Culture Shock Week

Once again I sit here at Café Barista and try to formulate my thoughts into words to properly describe what I have seen and the emotions I have felt in the past week.

This week was culture shock week. I must admit I have never been this stressed, more uncomfortable and insecure than I have in my entire life. Fear of the unknown had run its course and I broke several times this week. As the week started BJ and I had begun to plan out the next couple of weeks. As he described the places we would go and some precautions to take, my fear just overwhelmed me. I am a plan A, plan B, and Plan C, type of person. I am more comfortable and feel more in control when I am aware of all aspects and have time to weigh all decisions before making them or at least know how I will react when problems arise. Being here there is no way to do that nor is it smart either. My fear is not too much of being robbed but more of traffic accidents and the pure terror of the unknown. Being robbed is something that I feel I have a little more control over. It is one person against me whereas when we are driving it is me Vs. hundreds of cars! Cars and tour sized bus’ filled with more than the maximum amount of people that should be allowed coming within a mere 2 inches of our doors. All the while we must stay aware of the little motorcycles, with 2+ people on them, zooming in and out of all the cars, riding in between lanes with their little horns that you hear when usually it is almost too late. Pray for me on this as I know traffic and the driving style here will not change.

Here, everything runs by time or traffic. Traffic and time are openly at war and you just happen to be caught up in the middle of it. Your opinion does not matter and neither time nor traffic is on your side. However, you must drive to get to wherever you are going and therefore have no choice but to take part in the whirlwind of chaos. BJ has been so observant and knows when it is time to push me a little more or time to call it a day and let me wind down. My steady reassurance is that everything I do each day is never left to chance. Everything in my path is “Oked” by God.

The Oasis Home Visit

The Oasis Visit was this week an a welcomed one at that. As BJ and I arrive to a secluded area of San Lucas there lay the massive doors of the Oasis. As we waited for someone to let us in I looked around. The walls were at least 15-20ft tall and topping off the walls were two rows of barbed wire with electric cables running alongside them. These wall were obviously built to keep the unwanted out and the wanted in. the doors opened and we were greeted by Kimberly Glick. She is an intern working through C.A.M. at the Oasis. The Oasis is a girl’s home that have about 40 girls currently living there. The girls were all taken by the police from abusive families. Some were only beaten and other were beaten and sexually abused by a family member. As Kimberly began the tour I was shocked by the American style living. There were obviously some Guatemalan aspects but the well manicured green grass, large trampoline, basketball court, soccer field with netted goals all said American run facility. Now, these girls have gone through a lot in their short time of living (the oldest being 20 and youngest being 2) and do deserve to know there is a better life than what they were going through at home but I think there is a fine line to this. The girls are being taught at a school there on the property including English. There homes and play are all done on the property. There is no need for them to leave unless it is for a court hearing. I worry about the assimilation process these girls will have to deal with once they are no longer able to stay at the Oasis.

The homes are run similar to the World orphans model in that they have 10-12 girls per home and also have a live in house mom to help and aid them. They have found that the sibling living is very hard to deal with in that most of the younger girls will only listen to their older sisters and not the house mothers. Therefore, they believe separation is the best thing for both children. As I asked Kimberly what some of the girls stories were my heart broke as she told me the story of a perious 2 year old girls being stabbed in the arms and legs of their father. The same little girl who would reach out to touch me as we talked. Who smiled at me as if these things had never happened. Then another story of a girl being sent out to collect money for her parents and when she continued to return with not enough her parents would be upset and often angry. The girl then decided that to come up with the right amount of money to please her parents we go and sell her body to filthy men. This girl BJ sat next to and she openly accepted his tutoring in math with a grateful smile. Another of a pair of sisters who would watch as their father repeatedly would rape their mother in front of them and often times the eldest of the two girls. All of the girls currently still have families and therefore are not considered orphans. Because they are not orphans they are required to have court dates in which parents attend and are asked to right their wrongs so the girl can come home or permanently stay in the Oasis. In which case all the girls know are the terror of returning home to the Americanized style living which could be considered as detrimental to their assimilation.

There are no father figures at the home and my fear is that as these naive girls age out of the system and are no longer able to stay at the oasis the first “nice” man to come along they will attach themselves to and return to the circle of abusive, negligent, and unfaithful husbands who desire for their wives to birth their children and make their food. Pray that the Lord opens up doors for the male leadership and the girls discernment above all else.

City Cemetery & City Dump Part 2

As we made our way through one of the gravesite rows we came to the edge of the cemetery and my eyes tried to grasp another form of death, decay and destruction- The City Dump. The City Dump is a mass of land that only can be described as a canyon. This canyon is an endless pit with one way in and one way out. However, this cruel canyon was home to many of the homeless and destitute. Due to the landslide last year, many of the people living in there were injured, killed and left missing. The city has forbidden living inside the dump and has begun to take necessary precautions to prevent another tragedy. The lingering scent is not as bone chilling as is seeing the thousands of black vultures swooping behind the bulldozers and cover the women, men, and some children who are also walking behind the bulldozer hoping the machine will turn over some food, clothing, or anything worth what they would deem as salvageable or will attack the garbage trucks as they attempt to sweep the trash out of their trucks and trying to avoid hitting one of the people below hoping to find “fresh” food and clothing.

As we looked out over the dump on the edge of the cemetery BJ pointed out a wooden coffin that sat a few yards below us amongst the heaps of trash, uprooted trees and groupings of rocks. What a stark contrast it made against two types of decay. These two places are both storing “trash”. Some trash is more valuable but in which location is up to the individuals in each place. And at which point does a piece of matter become useless trash?

Imagine taking your daughter to the cemetery to see your mother’s grave and as you walk up to the gravesite it stands empty, the plague missing, and the hollow sense of your mother’s body no longer being kept safe is as hollow as the tomb in which you placed her at her death. As short distance away from you your young daughter bends over and starts to play with some trash she picked up. Confused and angry of your mother’s missing remains, you look over to your daughter and find that she is drawing circles in the sand with a piece of trash. You walk over to take it out of her hand and the sun hits the piece of trash in her hand and metal reflects into your eyes. You tenderly take the piece out of your daughters hand and look into the medal plaque you had placed on your mother’s grave the day you buried her. You look around where you both now stand and see shattered concrete bashed and mutilated by a shovel and a small attempt to scrape the remains off the edge of the cemetery into the city dump. Heart aching, you walk over to the edge of the cemetery, daughter in hand, and see the coffin you laid your mother in cast carelessly into the slanting belly of the city dump, bulldozers shoveling the heaps and mounds of trash in the background, the clear sky clouded by the mass amounts of buzzards swooping in to perch close to where your mother’s coffin now lays. “Abuela?” (Grandma?) your child innocently asks as she looks at you… “No, chica” (no little one) you say “solamente otra pieza de basura.” (Just another piece of trash)

My intention for this post is not to disgust you or make you think I am against the tradition of honoring the dead. My hope is that as you become aware and pray for the hearts and souls of the people who daily live out their life thinking they are going to heaven because they honor their dead, worship and pray to dead people. My desire is to give them the hope that death has been conquered and that the treasure they seek is in heaven not in earthly traditions or false regions. Treasure is our salvation and that can never be chiseled out or cast out as trash...

Matthew 6:19-21 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.