Friday, April 27, 2012
Deal of the Day
I sent Norman to the market this morning to pick up our fruits and vegetables for the week. I had cabbage on the list, and this is what he came back with. He spent a whole 46 cents on it. :-) Gotta love Guatemala. I so enjoy the easy access to inexpensive fresh fruits and vegetables.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Count Your Blessings
The longer I live in Guatemala, the starker becomes the contrast between living here and living in my native country. Keep in mind that what I am saying applies to the area we live up in the mountains. If you talked to someone who lives in Guatemala City you would get a different story. What I am saying may or may not apply to different parts of the country, I am just speaking of the small area of my experience.
Those of us who were born and raised in the United States were blessed just by that fact. I think if you asked, most people would agree with that. But day by day I am realizing how blessed we really are and how much I have taken for granted. Simple things that is expected to be a part of our lives. Such as an education, a job, a home to live in.
Education is the area my eyes have been the most opened to. In the United States I would say, generally speaking, that for most people when they are talking about an uneducated person, they are referring to someone who didn't finish High School. Therefore, an educated person is someone who finished High School. A person we refer to as having a higher education would be someone who graduated from College and a highly educated person would be someone with a Masters or PHD. Here where we live, an uneducated person is someone who didn't go to school at all or for just a few years. A person who finishes High School would be equal to a College graduate in the States in stature, and a college graduate would be equal to a PHD. A PHD is way out there.
School is something we as North Americans take for granted. We have a right to a good education. I don't think we have any idea of all the benefits an education provides. These "hidden" benefits are the things I am learning and experiencing first hand in Guatemala. Now If you are an education major or a home schooler you might know all this, but this is a revelation for me. I haven't done any official research on any of this or looked at any statistics, this is just my personal experience. I had been told and believed that education provides more than book knowledge but I didn't really know what those "other" things were. Now I know some of them first hand. Going to school teaches us how to learn, it teaches us how to concentrate and focus, it teaches us how to process, it teaches us how to retain things, and it teaches us how to think critically and think on our own. I have met and worked with people who have a hard time learning new things and retaining new information, not because they aren't intelligent, because they are, it is because they weren't given the privilege to learn these things in school as a child. Many Guatemalans just take what they have been told as the gospel truth. They don't question it, they don't analyze it, they just receive it and believe it. They haven't learned how to analyze it and verify that it makes sense or is really true. For me, all these things puts a whole new light on the benefits of education and how blessed we are to have education as a given, no questions asked. Here it is not necessarily so and I praise the Lord for Hogar de Vida where kids who wouldn't have been given the chance to go to school are now able to go. Thank you Lord!
I just want to mention two more experiences that Norman and I have had that highlight the difference between our two cultures and reminds us how blessed we are just because we were born in the U.S. Not too long ago Norman had a conversation with a couple Guatemalan ladies about what his job was in the states. He tried to explain to them, but didn't get too far past that he worked for a heating and air conditioning company. Two reasons for that, 1) a little bit of language barrier, 2) they have no frame of reference. They barely have closed in homes, much less central heating and air conditioning. They understand that air conditioning cools your house and a furnace heats your house, but they have never seen either one of these or have any idea what they look like or how they work. It is times like these that we sometimes feel like we moved to a different planet instead of just to Central America which really isn't all that far away. Our lives are so different! But my point in sharing this, is that this conversation reminded me of how few jobs they have available here in this part of the country. I know that this has been a tough time in the States and many have lost jobs or had to change jobs, but we expect to eventually find a steady job and support our families. Here, a steady job isn't a given. There are not only very few jobs but there are very few types of jobs and lots of competition for the jobs they do have, which brings in corruption. Many men leave their families and go to the coast to find work or head to the States illegally in order to send back money to their family. Another thing we take for granted, parents who are married live together. This separate living conditions is not unusual here.
Yesterday I cooked supper for all 40 of us here at the home to celebrate those who had birthdays in March and April. It was the first time that I cooked a big dinner like that in my own enclosed kitchen that I now have instead of outside in the team kitchen. Two of the staff ladies came over and offered to help. They were a great help and I felt like they were enjoying just working in my kitchen. Then right before we were ready to take the food out to serve, Lorena, another worker, and Oralia, one of the directors, came and joined us. They commented on how much they liked our apartment, everything about it. And that it reminded them of a doll house. Well I took the doll house comment to mean because it was so little. But with more conversation they told me that it was like something you would see in a magazine or on TV or in a movie. This made me smile. Mind you, our apartment has a total of 4 rooms, a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom and a bathroom for a total of about 500 square feet. But it is home, and after 2 years of not having a place to call my own, I love it! It is perfect for the two of us and we enjoy it. We have furnished it with things that make us comfortable and feel at home, but we have worked very hard at being frugal and not extravagant. In American standards it is small and simple. It has some Guatemala touches, but it definitely has a North American flare that they have only seen on TV or in the movies. A nice cozy home with nice furnishings and personal touches is another blessing that we often take for granted living in the States.
