Today is my final day at La Union! It has gone by incredibly fast! La Union had a little celebration for us that consisted of sharing stories and thanking our teachers. Now its hard to believe Deanna and I are done. We only have to finish saying good bye to a few people not at school and pack! Wow!
Hoy es nuestro dia final en La Union! He ido muy rápido! Para nuestro ultimo dia, La Union y los estudiantes compartimos historias de nuestro tiempo aquí y dimos gracias a nuestros maestros. Tomé muchas fotos de mi maestra y otros empleados en La Union. Es increíble que es mi ultimo día en la escuela. Ahora Deanna y yo necesitamos alistar nuestras maletas! Es inceíble tan r´pido el tiempo puede ir!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
12 Things Learned
12 Things I Have Learned This Semester
1. I have learned again that I need to go to God in prayer before I ask others advice. Through all the family problems that arose it came to my attention that I wasn´t praying about my problems, I was going to directly to people around. It is not a bad thing to ask others advice, but not first. It was hard to do for me at times because it is so easy to talk to poeple you can see and hear what they think right away. I learned to take the time to "hear" God and be patient in waiting for His response and revealing the answer to me. Of course, it is something I still have to work on.
2. I relearned I can do without a lot of stuff. It is possible to live three months or more with a week´s worth of clothes that consists of 7 shirts and 2 jeans. Yeah, sometimes I got bored of wearing the same shirt week after week, but who notices? I have plans to go through my closet at home to and get rid of the stuff I can do without. It´s amazing how much stuff we have in the States.
3. I learned another culture. There is some discrimination between Ladino´s (indian and Spanish) and Indians. This culture is very family oriented as well. I was trying to look for differences between here and other countries I have gone to. Not much. The Spanish is easy to understand here than in Peru, I think. It is a rather warm and friendly culture.
4. I have learned to go with my first feeling and make a fast decision. After 9 weeks my host family was having some problems within the family. It was better to change houses, so I went the same day to La Union to request a different family. Since it was an emergency to change quickly, I was put into a temporary family, then into a second host family by the end of the week. After a week I saw my former host family and everything was back to normal. Thank God for helping the family resolve their problem, at least temporarily.
5. I have learned a lot more Spanish! I finally learned the Subjuntive which I had no clue what that was a few weeks ago. I am getting more comfortable talking in Spanish. Since I have been living with Deanna I have also learned how to cut into the conversations instead of waiting for a pause to add my two cents worth on the topic. (Deanna is a talker and takes over conversations)
6. I experienced how to celebrate Holy Week in another poart of the world. I wrote about that in a previous blog post.
7. I learned how to make a sawdust carpet with La Union during Holy Week.
8. I learned that Catholics pay to carry the float during Semana Santa, and it is not cheap!
9. I experienced a little more about other religions such as Jehovah´s Witness and Pentecostal (carismatic worship). Qhuite an experience!
10. I learned how to ride crowded buses to Ciudad Vieja to work in my volunteer school and I learned how to take the right bus through experience. That is another story!
11. I learned a little about the guatemalan educational system. School here is expensive. High school is more like college because the students take specific courses related to the career they want. Most students can teach in elementary school by the time they graduate from high school, so many teach during the day and study their career choice in the evenings.
12. I have learned to like more fruits and vegetables. My new host mom cooks a lot of zuccini and different types of squash and veggies, and she cooks them differently so they have lots of flavor! I am also served fruit every morning. I now like pineapple, papaya, brocoli, and other vegetables. wow!
Sorry I have not uploaded pictures of Holy week yet. The computers here at the internet cafe is not allowing me to upload them on here. So I guess you all can look for them next week. I can´t wait to to get back, but at the same time I will miss it here. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers!
1. I have learned again that I need to go to God in prayer before I ask others advice. Through all the family problems that arose it came to my attention that I wasn´t praying about my problems, I was going to directly to people around. It is not a bad thing to ask others advice, but not first. It was hard to do for me at times because it is so easy to talk to poeple you can see and hear what they think right away. I learned to take the time to "hear" God and be patient in waiting for His response and revealing the answer to me. Of course, it is something I still have to work on.
