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Published: April 10th 2013
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Jocotan from aboveOur 4th day here was a Thursday like no other.
Breakfast, as has become our routine, was at 6:30am in the
casita of the nuns, Sisters Gloria, Paulita and Mirtala. The nuns are great. They like an occasional beer, will try whisky, add copious amounts of sugar to their coffee and are cheery and mostly full of jokes. They also put salt on their fruit, but apparently that's normal here.
At 7:30 we had an appointment with Padre Juan Maria (early 70s, Belgian) down at the church. Instead we met Padre Rogelio (late 70s, Belgian, tall, spindly, wise but unsteady), and Padre Juan Gerardo (40s, Guatemalan, greying, cheeky and lively). They pick up a battered bag each and off we go in the pick-up to a mass they're giving in the hills.
At the edge of town Padre R springs out of the pick-up, engages the 4WD, and off up the hill we go. No ordinary septigenarian priest then. We add passengers at every corner as we rise up the hill to the village, till we maybe have twenty in the back, and at one point the earth road seems so steep that we'll have to roll back
Field at La Ceibadown, all get out and try again, but no, Padre JG is no ordinary priest, he's a bona fide off-road priest and impressively unflustered. Rally drivers would be proud of his clutch control.
Mass is being celebrated at 8am in the village of La Ceiba, but at 8am no-one is there, so we sit and wait. Now La Ceiba doesn't have a church, so mass will be in a small, very simple one-room primary school. A cloth appears from Padre R's bag, and the teacher's desk becomes an altar. Meanwhile, we three (Rhona, myself, and David the previous volunteer) sit pinched into primary 1 chairs as the crowd of tiny Guatemalans begins to assemble. The kids stare openly.
The Padres two open their bags and out come communion robes. Robes go over jeans and t-shirts, and these two hardy men turn into priests. You can still see jeans and croc shoes poking out from Padre R's gown. As we continue to wait, confession is heard outside in what could be a bike shed.
Mass itself passes uneventfully, for a mass in Spanish in a classroom in the Guatemalan hills. It's once again somehow surprising just how much
Schoolyard or churchyard?a mass in one language sounds like a mass in another. At points we have to kneel, cramp is hard to avoid - it is after all a concrete floor - and I worry about cramping out and knocking over 6 Guatemalans. Just imagine it, tiny people dominoes. The singing is something, a special type of tunelessness so tuneless that we both feel sure it must be the local style. It could be quite a while at this rate till Rhona establishes the Jocotan Gaelic choir!
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We set off back down the road, once again as a priest driven taxi. Padre R explains that in the old days, it could take him 2 days to give a mass. 1 day to walk up into the hills, 1 day to get back. They try to visit each village once a year. 3 priests, hundreds of hill villages.
As non-religious people, we feel awkward when we hear that Padre Juan Maria built all the churches in the hills here, all 174 of them, as impressive as that seems. But that uneasiness changes in the space of a sentence as Padre Rogelio narrates, that "of course, we had to
Speechesbuild the roads to be able to build the churches, and then we built the schools too".
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Within the space of an hour we are in another pick-up, this time Padre JM is driving us to the neighbouring town of Camotan. He seems to relish taking the back route, even though the bridge had washed away 3 years ago.
We are on or way to the official opening of the new wing of the school in Camotan, and soon we're being shown around by Don Donaldo (Yes, Donaldo! Full name José Donaldo Diaz Carrera) the very proud builder. We try to mutter spanish phrases of appreciation, but there's only so many times you can say "very nice" when looking at freshly painted walls. We do our best.
Soon we are swept in to the assembly hall for a presentation. The centre of attention should be Donaldo, or Padre JM, but the teachers' smartphones are all pointed at us. Speeches are made, awards are given. We wave to the kids and all sit down outside for cake.
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Later Don Donaldo invites, nay compels, us and
the priest to his house for lunch. "Cake was only a snack", he says. "Let's have a proper lunch."
He and his wife proceed to ply us with everything they have.
"A beer?",
"Another?",
"Some mango?"
And when we say yes, this man in his 50s climbs onto his own roof, swings into the mango tree and proceeds to knock the ripest mangoes to the ground. They are delicious.
At the point we try to leave, Donaldo finds from somewhere a bottle of Johnnie Walker. It takes a monumental effort to refuse him, but it's 3 in the afternoon, and 35 degrees.
We eventually make it out after tasting who knows how many different things, (green tortillas, chicken soup, unknown fruit, fruit juice...) and having been given the full tour of Donaldo's impressive house.
He takes us back to Jocotan, in a pick-up.
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An hour passes. We try and remember what normality feels like. We're pretty sure we're here to work, but this is the wind-down to Easter, work is frowned upon. Let's call it cultural understanding.
Soon again we are off to Chiquimula
Goal!!!! David scorestown, in a pick-up (our fourth). This time we ride in the back. The driving is fast, the wind in our faces so consequently fierce it makes them numb. But we love it, it's the first time we've felt cool since we arrived in Guatemala.
This trip is for a 5-a-sides game at the astroturf. A project is coming to an end, and the workers here are celebrating it with a game of fives. Gringos vs Guatemalans would have been impossible so we end up playing Tall v Short. By now it's 7pm, but the temperature is still in the low 30s and I haven't played in two years. Barely 15 minutes in I am a wreck, consigning myself to goals as often as I can. Nonetheless it is remarkable how all the guys suddenly know your name when you've got possession "Dooooooglaaas, por aqui!", "Over here!"
We win. Apparently I am "made of stone". Solid in defence as ever! Or perhaps just as heavy as two Guatemalans.... I hit the post 5 times, sin marcar!
We ride home, high on cool breezes, fresh mangoes, and the absurdity of it all.
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