what I actually *did* in Guatemala (plus first pictures)
Okay, so all the things that happened in Guatemala and all the stories are too much for one post. I figured what I can do is post packets of information for all of you in the ether and hopefully I will get most everything important out of the way.
What you can do to help this along is to ask tons of questions to be answered in the next post. :)
The first major question I was asked was by my Uncle Burt and, while I do not remember the exact words, I do remember my answer and the general meaning of the question.
Q: What was the biggest thing you gained from the trip?"
A: I was shocked at how much God cares about what makes me happy. I cannot really go into much detail about it... but what I can say is God took me on a whirlwind ride of encouragement, friendship, and confirmation. A lot of the things I have been dissatisfied with in my own life were seriously addressed in Guatemala and after I dissect everything that occurred I may feel comfortable talking about it. A small hint: my life is not currently on the right path. It is close, very close, and I have the means to change it. What I plan to do about it is the part I need to think over first.
So those are the kind of questions I will begin to start fielding. Until then, here two of the most basic questions:
Q: What did you do in Guatemala?
A:
Here are the dates and locations of everything as best I can remember. For those who were on the trip, feel free to correct me. The times are also approximate, and usually when things were supposed to happen. Charismatic Church Time dictates that everything is roughly a half-hour later than usual, Airport Time dictates that it is either on time or late in one hour increments, Latin America Time rounds everything to "Morning", "Afternoon", "Evening", or "Tomorrow".
3-26 (Sunday):
1600*: The majority of the team met at CCF (our church) and we then headed into Dallas to spend the night so we wouldn't have to drive in early Monday morning.
3-27 (Monday):
0330*: I received a call from Jim Scott saying I should be getting up about now. We then trucked over to the airport and started the process of getting everything organized.
0530: I left DFW on my way to Atlanta.
0830**: I arrived in Atlanta, my first time in Georgia. Wee.
1015: Left Atlanta and will soon be leaving the United States for the second time in my life.
1257: Arrived in Guatemala.
Afternoon:
After waiting for the rest of the afternoon flights to come in, most of the team headed straight out to Antigua. Melissa, Caleb, and I stayed behind so Melissa could get in touch with her business partners (adoption stuff, I do not know details). Caleb showed me around the hotel Melissa's friends were at and took me to see the mall.
Evening:
We (Melissa, Caleb, and I) headed back to the airport to catch a few people coming in on later flights and then headed out to Antigua. When we arrived we were scattered to the different rooms that the rest of the team had taken in our hotel and we were shushed to bed rather quickly. :P
3-28 (Tuesday)
Morning:
Headed off to breakfast at the local McDonald's and then headed to a special needs hospital in Antigua. This hospital is one of the two places we spent most of our time, and I cannot really describe it well. To do it justice you will have to wait for the pictures to arrive. The areas that I happened to help out in were Cerebral Palsy wards for children and teens. But like I said, it is hard to explain without pictures.
Afternoon:
One chunk of our group took a pack of children (all confined to wheelchairs) to McDonald's for lunch. I was part of the group that stayed behind and helped out random places. I ended up helping feed the teen guys. After the group of adventurous lunchers came back we headed back to our hotel and I do not remember if we did anything particularly spectacular that night. Most of our evenings were free so we could do what we wanted and the group travelled around Antigua.
3-29 (Wednesday)
Nearly exactly like Tuesday except I was with the pack that took the kids out to lunch. It takes a long time to feed the kids anything from a restaurant, so by the time we got back it was pretty much time to go. The hospital puts everyone to bed rather early because they start the day rather early. Plus it is kind of hard to stay there for very long...
3-30 (Thursday)
Morning:
Our last day at the hospital was a half-day, so we didn't get to take anyone out to lunch. I helped feed the teen boys again and after lunch we headed back to the hotel to finish packing.
Afternoon:
We finished packing to head to Casa Bernabe which is located on the outskirts of Guatemala City. Unfortunately, we didn't end up leaving Antigua until-
Evening:
We left Antigua (*sniff*) and arrived at Casa Bernabe which is an orphanage of roughly 150 kids. A small orientation was given and then we went to bed.
3-31 (Friday)
Morning:
Breakfast (the food at Casa Bernabe was amazing) and then full orientation. After the orientation most of us younger dudes began clearing a hill so we could dig a trench. We cleared most of the hill of loose dirt and crap and Peter said that a dump truck was coming this afternoon to pick up the pile we had made and that we shouldn't start on the trench until then.
Afternoon:
In the afternoon we played soccer with the Guatemalan kids and were destroyed. I played, but that night discovered that my shoes are not appropriate for soccer and simultaneously discovered rather large blisters on my feet, two of which were nice blood blisters. I did not really play soccer again...