2. I relearned I can do without a lot of stuff. It is possible to live three months or more with a week´s worth of clothes that consists of 7 shirts and 2 jeans. Yeah, sometimes I got bored of wearing the same shirt week after week, but who notices? I have plans to go through my closet at home to and get rid of the stuff I can do without. It´s amazing how much stuff we have in the States.
3. I learned another culture. There is some discrimination between Ladino´s (indian and Spanish) and Indians. This culture is very family oriented as well. I was trying to look for differences between here and other countries I have gone to. Not much. The Spanish is easy to understand here than in Peru, I think. It is a rather warm and friendly culture.
4. I have learned to go with my first feeling and make a fast decision. After 9 weeks my host family was having some problems within the family. It was better to change houses, so I went the same day to La Union to request a different family. Since it was an emergency to change quickly, I was put into a temporary family, then into a second host family by the end of the week. After a week I saw my former host family and everything was back to normal. Thank God for helping the family resolve their problem, at least temporarily.
5. I have learned a lot more Spanish! I finally learned the Subjuntive which I had no clue what that was a few weeks ago. I am getting more comfortable talking in Spanish. Since I have been living with Deanna I have also learned how to cut into the conversations instead of waiting for a pause to add my two cents worth on the topic. (Deanna is a talker and takes over conversations)
6. I experienced how to celebrate Holy Week in another poart of the world. I wrote about that in a previous blog post.
7. I learned how to make a sawdust carpet with La Union during Holy Week.
8. I learned that Catholics pay to carry the float during Semana Santa, and it is not cheap!
9. I experienced a little more about other religions such as Jehovah´s Witness and Pentecostal (carismatic worship). Qhuite an experience!
10. I learned how to ride crowded buses to Ciudad Vieja to work in my volunteer school and I learned how to take the right bus through experience. That is another story!
11. I learned a little about the guatemalan educational system. School here is expensive. High school is more like college because the students take specific courses related to the career they want. Most students can teach in elementary school by the time they graduate from high school, so many teach during the day and study their career choice in the evenings.
12. I have learned to like more fruits and vegetables. My new host mom cooks a lot of zuccini and different types of squash and veggies, and she cooks them differently so they have lots of flavor! I am also served fruit every morning. I now like pineapple, papaya, brocoli, and other vegetables. wow!
Sorry I have not uploaded pictures of Holy week yet. The computers here at the internet cafe is not allowing me to upload them on here. So I guess you all can look for them next week. I can´t wait to to get back, but at the same time I will miss it here. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers!
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Holy Week
Holy Week is a super big deal here. I will try my best to tell you all about it. Pictures will be uploaded soon.
sunday morning deanna and I followed a street drama based on Jesus´life here on Earth. WE didn´t get to see all of it, but we saw Jesus´baptism and few miracles. I have a better sense of how crowded it must have been around Jesus because of all the people following this drama. It was hard to see and take pictures. Yes, there were a lot of people following Jesus every where he went and many bumped not only into each other but into him as well! For me, It brought his life into a little better understanding.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I did not do much besides school in the mornings. I did go jogging because the streets weren´t too bad. By Wednesday I had to cut my runnning in hallf because of too many people in the streets.
Thursday after classes I took pictures of a sawdust carpet made by vecinos outside my front door. I also took pictures of rugs made of flowers and pine needles. Some are pretty creative! Then I helped La Union make a sawdust carpet in front of the school. We worked from 12:30 until 7;30! I took pictures of all the steps to make a rug too. Then I went home to rest a little. By 10:30 the processional went over our carpet. A lot of work destroyed in a matter of minutes. At about 11pm I went home to get some sleep. Deanna and I were planning on seeing some carpets at 4am on Good Friday!
Good Friday- Deanna and I woke up at 4am to see the carpets before the processional destroyed them. We saw a cool one made out of carved fruits. Very creative! We even found the processional...not hard to do...There were tons of people and little light so my pictures from that early in the morning are not that good. I went out in the afternoon to take more pictures. Since I had tons of the float of Christ carrying the cross I decided to focus on takiong pictures of the men carrying the float...especially their faces. Yep, it is true, the face can tell you a lot. It was kind of fun trying to get pictures of people´s faces without being right in their face. haha. There were also men dressed as Roman Soliders, two robbers, and pharisees. It was pretty interesting. By three the men carrying the float changed from a purple robe to a black robe because Christ was crucified. There were different floats which I did not go out to see because I was exhausted! There was also a drama about the crucificion which I missed because I lost track of time trying to get good pictures.
