I felt like I should write one more entry, even if no one reads it. After a full day of traveling, we arrived safely at the airport in Dulles, and then drove in vans back to EMU. Many of my close friends decided to get up and wait for our return, and so when the vans pulled up there were a lot of screams, hugs and tears shed. After talking with them for an hour or so, I decided that I was a little tired from being awake for about 24 hours. The weekend was relaxing, and a good time to reconnect with friends. I also was able to call my family, which seemed a very strange (but wonderful) thing to be able to just pick up the phone and call them. Monday morning, we gave a presentation about our cross cultural in chapel. We sang, performed skits, reflected and shared pictures with the EMU community. It was great to be able to at least give a glimpse of our travels and our time abroad. We are also anxiously awaiting the return of the other cross cultural group from EMU this semester, the Middle East group. It will be interesting to talk about their experiences as well. Overall, I have felt very blessed by the welcome and curious questions that I have been asked by everyone.

Culture shock is a very strange feeling. Sometimes, it is almost like I am having an out-of-body experience. Most of the time, I feel farely normal, but occasionally those feelings hit me. Being with my cross cultural group and talking with them has made things much easier. They are going through the same things and know what it feels like. We all joke about the fact that we have been together for around 100 days straight and yet now we still always want to be together. There are definitely perks about being back, such as eating peanut butter, drinking from a water fountain, smelling the fresh air and flowers on campus, talking to friends and family I have missed and hot showers. I still find myself thinking in Spanish and catch myself starting to speak in Spanish. Today, our group split up to do a scavenger hunt around Harrisonburg. We were asked to find church services in Spanish, restaurants and have conversations with locals in Spanish. It was cool to practice our Spanish in a familiar community. One restaurant owner in particular spoke English to us, and his eyes lit up when we started speaking Spanish with him. :) What a wonderful thing to meet someone where they are at and bless them by getting on their level. I hope that I will be able to use my Spanish to connect with people and keep practicing it so that I don't lose it. I know that God has so richly blessed me through this experience and taught me many things. I hope that I can find ways to be a blessing to others and use what I have learned on this trip in the future.

I can't believe it!! Today is our last day in Puebla, Mexico! This last Friday, we had a banquet at a Brazilian restuarant. We first enjoyed mini tacos and my favorite, fried bananas!! :) Then, we were treated to a fabulous buffet, as well as a ton of different cuts of meat. We didn't really always know what we were eating, but that's half the fun of it, right? After the meal, we were presented with our certificates by the director of the university. It was a little hard to believe that we were recieving a certificate/diploma thing after only 4 weeks here. Too bad regular college isn't like that!! We had a relaxing weekend doing homework, walking around, watching tv and making our last purchases at the markets. One of my friends made the comment that we feel weird just watching tv, because that is something we have done very little of on this trip, which I see as a very good thing!

Tomorrow morning, we head to a camp in Valsequillo. We are not sure exactly what the camp is like, but we will have a full week there for sure. We will be having class, debriefing discussions, planning for our chapel service (that we have when we get back to the US), doing homework, relaxing, campfires and worship time. Our group is excited for this last week, but we can't help but be excited to see friends and family! Friday morning, we head to the airport and are expected to be back at EMU in Harrisonburg, VA at 4am on Saturday morning. Right now, I am just filled with gratitude for all of you who have supported me on this trip, and God for blessing me with so many wonderful experiences and new ways to see His work in the world! I have felt His love and presence in every step of the way. I hope I can share all of this with others and pass on the blessings I have recieved. Thanks for all your prayers!! See you soon!! :)

Holy Week!

Time for another update! We left last on April 1 for our week in Mexico City. Sunday, we started off by visiting a traditional bull ranch that was complete with a bull ring, chapel, store and housing for all of the staff and family. It is a working ranch, and has been around since the 17th Century. It was pretty cool because many of the gear, carriages, and even food and stuff from the store were still preserved as originals. It was also nice to be out in some fresh air and open space for a while. After that, we visited Templo Mayor. Templo Mayor is home to some amazing pyramids of the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan. We were able to climb most of the pyramids and with a lot of the structures still there it was easy to do.

