Thursday, April 22, 2010

Children of the Corn

In Guatemala, corn is king! Mayans have had a very special relationship and history with corn - even from the very beginning:
"In the beginning..." according to the Mayan creation story from the Popol Vuh (the Mayan bible), it took the gods three times to successfully create humans.
1. First try - they made us of dirt. We only spoke "nonsense" (dumb as dirt?), so they let us dissolve. Doh! (parallel this with the creation story from Genesis in the Bible).
2. Second try - they made us of wood. Nope. We just walked around and got nothing done. Wild animals chased us into the forest where we became monkeys (this is why monkeys kind of look like humans - interesting twist on evolution, huh?)
3. Third try - they make us of corn. Success!! "Our flesh is yellow and white ears of maize..." Finally, the perfect being.
The Maize God is the most sacred of deities - get this...it's because he gave his flesh so that humans may live. Is God BIG, or what?

The Maya refer to themselves as people born of a different flesh ("true people"), and I wouldn't doubt if it were actually true based on the amount of corn they consume daily. The average Mayan's diet consists of 50-60% corn (although there are apparently close to 400 different corn-related recipes they use to keep things exciting). Corn tortillas, the real thick, small kind, make an appearance at every meal (God, if I never see another corn tortilla again...), which is why you can't look in any direction this time of year without seeing a corn field.

Here it comes again! Farmers plant the corn during March and April, and then comes the rain (for 6 months), which produces some crazy-mutant-sized cornstalks. "We eat all we can and sell the rest."
Hope you're all well and received HUGE tax-refunds! (subliminal message ~ send a chunk of it to your favorite charity ~)
Love,
Jay
ps - a friend here just told me that she tried corn-flavored ice-cream last week. Yum?

Friday, April 9, 2010

It's All About the Kids

Back in the day kids didn't spend their summers by attending camp after camp or vacation after vacation - they'd just be hanging out in their neighborhoods. Pastors of local churches would drive around in buses to pick-up these bored kids to bring them to what we call today Vacation Bible School. It was a week of fun, games, and bible songs and lessons for young children.
Well, as you can imagine, children in Guatemala, when they're not working or in school, have very limited options of fun things to do (there are no camps, playgrounds, pools or YMCAs).
So one of the best things our teams do when they visit us is offer a week-long bible school...

During the week, kids sing about God...

...meet new friends...

...and do art projects! This lesson was no doubt about God loving children even if they look like something from my nightmares.

On Monday we usually see around 30 or so kids, but once word gets out about the bible school we end up with over a 100 by Friday.

It's amazing to see how incredibly happy kids can get by simply receiving a .99 cent gift like these small boats that they constructed and painted in March.
VBS is also our chance to brainwash them by teaching them American sports like baseball and football. Any man who has ever watched America's Funniest Home Videos can see exactly where this ball is headed...

We play a few games with our parachute that the kids go crazy for. We usually try to bring games and arts/crafts with us to rural locations also so the children can play while their parents are in seeing the doctor.
The New Playground!
For over a year we've been dreaming of building a playground at our clinic in Camanchaj and now it's finally done!! We went from a bare dirt field...
...to THIS in only 3 days! Thanks so much to the team from The Turning Point UMC in Evansville, IN!
Christening the new slide - whoa! This kid needs practice! (fortunately for us liability forms don't exist in Guatemala : )
Tell me this smile isn't worth a week of hard work and sweat. Giving kids the chance to actually be kids is easily worth its weight in gold.
Carey and I hope you're all well and had a great Easter!
Peace to you,
Jay