Saturday- At 4pm there is another processional with just women carying the Virgen Mary. She is going to pay her respects at Jesus´tomb. It is a small processional, not as big as the ones yesterday.
Sunday- Deanna and I are heading to Cerro de La Cruz which is a hill that overlooks Antigua. There we will be attending church celebrating Christ´s resurrection. Then we will be attending another church service in the church building later that morning. We have plans to eat out at a restaurant then we will probably spend the rest of the day in bed! Its been a long weekend, literally.
The processionals have been interesting. A lot of the festivies around here are more for show and because its fun. I don´t think much thought goes into why we have this time besudes seeing Christ carrying his cross. Not much emphasis on His resurrection at all. It has reminded me consistently this week though what Christ has done for me! He died for us and took away our sins. All we have to do is accept that gift. He rose again because He conquered death. I also see it as we know we serve a true God because He is the ONLY God who has died and conquered death by rising again three days later! Wow! Happy Easter everyone!
sunday morning deanna and I followed a street drama based on Jesus´life here on Earth. WE didn´t get to see all of it, but we saw Jesus´baptism and few miracles. I have a better sense of how crowded it must have been around Jesus because of all the people following this drama. It was hard to see and take pictures. Yes, there were a lot of people following Jesus every where he went and many bumped not only into each other but into him as well! For me, It brought his life into a little better understanding.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I did not do much besides school in the mornings. I did go jogging because the streets weren´t too bad. By Wednesday I had to cut my runnning in hallf because of too many people in the streets.
Thursday after classes I took pictures of a sawdust carpet made by vecinos outside my front door. I also took pictures of rugs made of flowers and pine needles. Some are pretty creative! Then I helped La Union make a sawdust carpet in front of the school. We worked from 12:30 until 7;30! I took pictures of all the steps to make a rug too. Then I went home to rest a little. By 10:30 the processional went over our carpet. A lot of work destroyed in a matter of minutes. At about 11pm I went home to get some sleep. Deanna and I were planning on seeing some carpets at 4am on Good Friday!
Good Friday- Deanna and I woke up at 4am to see the carpets before the processional destroyed them. We saw a cool one made out of carved fruits. Very creative! We even found the processional...not hard to do...There were tons of people and little light so my pictures from that early in the morning are not that good. I went out in the afternoon to take more pictures. Since I had tons of the float of Christ carrying the cross I decided to focus on takiong pictures of the men carrying the float...especially their faces. Yep, it is true, the face can tell you a lot. It was kind of fun trying to get pictures of people´s faces without being right in their face. haha. There were also men dressed as Roman Soliders, two robbers, and pharisees. It was pretty interesting. By three the men carrying the float changed from a purple robe to a black robe because Christ was crucified. There were different floats which I did not go out to see because I was exhausted! There was also a drama about the crucificion which I missed because I lost track of time trying to get good pictures.
Saturday- At 4pm there is another processional with just women carying the Virgen Mary. She is going to pay her respects at Jesus´tomb. It is a small processional, not as big as the ones yesterday.
Sunday- Deanna and I are heading to Cerro de La Cruz which is a hill that overlooks Antigua. There we will be attending church celebrating Christ´s resurrection. Then we will be attending another church service in the church building later that morning. We have plans to eat out at a restaurant then we will probably spend the rest of the day in bed! Its been a long weekend, literally.
The processionals have been interesting. A lot of the festivies around here are more for show and because its fun. I don´t think much thought goes into why we have this time besudes seeing Christ carrying his cross. Not much emphasis on His resurrection at all. It has reminded me consistently this week though what Christ has done for me! He died for us and took away our sins. All we have to do is accept that gift. He rose again because He conquered death. I also see it as we know we serve a true God because He is the ONLY God who has died and conquered death by rising again three days later! Wow! Happy Easter everyone!
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