We arrived in Mexico City in time to eat a quick supper, freshen up and then we headed to the Ballet Folklorico at Bellas Artes. This was a ballet unlike any us had ever been to before, not that many of us had been to ballets before. The dancers included traditional dances of Mexico, ranging from Spanish to any of the different pre-histpanic cultures. Some of the dances seemed to be courting dances that looked somewhat normal, while another one was a hunting dance, where the leading man was deer. I can honestly say, I have never been more intrigued by anything having to do with hunting. The costumes were incredibly detailed and colorful and often the dancers were accompanied by a flashy mariachi band which put on a good show themselves.

There were so many cool things we did and saw in Mexico City, so I will just highlight a few. We visited the highest building in the world (it's the highest technically, not the tallest, because of the altitude). We had just started to take pictures at the top, when everything started swaying a lot!! At first, I thought, "wow, I need to drink more water, I'm really dizzy!" or "Wow, the wind is strong!" but soon the workers began calling us to the center of the building because it was a tremor! I was pretty calm, but it certainly freaked some people out. Actually, it is one of the safest buildings to be in because it has been one of the few buildings to survive really strong tremors. Sooo...mark that one off my bucket list, be in the highest building in the world during a tremor. We also went to a street where mariachi bands play during the evenings, and were serenaded which was pretty cool. We also visited the Museum of Anthropolgy and the Modern Art Museum later in the week.

The second part of our week was spent with the Mennonite Church in Mexico City. They were overwhelmingly hospitable and we all enjoyed many conversations and laughs with them. They had a drum set, guitars, a bass, a keyboard and mikes which drew all of us music people in right away. They asked us to sing 4 songs for 3 different services and we did some as a group and some with just a band, in which I was singing. We did a couple in Spanish but mostly in English, and they sang some in Spanish. It was a lot of fun!

On Good Friday, we watched a re-enactment of Jesus' trial and walk to the cross. It was very powerful, and included a real crown of thorns and beatings with a whip and you could see the blood on his face and at the hill, he was tied on the cross. You really cannot just run and hide from the truth when you experience something like that. They had medics there to care for the people participating, but I had to think "Jesus had it so much worse and He didn't have a team of medics, or water and breaks". On Saturday, we went to a park with waterslides and pools to celebrate a baptism of a new member of their church and relax. It was a nice day and we even played volleyball on a sand court for a while, which made my day! When it came time to say goodbye to our brothers and sisters at the church on Sunday, we were all a little sad but grateful for the new friendships we have there.

It is hard to believe we only have 10 days left on this trip!! Next week, we are spending the week at a camp at Vasequillo debriefing and relaxing. A week from this Friday, we will be on a plane back to the U.S. I'm going to make the most of my last days here (even my 2 presentations I have to give in Spanish class) and I can't wait to see all of you when I get back!! :)

Churros, chuchos, chacos and churches!

As usual, I haven't updated this as often as I would like to so I have a lot to say. Last week, on Wednesday, we went to Cholula. At Cholula, we visited the largest pyramid in the world. It's considered the largest in the world, but has to give that title to the pyramids in Egypt because it's partly undergroud. The pyramid was built originally in the 3rd Century BCE and then was remodeled and more was built on top of the original material about 4 times. The final time, the Spanish built a cathedral on top of it all in 1594. There were lots of people there on that day because it was the first day of spring and everyone was wearing white. The myth is that you can absorb the sun's energy if you wear white.

This week, our excursion was to Tlaxcala. First, we tried the pulque we have been learning about. Pulque is an alcoholic drink made from the liquid honey-like substance in the maguy cactus. It is kind-of thick and sour tasting. We decided that it tasted similar to sourdough bread. Many from the group liked it, but I couldn't take more than a couple sips because of the awful texture. Then, we took a quick look at the plaza where they have bull fights. After that, we visited the oldest church in Mesoamerica!! It was gorgeous and had a lot of history all over the walls as well as many names of the first Spanish people who arrived here. Our next stop was a museum with beautiful, brillant, brightly-colored murals containing history of Tlaxcala and all of Mesoamerica. It was really cool to see images of some of the things we have been learning and the murals were gorgeous! Our last stop was a museum about some of the cultural traditions here. It included traditional costumes for special occasions, pottery, tools and the famous masks that they use for dances. The masks cost about 20-30,000 pesos and some of the embroidered shirts cost so much, our guide compared them to Armani and Prada.

