. We watched a dance of folks dressed in the deer, monkey, bird outfits. Apparently, Walt Disney really like they Mayan monkey mask and it is what he based the world-famous Mickey on. It was similar ro the old black & white Disney comics.

We went to a restaurant that is normally closed on Mondays, but was opened because of the festival. We had mushroom soup, horchata, rice, salad, and something like salsbury steak. For dessert we had a carmel crepe.

After lunch we went to a cafe/restaurant and heard Mayan stories from Juan Sup, the pastor of Iglesia Shalom in Chemalco and the vice pesident of the Mennonite church in Guatemala. According to legend, the Tul Taka (God of heaven above and earth below) gave corn in the mountain and it was found between the earth by the leaf-cutter ant. The ant planted the seed and when it grew up, a fox ate the cob and then pooped the corn out lower on the mountain and that was where the Mayan folks got corn. There were also tales about the lands of the Alta Verapaz (where we are). He was an amazing story teller. The Mayans consider themselves red and that red is beauty.

With both the stories and the afternoon rain over, we are heading out for the late afternoon to pack and get ready for our trek and the progam tonight.