Evening:
My evenings were yet again free at Casa Bernabe, so I mostly just cruised around looking for things to do. Generally the evenings (both in Antigua and Casa Bernabe) were when I got to know people on the team better as we did random things.
4-1 (Saturday)
Morning:
The "dump truck" finally showed up and it turned out to be nothing more than a flat-panel truck that had no familiarity with dumping in the slightest sense of the word. Not only that, but thanks to the hill we were on there was no way to get it terribly close to the dirt pile we had made. So we got to move dirt up a hill.
Afternoon:
We finished moving the majority of the pile (90%) and made sure the truck was returned by 1330. We had to really push hard to get done by that point and we just barely missed. There was still a small chunk left of the pile when we parked the truck where we needed to. If I remember correctly, the truck was still there, untouched, when we left Monday. :P
Evening:
People played soccer, but I did not. I ended up helping out with setting up and policing a water balloon gig with the kids. Naturally, I was soaked straight through...
4-2 (Sunday)
Morning:
Church. But I had no shoes (they were still wet from the water balloons) and no socks (I, uh, counted wrong when determining how many clothes to bring... I was one short of everything except underwear). So I was nice and barefoot in church with absolutely filthy feet. I do not remember if I had a good reason to not take a shower...
Afternoon:
More soccer for the rest of the guys while I hung out with the few girls that were not currently occupied.
Evening:
:) Well, I do remember what I did Sunday night... for some reason everything on the trip seemed primed to take place then and I ended up pacing around in circles next to a ear-plugged Roland in the small indoor meeting hall. God decided to change my perception of self that night in a way I never would have expected. It is a great one-on-one discussion... but it makes a terrible blog post. Come ask me about it some time and I will tell you.
Before that happened, however, we began our packing to leave the next morning.
4-3 (Monday)
Morning:
Left for the airport. Most of us were loathe to leave and I spent most of the trip trying to sleep and listening to music. We did stop at a "Wal-Mart" (they kept calling it that, but I didn't notice anything saying "Wal-Mart") that was huge and picked up a few sugary goodies for the trip back.
1304: Our plane left Guatemala City on its way to Atlanta. Most everyone on our trip was on this plane, so things were fine.
1834: We landed in Atlanta and made it through US Customs without a hitch. I was pleasantly surprised at how little time it took.
1955: I was supposed to catch a flight by my self (everyone else was on different planes) but the flight was delayed.
2055: My flight to DFW finally left. It was a boring, lonely flight by my self.
22:17:
Back in Dallas. I then proceeded to hunt down the flight that held Mary (and Jeff). Finding everything was somewhat of an adventure because of DFW's apparent deformation of terminal E... it will get its own post though. Sort of like the water balloon fight.
While waiting there, I chatted a tad with Frank (yay!) When the plane finally showed up, Mary and I headed back to terminal E to catch the rest of the team. (Jeff left to go pick up a car.) We ended up meeting Judd Baliff (sp?) and us three waited for the last flight to come in.
4-4 (Tuesday)
0021: The last estimated time I saw for the last flight. It had also been delayed. When the flight came in we gathered everyone's luggage and eventually left the airport, saying good-bye to those who were not heading back to CCF (the Scotts)
0130: The time that read when Jeff Siver and I left the airport. The ride back was fine, but I had the hardest time staying awake. I was much more tired than I thought I was...
0330: We arrived at CCF to discover that no one but us were there and after waiting long enough to think that the other van had decided to drop someone off before coming to CCF Jeff took me "home".
0345: I came back home said good-night to my dear mother who was waiting up for me and took a shower during which the first processing of the trip actually took place.
I would guess I made it to bed between 0400 and 0430. I was awaked around 1100 by Curt and Ben as they were digging an electrical trench in our living room. Yippee.
* What few times I remember are all in 24 hour notation because 12 hour clocks are ridiculously stupid. For those who are not familiar with 24 hour clocks, shame on you, and here is the difference: if the hours are over 12, subtract 12. So if it says 1600 it would read 4:00 pm on a 12 hour clock: 16 is greater than 12 so subtract 12 to get 4. Something like 0330 would read 3:30 am since 3 is not over 12.
** Also, time zones are completely ignored and everything is given in local time. This only affects Atlanta, however, since Guatemala City and Antigua are both in the same time zone as the Dallas area.
And that was the trip. No real details, but your job is to tell me what you want to hear. :)
Q: Where are the pictures?!
A:
Okay, here is the deal. I forgot to bring a camera.
No, really, I honestly just forgot. There was a disposable one sitting next to my backpack but I forgot to put it on my checklist so it never made it into the bag and my family is still trying to find the digital one. So you will have to be satisfied with pictures from the other 20+ people on the trip as they slowly become available. I will make a post with links to pictures and I will keep it updated as the members of the team start posting them. Until then, here is a teaser brought to you by Daniel Scott.