In addition to our group excursions, I have been going to museums with my guide during my conversation times. I went to the museum of the revolution, which is actually the house where 4 families that initiated the revolution lived and were killed. The bullet holes were still in the walls, and you could walk in the places where they lived and died, as well as view some of their clothing, furniture etc. One interesting part is that during the battle, the police climbed 3 different churches close to the house to shoot at the revolutionaries. We also walked around in the "Biblioteca Palofoxiana", a library built in 1647 by two men as apart of the first seminary established in the area. The library has books in more than 8 different languages and topics ranging from religion to history to famous literature to philosophy. We found a book about sermons written in 1631. The library originally contained books that were the only original copy written, but now of course all of those books are catalogued on the computer. I think my guide told me that today and tomorrow we are going to see art museums because we happened upon an art exibit at the seminary, and she saw my eyes light up.

The group is in good spirits for the most part. A few of us have felt a little under the weather, myself included, but nothing too major. Most of us are trying to find the balence between being excited to go home (as we have less than a month left) and still enjoying our time here and not missing out on any experiences. I was very lucky to be able to talk to my parents and brother last Sunday on the phone for about an hour. On Sunday, we leave for Mexico City and we will be there all week. We are visiting a bull ranch, museums and temples and watching a traditional folk ballet, then the last part of the week we are celebrating Holy week with the Mennonite Church there. We are all very excited about it!

Oh, and I suppose I should explain the title for those of you who don't know all of those things. Churros are a little doughnut-like tube-shaped food often filled with chocolate, sugar or pie-filling type stuff. I ate one this last week from a little stand, mostly just to say that I had one while I was here because I'm not a huge fan of them. Chucho is the name for stray dogs that we used in Guatemala. Dogs here tend to be pets, but you still see a few dogs running around loose. Chacos are the wonderful sandels that I have been wearing often and are fairly popular in our group. We often joke about it and take a picture with everyone who has them wearing their Chacos together. Churches, well I would certainly hope you know what those are! We have seen so many old and beautiful churches here, including many with so much gold, figures of people, angels and intricate detail it almost makes you dizzy! I guess that's all for now...until next time.

One more thing..

It was my turn to write for the EMU cross cultural Guatemala blog, and so my post is up at this website if you would like to check it out! :)

http://emu.edu/now/crosscultural/

13 canaries and a rooster

On Saturday morning, after many problems at the airport with tickets and such, thanks to Profe, we ran through security and boarded the plane just in time. We flew to San Salvador, and then to Mexico City. After going through customs, we took a bus to Puebla, which is where we will be living and studying for the next 5 weeks. Puebla is the 4th largest city in Mexico and has some of the most rich history and culture in Mexico. Also, for you worried parents and friends out there, even though it is a large city Puebla is very safe. As soon as we got off the bus, we met our host families and left with them for the rest of the weekend. Kelsey and I are staying with Mari and Alfonso, an couple who have grown children and grandchildren living in other places. They are both very nice, and Mari assured both of us right away that mistakes are part of the learning process. That's good, because I've already made some. They are hosting another person, Alejandra who is about our age and is from Guadalajara, Mexico. She is studying at another university. They also have 13 canaries and they used to have a rooster, but Mari told us that the neighbors complained about the noise. Haha, we were just glad it wasn't keeping us awake while we are here.

On Sunday, we walked with Mari to the center square (or zocalo) and watched an orchestra performance. There is always a lot going on in the zocalo like dances, music and other activities because the city has a lot of history and culture. Kelsey and I are lucky because our house is about 5 blocks from the university and about 8 from the zocalo. Kelsey and I walked back later in the day to the zocalo and there was a band area set up where groups were taking turns playing rock music and one group played "Twist and Shout". It's amazing where random things that I know from the US show up.

Today was our first day at the university. We had an oral test and a written test and afterwards they placed us in classes depending on our level and how well we did on the tests. I am in a class with 6 other people, and there are 3 different levels of Spanish represented in my class, which I love because then I can be challenged more! Our group class is mainly about history and culture of Puebla and Mexico in general, but it is all in Spanish and includes what we would like to learn about history or culture, or what we need help learning as far as grammer and stuff in Spanish. Tomorrow, I have my first individual Spanish conversation with a guide. In our conversations, we are going to be exploring the city and going to museums, churches, and other places around the city. We have a lot of freedom to tell our guides where we would like to go or what we would like to learn about. The director gave us materials including a Spanish-Spanish dictionary...which means that we are supposed to use Spanish words to look up other Spanish words. The goal is to start thinking in Spanish and not translating from English. The other goal is to be able to speak Spanish and be pretty much fluent when we are done. We are going to have lots of homework, but hopefully I will become really good at Spanish! It's hard to believe we only have 5 more weeks in Mexico! I plan on making them count! Hasta la vista!