I know this got a little long. Thanks for sticking in there to the end. To close I want to say that I am in no way sharing this to cut down the Guatemalan people and raise up North Americans. Not at all. God loves us all equally. My purpose in writing this is to try to give you a little insight into what life is like here in San Andres, Sajcabaja, Guatemala, and to remind us how blessed by God we are to just be born in the good ole U.S.A. May we never forget to count our many blessings.
Those of us who were born and raised in the United States were blessed just by that fact. I think if you asked, most people would agree with that. But day by day I am realizing how blessed we really are and how much I have taken for granted. Simple things that is expected to be a part of our lives. Such as an education, a job, a home to live in.
Education is the area my eyes have been the most opened to. In the United States I would say, generally speaking, that for most people when they are talking about an uneducated person, they are referring to someone who didn't finish High School. Therefore, an educated person is someone who finished High School. A person we refer to as having a higher education would be someone who graduated from College and a highly educated person would be someone with a Masters or PHD. Here where we live, an uneducated person is someone who didn't go to school at all or for just a few years. A person who finishes High School would be equal to a College graduate in the States in stature, and a college graduate would be equal to a PHD. A PHD is way out there.
School is something we as North Americans take for granted. We have a right to a good education. I don't think we have any idea of all the benefits an education provides. These "hidden" benefits are the things I am learning and experiencing first hand in Guatemala. Now If you are an education major or a home schooler you might know all this, but this is a revelation for me. I haven't done any official research on any of this or looked at any statistics, this is just my personal experience. I had been told and believed that education provides more than book knowledge but I didn't really know what those "other" things were. Now I know some of them first hand. Going to school teaches us how to learn, it teaches us how to concentrate and focus, it teaches us how to process, it teaches us how to retain things, and it teaches us how to think critically and think on our own. I have met and worked with people who have a hard time learning new things and retaining new information, not because they aren't intelligent, because they are, it is because they weren't given the privilege to learn these things in school as a child. Many Guatemalans just take what they have been told as the gospel truth. They don't question it, they don't analyze it, they just receive it and believe it. They haven't learned how to analyze it and verify that it makes sense or is really true. For me, all these things puts a whole new light on the benefits of education and how blessed we are to have education as a given, no questions asked. Here it is not necessarily so and I praise the Lord for Hogar de Vida where kids who wouldn't have been given the chance to go to school are now able to go. Thank you Lord!
I just want to mention two more experiences that Norman and I have had that highlight the difference between our two cultures and reminds us how blessed we are just because we were born in the U.S. Not too long ago Norman had a conversation with a couple Guatemalan ladies about what his job was in the states. He tried to explain to them, but didn't get too far past that he worked for a heating and air conditioning company. Two reasons for that, 1) a little bit of language barrier, 2) they have no frame of reference. They barely have closed in homes, much less central heating and air conditioning. They understand that air conditioning cools your house and a furnace heats your house, but they have never seen either one of these or have any idea what they look like or how they work. It is times like these that we sometimes feel like we moved to a different planet instead of just to Central America which really isn't all that far away. Our lives are so different! But my point in sharing this, is that this conversation reminded me of how few jobs they have available here in this part of the country. I know that this has been a tough time in the States and many have lost jobs or had to change jobs, but we expect to eventually find a steady job and support our families. Here, a steady job isn't a given. There are not only very few jobs but there are very few types of jobs and lots of competition for the jobs they do have, which brings in corruption. Many men leave their families and go to the coast to find work or head to the States illegally in order to send back money to their family. Another thing we take for granted, parents who are married live together. This separate living conditions is not unusual here.
Our Humble Abode
I know this got a little long. Thanks for sticking in there to the end. To close I want to say that I am in no way sharing this to cut down the Guatemalan people and raise up North Americans. Not at all. God loves us all equally. My purpose in writing this is to try to give you a little insight into what life is like here in San Andres, Sajcabaja, Guatemala, and to remind us how blessed by God we are to just be born in the good ole U.S.A. May we never forget to count our many blessings.
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