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Global Urban Trek 2008
Aliens and PancakesJuly 1, 2008
What a week! I think, slowly, we’re all becoming more acclimated to the culture here but its incredibly draining as well. In the midst of trying not to offend, learning local customs and constantly straining to learn new Spanish, our bodies and motions have been strained.
For some, this is acknowledging that cat calls and whistles here are the norm and not the exception; for others, it’s the deprived comforts and the dangerous streets at night. We feel comforted by the Psalms we read, the prayers we recite and the hymns we have come to love, but there’s a point where new experiences, illnesses and rising frustrations tend to break down and test previous understandings.
I suppose, however, when the disciples were called out to foreign lands that they too were seen as complete aliens and felt similar circumstances.
I’m surprised to see and hear of so many schools and churches in the community. But how come? Was I merely expecting to see a country like Honduras without God or any sense of self-organization? Yet again, I find myself in another moment where I need to put down my cultural or American-based presumptions. Berlin didn’t have to have the last historic wall knocked down.
The neighborhood is on the up-and-up, but plagued by decades of pain and self-inflicted injury. Drugs and gang violence might be in the decline, but the single mothers and intense poverty still grips much of the community. And without life insurance, we’ve seen more machetes, shotguns and rifles than in most Arnold Schwarzenegger movies put together.
There is no silence in Suyapa – dogs, cats, birds, donkeys, geckos, children and the constant Spanish build a unique roaring sound that refuses to phase out even through the night. I can’t help but feel like I’m part of a larger something special, but alone at the same time. We’re inside new levels of relational intimacy.
Everyone seems to hide their limited knowledge of English behind coy and curious facades. We washed the car last night and visited the Basilica today. Beautiful. We saw Helyn and Cally, they’re doing great: cheque leque panceque (“cool as a pancake”). Good night and remember: arcoiris es bonito.
- Dylan
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