Feeling the Heat and All That Crap!

I am capable of writing more light-hearted entries as well and this will be one of them. But, never fear, there's lots of self-reflection and realization! The St. Francis Xavier delegation wasn't just about learning about the terrible history here. It was a service learning experience. They did indeed provide some service and they did indeed learn a thing or two in doing so. As did I.

Leading up to their arrival, I took on the task of organizing all of the logistics and activities for their time here. First lesson: don't, repeat DON'T, expect anything more than things happening in Guatemalan time (a la hora chapin). I'm still used to Japanese time: anal to the minute. I can't even remember how many times my planning meetings were postponed or left hanging. Things will happen when they happen and that is all there is to it. Despite the fact that I was pulling my hair out through all of it, I do kinda like that fact. I've been causing lateness since my conception.

Things of course did come together - and got changed then changed back again - and all went smashingly. The STFX team went to each of the classes to do a little presentation on Canada. Their 2 day visit was pretty much my 3 years in Japan: "Do you know what season it is in Canada?" kinda stuff. But, I got to be the silent observer through it all. The kids were into it, and later in the day they showed that they were into practicing their English. Second lesson: my students are actually learning something in my classes. Really wasn't too sure on that. I was actually quite surprised and moved by how hard they were trying to speak to their new Canadian counterparts. Up until then I was chanting my mantra du jour: "How the hell am I still teaching English? How the hell am I still teaching English?" I'm quite re-enrgized with it after that experience, and in all honesty, after 5 (yes, F-I-V-E, 5) years of it, it's pretty damn easy for me. No more complaints. I"m giving them up for lent!

A big challenge for the group was the unrelenting heat of Rabinal. Actually, it does relent; it's a frigid 20 degrees celsius here at this moment. But, considering our friends from the north had just come from real cold, a jump into 40 degrees celsius was not the most pleasant switch for them. Let's throw a little manual labour their way just to make things a little more interesting. The school I teach at is literally in the middle of nowhere, except for farm land. Rabinal is very much an agriculture based municipality. The students' curriculum is centred around a rural education scheme, so, of course, work in the field is an intregal part of their studies. We thought the STFX group should be apart of this. Things that needed work included: digging holes for fence posts, turning the soil, and the like. Oh wait, one more thing. Crap. Cow crap to be specific. Yes, I know that farmers say "dung" but "crap" is about as family-friendly as my language gets.

We all know the values that the excrement of our bovine friends holds as fertilzer. Accordingly, a rich field is going to need a lot of fertilizer. Picking up cow paddies and beating them into a fine, easy-to-spread powder is not a shocking task for my students. Us? -- different story. I have to give some props to my coordinator Jackie, who, purposely, mistranslated the instructions for the group. I wish I had been there to see the faces of the unsuspecting helpers when the kids led them into the field and began picking up dried-up piles of shit. I couldn't be there, of course, as I was busy pulverizing the already collected brown treasure. Oh, and don't think I was just giving a few swings of the hoe and then calling it quits. I was well into it. I think I'm still wiping the dung dust from behind my ears.

There's something that truly changes me when I'm in this kind of situation. I don't know why it is that I will do physically tiring and filthy tasks for no money, but if someone suggest I could do them to make money, not a snowball's chance in hell. Or maybe not a snowball's chance in Rabinal is more appropriate, since it's hotter here. Jobs you literally can't pay me to do are jobs I wind up flying half way around the world to do for free. I had the same revelation when I was in Papua New Guinea with Habitat For Humanity. I'd actually rather get paid to pound shit than do construction, but working on a house to help someone else, someone who doesn't have the priviliged life many of us do, my brain and body give me the power to do it. It's like the story of the mother getting the incredible strength to lift a car off of her child. Sounds strange, but getting me to do manual labour is even more miraculous than that.