Hola, I mean Hi...wait, what language do you speak??

Well, hello again everyone! Our taxi arrived at 4:45am here at CASAS last Thursday to take us to the bus station. We just had one problem...we were locked inside CASAS! So we had to wake up our professor, and the guard who helped us get it unlocked. After traveling on a bus all day, we were in Honduras but the battle wasn´t over yet. We didn´t change our money at the border so we needed to find an ATM, we hadn´t eaten anything, and all of the sudden the bus driver called ¨everyone off for Tela, Honduras!¨ but we were at this random gas station in the middle of nowhere! The bus people told us to get into the 2 taxis they had waiting, but we didn´t know how we were going to pay for them, or where we were going! Thankfully, the lady from the bus company told us that the taxis were paid for and they were taking us to our hotel. Phew!! What a relief!

When we got to our hotel, we were able to find an ATM and a grocery store nearby. In addition, our hotel was so nice! We had 2 rooms with plenty of beds, 3 tv´s, a fridge, stove and kitchen area, couch and a computer in another area with somewhat functioning internet. We spent most of the week at the beach, which was 2 blocks from our hotel and not terribly busy. The rest of the time we spent relaxing in the hotel watching tv and playing cards. Breakfast was included, and the rest of our meals we either cooked ourselves, or went to the local pizza place. We also threw one of the group, Heather, a surprise birthday party and celebrated with cake and pizza because her birthday is today. The last night, we went out to a nice restaurant and enjoyed fish and shrimp!

We also went kayaking in the mangroves, or swampy areas, and since there were 7 of us, I ended up kayaking with a Canadian man. He was leading about 15 Canadian high school girls who were pretty obnoxious and annoying during our trip. In the beginning, I started talking to him in Spanish, but he didn´t really respond, so then I tried in English and I got a reply I could understand. He spoke English enough to know what to say and make small talk, but as soon as he finished saying something to me, he would speak to one of the girls in French, or something like that. It was interesting to say the least. After the kayaking, we ate lunch and relaxed on the beach in a Garifuna village. The Garifuna people are from Africa and there are several communities ranging from 200 people (the size of the one we visited) to 4,000. The culture there shows up often as the women working in the house and in the banana fields with the men relaxing, even thought that is not always the case. After lunch, we experienced some spur of the moment dancing, singing and drumming by the Garifuna people. That was quite an experience! The singing and drumming was fabulous and the dancing...well, it was a little bit vulgar, but also cool to see the traditional dance style. Our guide told us that when a woman dances, that means she´s ready to have a baby. It was really interesting to see a different culture than the ones we´ve been experiencing on this trip so far.

On the way home, we left the hotel at 5:30am and were planning on getting back to Guatemala City at around 7pm. We ended up arriving at 8:30 at the bus station and were planning on calling a cab from there. But we ironically ran into Rigoberto, a staff person from CASAS who works here and gives students rides after school. He was picking up someone else and taking them to CASAS so he just happened to be there!! We were shocked and he was joking about each of us paying $100 to get a ride. But then he explained that of course we could come with him for free, so we piled into his truck and away we went! He told us that we must have a lot of luck, and we told him either that, or God is with us. :)

Wow…I´ve already written way too much, but I just wanted to throw one more thing out there. We leave for Mexico tomorrow morning!! We are leaving here at 4:30am and plan on arriving in Puebla, Mexico around midday. We are meeting our host families right away, and spending the weekend with them. Nothing like jumping right into it! This time, it will be a little different because 2 students stay with a family together. I´m staying with Kelsey, who is pretty fun and has actually been my neighbor since Freshman year. She´s at a much higher Spanish level than me, so hopefully I will learn some things from her. It seems crazy that we are leaving Guatemala tomorrow. We had a meeting to talk about what to expect in Mexico, and there are a lot of exciting things to look forward to! Here we go again!