Monday, January 23, 2012

Sunny San Francisco

Sheryl’s mother, Margot, came to visit the first week of January while Phil was in Minnesota.  We had beautiful weather - sunny and highs in the 60's - and that allowed us to spend lots of time by the water! 
One of the big highlights of the trip was a boat ride around San Francisco Bay where we got right under the Golden Gate Bridge, saw the seals at Pier 39 and got up close to Alcatraz island. 
  We also toured Grace Cathedral and particularly enjoyed seeing all the needle pointed cushions they use for kneelers.  Did you know each Episcopal parish in the diocese here is represented in a cushion?  Individuals also are memorialized.

This photo showing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” was taken at Union Square in San Francisco. 




Another day took us out to a fishing pier in Berkeley that extends ¾ mile into San Francisco Bay.  It used to be part of a 3.5 mile pier for automobile ferries from Berkeley to San Francisco in the early 1900's  before the Bay Bridge was built in 1937.  Phil, Sheryl and Bella are regulars at this spot!

It was great mother/daughter bonding time as we spent most evenings drinking wine and playing cards - with Sheryl letting Margot win most the time!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Getting Around Guatemala

One of my favorite things about the Guatemalan culture is their “carpooling.”  I rarely saw a car, truck or bus with only one or two people in it.  Some of that is the dismal economic conitions, but a bigger piece is their strong sense of community and generous spirit. On Christmas morning in Antigua, we saw a family of 5 riding a motorcycle into town!  The concept of personal space is different in Guatemala than it is in the U.S. or at least not in Minnesota.  People just don’t mind squishing 5 people in a seat meant for 2 or up to 20 people standing in the back of a pick-up truck.  And many are riding for several hours this way!

People stand by the side of the road waiting for buses or trucks to pick them up. Once when we were in a pick-up truck on the way to one of the aldeas (rural villages) supported by the monastery, Fr. Pedro our driver, kept stopping every so often to pick up someone on the road and they just climbed up and stood in the bed of the truck.  We did eventually find out he knew them and that they were helping him at mass and it was the only way they were going to get there.

 Our primary modes of transportation while at the monastery were a 30 year old Land Rover and a "vintage" Suzuki with no back seats.  Driving to see some schools with Fr. Bernie in the Land Rover over mountain trails full of rocks and mud was so ludicrous for Sarah and I bouncing in the back seats that we several times burst out laughing, even when we almost tipped over.  There was no other appropriate response!
Earlier that same day, we put gas in the Land Rover at a gas station in town.  All the stations are “full service”, something we haven’t seen in the U.S. for years.  One of the main jobs for the gas attendants is to stand on the vehicle being filled with gas and rock it back and forth so that the gas gets in smoothly and the tank can get filled up!



Our most (read LEAST) favorite aspects of getting around Guatemala were the “tumulos” or speed bumps.  In Guatemala, everyone drives as fast as they want to and the police don’t seem to enforce any traffic laws – if there are any.   So the towns out in the country that the main roads go through put in “tumulos” to get people to slow down.  However, there is rarely a sign, nor do they paint or stripe the bumps.  You could be going 100 kph and not see the bump right in front of you until the last minute.  We were traveling at night to get to Coban from Guatemala City in a stick shift rental car and one of the times it decided to just die halfway through one of the 40 or so tumulos on that road.  Luckily, two nice police officers with machine guns pulled us over to make sure the gringos were okay!  Sorry, no photos of tumulos due to their "invisibility "  :)

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Guatemala – Installment One

 Our family trip to Guatemala over Christmas was amazing.  We are all still processing what we experienced.  We will use this space over the next few weeks in an attempt to share what we learned and encountered, altough words can hardly capture the essence of what we experienced, we will do our best to describe this incredible journey.



Antigua

Since Coban (where Justin is living) is several hours from the airport and we were arriving on Christmas Eve, we decided to begin our journey in the colonial and historical town of Antigua, a mere 45 minutes or so from the airport.  Justin met us at the airport around 8:30 p.m. in a rental car after waiting several hours for our late plane.  He had purchased a map so that we could find the hostal we would be staying at, but of course if there aren’t any street signs, maps don’t do you much good.  In addition, there were few street lights and people were standing everywhere in the streets lighting off firecrackers – a Guatemalan Christmas Eve tradition.


After asking for directions from a policeman, two store owners, calling the “concierge” at the hostal 3 times and then eventually finding and hiring a cab to follow – we finally arrived at our destination at 11:45 p.m. on Christmas Eve.  We had not had any dinner and were in no mood to attempt to find the midnight mass we were originally planning on going to.  Luckily, our hostal was wonderful.  We had a table in the open courtyard, bought two bottles of wine and dug some granola bars out of our plane bags.  Sarah brought “tradition” with her in the form of tiny felt stockings with our initials on them and snowflakes to decorate.  She also brought a candle for each of us to unwrap so we could have our traditional Christmas Eve story sharing ritual.  It was an extraordinary Christmas Eve.
On Christmas Day, we had beans and eggs for breakfast and opened gifts Sarah had brought from Minnesota family.  We got specific walking directions and headed off to the Cathedral for noon Mass only to find that 12:00 on Christmas Day was another traditional time to set off firecrackers! Although we were delayed by about 10 minutes getting into the Cathedral, the priest didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get mass started and people kept arriving for another half hour or so.  Of course, the mass was in Spanish but we could keep up with what was going on, especially with the help of our personal translator, Justin - who out of necessity has become fluent in Spanish.


After mass, we walked out into the main town square where we were immediately accosted by people selling their wares.  My first thought was that of Jesus when he overturned the money changers tables in the temple.  After all, it was Christmas Day when the stores are normally closed and we are supposed to have Sabbath and family time!  However, it became quickly clear that the people (mostly indigenous Guatemalans) working the square relied on selling goods to tourists as their primary source of income.  The women were selling tapestries at a “special price for you”, girls were wrapping hair braids or selling candy, men were selling jade jewelry and boys were learning the shoeshine trade.  We decided it was important to help the local economy and started bartering :)  

Stay tuned for Installment 2 -
Getting around Guatemala or “the U.S. could learn a little about carpooling from these guys”