What you can do to help this along is to ask tons of questions to be answered in the next post. :)
The first major question I was asked was by my Uncle Burt and, while I do not remember the exact words, I do remember my answer and the general meaning of the question.
Q: What was the biggest thing you gained from the trip?"
A: I was shocked at how much God cares about what makes me happy. I cannot really go into much detail about it... but what I can say is God took me on a whirlwind ride of encouragement, friendship, and confirmation. A lot of the things I have been dissatisfied with in my own life were seriously addressed in Guatemala and after I dissect everything that occurred I may feel comfortable talking about it. A small hint: my life is not currently on the right path. It is close, very close, and I have the means to change it. What I plan to do about it is the part I need to think over first.
So those are the kind of questions I will begin to start fielding. Until then, here two of the most basic questions:
Q: What did you do in Guatemala?
A:
Here are the dates and locations of everything as best I can remember. For those who were on the trip, feel free to correct me. The times are also approximate, and usually when things were supposed to happen. Charismatic Church Time dictates that everything is roughly a half-hour later than usual, Airport Time dictates that it is either on time or late in one hour increments, Latin America Time rounds everything to "Morning", "Afternoon", "Evening", or "Tomorrow".
3-26 (Sunday):
1600*: The majority of the team met at CCF (our church) and we then headed into Dallas to spend the night so we wouldn't have to drive in early Monday morning.
3-27 (Monday):
0330*: I received a call from Jim Scott saying I should be getting up about now. We then trucked over to the airport and started the process of getting everything organized.
0530: I left DFW on my way to Atlanta.
0830**: I arrived in Atlanta, my first time in Georgia. Wee.
1015: Left Atlanta and will soon be leaving the United States for the second time in my life.
1257: Arrived in Guatemala.
Afternoon:
After waiting for the rest of the afternoon flights to come in, most of the team headed straight out to Antigua. Melissa, Caleb, and I stayed behind so Melissa could get in touch with her business partners (adoption stuff, I do not know details). Caleb showed me around the hotel Melissa's friends were at and took me to see the mall.
Evening:
We (Melissa, Caleb, and I) headed back to the airport to catch a few people coming in on later flights and then headed out to Antigua. When we arrived we were scattered to the different rooms that the rest of the team had taken in our hotel and we were shushed to bed rather quickly. :P
3-28 (Tuesday)
Morning:
Headed off to breakfast at the local McDonald's and then headed to a special needs hospital in Antigua. This hospital is one of the two places we spent most of our time, and I cannot really describe it well. To do it justice you will have to wait for the pictures to arrive. The areas that I happened to help out in were Cerebral Palsy wards for children and teens. But like I said, it is hard to explain without pictures.
Afternoon:
One chunk of our group took a pack of children (all confined to wheelchairs) to McDonald's for lunch. I was part of the group that stayed behind and helped out random places. I ended up helping feed the teen guys. After the group of adventurous lunchers came back we headed back to our hotel and I do not remember if we did anything particularly spectacular that night. Most of our evenings were free so we could do what we wanted and the group travelled around Antigua.
3-29 (Wednesday)
Nearly exactly like Tuesday except I was with the pack that took the kids out to lunch. It takes a long time to feed the kids anything from a restaurant, so by the time we got back it was pretty much time to go. The hospital puts everyone to bed rather early because they start the day rather early. Plus it is kind of hard to stay there for very long...
3-30 (Thursday)
Morning:
Our last day at the hospital was a half-day, so we didn't get to take anyone out to lunch. I helped feed the teen boys again and after lunch we headed back to the hotel to finish packing.
Afternoon:
We finished packing to head to Casa Bernabe which is located on the outskirts of Guatemala City. Unfortunately, we didn't end up leaving Antigua until-
Evening:
We left Antigua (*sniff*) and arrived at Casa Bernabe which is an orphanage of roughly 150 kids. A small orientation was given and then we went to bed.
3-31 (Friday)
Morning:
Breakfast (the food at Casa Bernabe was amazing) and then full orientation. After the orientation most of us younger dudes began clearing a hill so we could dig a trench. We cleared most of the hill of loose dirt and crap and Peter said that a dump truck was coming this afternoon to pick up the pile we had made and that we shouldn't start on the trench until then.
Afternoon:
In the afternoon we played soccer with the Guatemalan kids and were destroyed. I played, but that night discovered that my shoes are not appropriate for soccer and simultaneously discovered rather large blisters on my feet, two of which were nice blood blisters. I did not really play soccer again...
Evening:
My evenings were yet again free at Casa Bernabe, so I mostly just cruised around looking for things to do. Generally the evenings (both in Antigua and Casa Bernabe) were when I got to know people on the team better as we did random things.
