Chichicastenango and challenges

We arrived by 10 and headed right away to visit one family that lived far from the mountainous, twisty, curvy road, which was hard enough to pass through because there was a dead standstill on a rather treacherously steep bend in the road where an old U.S. Mail truck had gone over a railing and into the river.

A tow truck was trying to drag it out, and in the meantime, traffic was backed up both ways.  I got out to investigate but found myself among only men, giving me the impetus to keep going.  Just as I reached the bridge,the traffic began moving, motorcycles careening past me, and I had to race back up the hill to our van.  We got going and began to climb and dip along the endless roller coaster of a road until we got to the turn off for the dirt road where we encountered a group of really nasty vigilantes who had put long planks of wood with four inch nails poking out of them across the road.  We stopped.  They insisted we pay 500 quetzals even though the bishop kept telling them we were a church group; clearly he hasn't gone to visit this family Ina good long time.  The thugs pressed against the van as I photographed the boards.

Once we got through that debacle, we drove for what seemed like days on a skinny road that had a steep drop off straight down the mountain until we stopped at the foot of another, narrower twisting road that went up and up, this one cement the width of a narrow sidewalk.  The bishop walked us first one way, then another, clearly befuddled by the location of this family. When we finally got there, he made no effort to converse with the children or family, and conversation with us was stilted and uncomfortable.  I hated it and felt that driving all this distance to see three scholarship students was a form of sensationalism, only drawn out by the required photograpns of said students.

I had about had it with mission work, thinking the whole thing a sham and the hierarchical structure of formal religion a smarmy political game that was beyond what my own sense of spirituality and godliness were.

Lunch in the town brought back my spirits, and we met the bishop again at 3:00 for yet another family visit.  This one required a man to pull down some of the laundry so that we could each perch on a plastic stool while we talked and the mother did her gorgeous embroidery.

These two little pumpkins made the afternoon totally worthwhile.  Just look at those faces!

The drive back was less of an adventure, and the three of us ate dinner and drank a Gallo beer at Don Carlos where I had a vegetarian platter to die for with steamed broccoli, beans, zucchini, carrots, etc... And the inevitable frijoles and guacamole.  Tomorrow we are back at it In the morning... How this all amounts to mission work is beyond me, and the more questions I ask, the more I realize that there is very little accountability on the part of the episcopal church with respect to these funds.  I think it is just guilt money that is sent over so that parishes in Pennsylvania can pat themselves on the back and tell themselves they are helping when in fact they are throwing money around wrecklessly and ineffectively.