Don't Tell God

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"Don't tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big GOD is."
- A plaque on our Chicken Bus to Pana Jachel

Dear Friends,

First let me say, I have just read through countless responses from you all and they warm my heart. I feel priveledged to have so many people who care about me. That being said, I just had a skeptical lunch and might soon need someone to care for me.

Hours after my last letter, which I must admit, must surely have been as borig as could be, adventure hit me "en rapido." We quickly left that internet cafe to go to a festival in the town of Albalonga. It is famed for its church to San Pedro, complete with an altar with neon lights, including a halo. During the festival I found cheap rambutans, a polenesian fruit, incredible music, and dancers dressed in costumes that made them look the the Guatemalan version of the Village People. However, while we were leaving a crowd at one point a man blocked Lizzie's path. While she stood frusterated that this man wouldn't let her through the crowd, another picked her credit cards and some cash clean from her pocket. She was frusterated, we had them immediately canceled and are just chalking the money up to experience. Life as a traveler, so it goes.

My time at the spanish school provided me with a modicum of this language, more than anything the ability to count, tell time, and demand cheaper prices. With this information I can take this country by storm. A number of you, knowing my college focus is Chinese, have suggested I try to use it here. Needless to say I get the strangest looks when I utter those asian sounds, and when I explain, people gasp and tell me Chinese is practically heiroglyphics. I don't blame them.

I am getting credit from my school to study the effects of the Guatemalan civil war while I am here. This has put an interesting focus on my trip. I am now attuned to seeing the men who guard appliance stores and banks, wearing a uniform and toting a large black schotgun. Many older shops also have bars not only guarding the attendant but also all their goods. There was an old military compound in Xela that was vacated in 1998, today the building is rented, but is otherwise in shambles. There was a momorial to the soldiers who died in the war on its front lawn, but is has been left to vandals, and no one seems to care. When I asked my professor who won the war, he said as far as he is concerned, no one. The scars of violence here run deep.

Despite this history of turmoil, the people see as happy as any other I've seen. I road a chicken bus today. This is a jam packed, glorified schoolbus that along with its passangers carries all manner of cargo, including chickens. We got on prepared to be ripped off and taken to the wrong destination, but everything has gone well. I am now sitting in the laid back tourist town of Pana Jachel , where linnen pants and jewelery line the streets. Rich Guatemalans as well as well off foreigners have summer homes on the shore of this idyllic place. We plan to see the famed sunday market of Chichicastenango tommorrow, then try to get accross the lake to a more subdued location before we head out to the highland coffe center of Coban.

Again, thanks for everything, all your well wishes and prayers. I wish I could respond to everyone individually, but perhaps since I cannot do that, instead I will have to see you all when I return.

Love,
Carl

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