4-1 (Saturday)
Morning:
The "dump truck" finally showed up and it turned out to be nothing more than a flat-panel truck that had no familiarity with dumping in the slightest sense of the word. Not only that, but thanks to the hill we were on there was no way to get it terribly close to the dirt pile we had made. So we got to move dirt up a hill.
Afternoon:
We finished moving the majority of the pile (90%) and made sure the truck was returned by 1330. We had to really push hard to get done by that point and we just barely missed. There was still a small chunk left of the pile when we parked the truck where we needed to. If I remember correctly, the truck was still there, untouched, when we left Monday. :P
Evening:
People played soccer, but I did not. I ended up helping out with setting up and policing a water balloon gig with the kids. Naturally, I was soaked straight through...
4-2 (Sunday)
Morning:
Church. But I had no shoes (they were still wet from the water balloons) and no socks (I, uh, counted wrong when determining how many clothes to bring... I was one short of everything except underwear). So I was nice and barefoot in church with absolutely filthy feet. I do not remember if I had a good reason to not take a shower...
Afternoon:
More soccer for the rest of the guys while I hung out with the few girls that were not currently occupied.
Evening:
:) Well, I do remember what I did Sunday night... for some reason everything on the trip seemed primed to take place then and I ended up pacing around in circles next to a ear-plugged Roland in the small indoor meeting hall. God decided to change my perception of self that night in a way I never would have expected. It is a great one-on-one discussion... but it makes a terrible blog post. Come ask me about it some time and I will tell you.
Before that happened, however, we began our packing to leave the next morning.
4-3 (Monday)
Morning:
Left for the airport. Most of us were loathe to leave and I spent most of the trip trying to sleep and listening to music. We did stop at a "Wal-Mart" (they kept calling it that, but I didn't notice anything saying "Wal-Mart") that was huge and picked up a few sugary goodies for the trip back.
1304: Our plane left Guatemala City on its way to Atlanta. Most everyone on our trip was on this plane, so things were fine.
1834: We landed in Atlanta and made it through US Customs without a hitch. I was pleasantly surprised at how little time it took.
1955: I was supposed to catch a flight by my self (everyone else was on different planes) but the flight was delayed.
2055: My flight to DFW finally left. It was a boring, lonely flight by my self.
22:17:
Back in Dallas. I then proceeded to hunt down the flight that held Mary (and Jeff). Finding everything was somewhat of an adventure because of DFW's apparent deformation of terminal E... it will get its own post though. Sort of like the water balloon fight.
While waiting there, I chatted a tad with Frank (yay!) When the plane finally showed up, Mary and I headed back to terminal E to catch the rest of the team. (Jeff left to go pick up a car.) We ended up meeting Judd Baliff (sp?) and us three waited for the last flight to come in.
4-4 (Tuesday)
0021: The last estimated time I saw for the last flight. It had also been delayed. When the flight came in we gathered everyone's luggage and eventually left the airport, saying good-bye to those who were not heading back to CCF (the Scotts)
0130: The time that read when Jeff Siver and I left the airport. The ride back was fine, but I had the hardest time staying awake. I was much more tired than I thought I was...
0330: We arrived at CCF to discover that no one but us were there and after waiting long enough to think that the other van had decided to drop someone off before coming to CCF Jeff took me "home".
0345: I came back home said good-night to my dear mother who was waiting up for me and took a shower during which the first processing of the trip actually took place.
I would guess I made it to bed between 0400 and 0430. I was awaked around 1100 by Curt and Ben as they were digging an electrical trench in our living room. Yippee.
* What few times I remember are all in 24 hour notation because 12 hour clocks are ridiculously stupid. For those who are not familiar with 24 hour clocks, shame on you, and here is the difference: if the hours are over 12, subtract 12. So if it says 1600 it would read 4:00 pm on a 12 hour clock: 16 is greater than 12 so subtract 12 to get 4. Something like 0330 would read 3:30 am since 3 is not over 12.
** Also, time zones are completely ignored and everything is given in local time. This only affects Atlanta, however, since Guatemala City and Antigua are both in the same time zone as the Dallas area.
And that was the trip. No real details, but your job is to tell me what you want to hear. :)
Q: Where are the pictures?!
A:
Okay, here is the deal. I forgot to bring a camera.
No, really, I honestly just forgot. There was a disposable one sitting next to my backpack but I forgot to put it on my checklist so it never made it into the bag and my family is still trying to find the digital one. So you will have to be satisfied with pictures from the other 20+ people on the trip as they slowly become available. I will make a post with links to pictures and I will keep it updated as the members of the team start posting them. Until then, here is a teaser brought to you by Daniel Scott.