Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Great Escape

Is there anything that is really familiar? I like to believe that there is "newness" in every moment. However I do find comfort in visiting and re-visiting the familiar. This was written in haste a day or two before leaving. It's ironic how that seems to be the theme for the first week in Guatemala.
Below is a copy of my (handwritten) journaling from yesterday.

So much to write about in so little time (here on the road) Travelling has a way of expanding time. Possibly because it consists of so many unique and "compressed" moments. So many "here and nows" everyone of them different from the habitual "here and nows" I have become accustomed to in my day to day life in my home county. 60 years of "becoming accustomed" to ---(whatever it is) can harden a person.

The language "barrier" is only a barrier in my mind. At times that barrier becomes impenetrable. In an instant I can implode into myself and I am locked inside totally unable to connect with the experience of life which I perceive to be on the "outside". Just as quickly the barrier can be gone. Who know what the trigger or catalyst is but when we give ourselves permission to really participate in life, the barrier disappears just as quickly as it appeared.
(BACK TO THE HERE AND NOW).....

I started this with the intention of outlining the "there and thens" on this adventure. Just notes to myself for further expansion, but most likely they won`t be expanded. I noticed when I walked back into the streets of Antigua after an hour on the computer I felt like I had entered a foreign world (the time spent on the Internet) I don't mind foreign, but I really love the feeling of the people here in Guatemala, so I may not be Journaling as much as I anticipated.

Quicko recap::

Events of the week:

One Fupah at the airport almost cost me the loss of my contact list before I had contacted anyone. That would have changed the trip.

First hostess: Very unhappy, pre-occupied lady living a middle to upper class existence behind so much armed security, fences, locks and barbed wire it felt like being in a prison. ----------I escaped!-------to-----------

A very happy, guitar playing singing dentist. (The whole family loved singing for that matter) They too lived behind locked gates, but it seems they had no fear of the world outside. (If they did they handed it over to God) Oscar has a beautiful wife, Elvia, and one daughter. His daughter, Elana, has just gained her Bachelors degree on the road to being a doctor. (Fantastic at 18yrs. old)

Where I am now I feel no need to escape, I have been welcomed into a beautiful family in a small community on the mountainside above a pueblo called Santa Lucia. I get to play with kids every day and I even played in the garden yeasterday (Hope you Northerners are not too jealous) This morning on the bus to Antigua a sticky fingered person relieved me of my camera, MY FAULT! No worry, it pissed me off for a few moments, but I can honestly say that each day here gets better and better.

I'll close with that and the wish that for you life is the same ----

BETTER AND BETTER!

Adios Amigos


A few links to pictures:

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=antigua%2C+guatemala&btnG=Search+Images


http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=santa+lucia%2C+guatemala&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=guatemala+city%2C+guatemala&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

1 comment:

Shay Renee said...

Thanks for sharing your blog dad! i didn't even know you had one :) It is more fun when people comment isn't it? I don't get much of that on mine but I have a counter so I know people are looking. Love you and I hope you are having lots of fun on your adventure. We miss you!