My Bible, Your Bible

It’s a beautiful thing that almost everyone in Guatemala trusts in the same text as their moral and spiritual guide – the Bible. It is true that Catholics have a few more books in their Bible than Protestants do, but by and large the variety of religions (I’m using religions in the way that Guatemalans use it, I really mean something more like denominations or sects, because pretty much everyone belongs to the Christian religion) in Guatemala are all based on the same stories, the same words, the same Jesus. Most houses, stores, offices, etc. in the country have signs with Biblical quotes on them, and the great thing is that merely from the sign one cannot tell what is one’s religion. On buses people often make sales pitches for anything from donations to herbal supplements to protractors. And these sales pitches are always peppered with Biblical quotes, assertions that the salesman is pastor, missionary or somehow else a man of God. And in this sense, they appeal to everyone – when the person quotes the Bible, most everyone will accept it as authoritative. This paints a nice picture of Christian unity in the country which surely, is undermined by the bad blood between Evangelicals and Catholics, but is often underestimated.

You would think in that case that I would feel great to share this same foundation of my worldview with Guatemalans. And I do – it is so freeing, after Brown, to be able to reference the Bible and have people not judge you, but rather take seriously your statement. But at the same time, I have realized that it is very hard to take the whole Bible into account, putting equal weight on all the different parts, when forming your personal theology. This arose from an interesting line of thought that I was having – is Christianity an adventure or is it a way of life that involves the “prudent” choice? In other words, does Christianity involve an active engagement with the world or does it involve a more standoffish relationship with the world? I am going to reveal my personal bias when I say that I think that being a follower of Jesus means that you engage with the world, not that you copy everything that you see going on around you, but that you are light in the midst of normal society. For many other people, and I am not talking particularly about Guatemalans, but rather just many other religious people all around the world, the meaning is more to separate yourself from the world, distance yourself from sinful behaviors and people, and focus more on following specific rules of the religion.

Once, I was having a discussion with a person who was going to the same Foursquare church that I was going to during training and I asked her, “What are your favorite books of the Bible?” I had noticed that of all the passages quoted during sermons at that church, a good 85% were from the epistles, Paul’s and Peter’s letters that occupy the end of the New Testament. 10% came from random books of the Old Testament. And only the occasional passage would come from the gospels. My companion’s favorite books, however, were Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Proverbs. When she told me Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Proverbs I’m pretty sure I furrowed my brow quite strongly. Her answering the question made me realize that those were probably the three books of the Bible I disliked most. But she said that she liked those books because they had practical life lessons. It’s true, pretty much every verse of each of those books is some kind of law or piece of advice. And it is true that that makes it easier to deal with, easier to apply to daily life. (That definitely jives with our Peace Corps Non-Formal Education training: talk about things that people know they need, and give them advice that they can easily apply to their lives.)

I’ve definitely always seen Leviticus as the foundation of Jewish law. But this law, or “Holiness Code,” according to me was to a large extent superseded by the fulfillment of the law in Jesus, and the lack of the need for God to set apart the Jewish people after salvation was extended to all the nations. I haven’t read much of Proverbs because it is often common sense recommendations, and sometimes I think that Jesus’ ministry wasn’t much about following common sense. And my favorite books of the Bible have to be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I might not have admitted to it before, but now it definitely does seem to me like I privilege the gospels in the formulation of my own theology. In part, I think that has to do with the American emphasis on the salvation act, and in part just my own fascination with the person of Jesus and his incarnation on earth. I am also in keeping with strands of liberation theology thought that trace God’s work in historical events as a way of identifying God’s character. The Biblical narrative, or the history of God as related in the Bible, thus takes on supreme significance. Narratives, between individual stories and the overall historical arc of salvation/liberation/reconciliation described in the Bible, are more generally more important to me than individual verses in Proverbs, for instance.

This brings up a side note about a topic which people have raised for centuries: is there a difference between Jesus’ Christianity (so to speak) and Paul’s Christianity? The gospels and epistles are entirely different literary forms and are addressed to different people, so they do not look the same. The gospel writers and Paul had different interests and favorite topics. They did not contradict each other, but they have different “feels,” perhaps, which give the reader different impressions about the faith. I can definitely empathize with the feeling that reading the gospels leads to conceiving of the faith as an adventure, an exploration and engagement with the world, while sometimes the epistles can give a greater impression of an insular church that is more concerned with its rules.

In saying this, I am not trying to say that the Bible is contradictory but rather that different parts of the Bible can definitely give you different ideas if you build your beliefs around them. I definitely have my favorite parts too; now the question that remains for me is, Is it justified to build a theology around the gospels and Genesis, or should I try to view all parts of the Bible equally in my theological quest? Often when I do take into account seemingly contradictory parts of the Bible, a new understanding emerges. For those of you who spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff, I’d love to hear your thoughts about my wandering thoughts this evening.

My Site Assignment

About two weeks ago, I moved into my home for the next two years (hopefully) in the western highlands of the country.

What’s it like? Well, for one, it’s cold. Probably not exactly what you were thinking Guatemala would be like, right? But I am at over 8,000 feet elevation, which accounts for the cold. The site also has the unfortunate situation that at least during the rainy season, the fog from the coast rolls in around 11:00 am and it gets cold and wet quite fast. The rainy season is ending, but the coldest months are ahead, so we’ll see…it’s time to aguantar (withstand it).

Also, it’s Ladino (that is, mestizo or what you would normally think of as Latino). It was a surprise to me, after my positive experience in a Mayan town in training, to be placed in a Ladino site. I thought that I would do better than some other volunteers in the very conservative society that is much of indigenous Guatemala. But fate, God or my APCD (or maybe they’re all the same) had it planned that I go to a Ladino site. It was a huge culture shock especially, after months of just seeing traditional corte, or ankle-length skirts, to have my Women’s Office director show up to the Peace Corps office in high heels and some pretty darn tight pants. A big, but easy change from the light forearm pat to greet women to the kiss on the cheek. Riding around with teenage boys now entails some catcalling and a lot of hilarious attempts to ask for girls’ numbers. I’ve had to make some adjustments, but generally they’re easier ones to make – Ladino culture is in general more similar to U.S. culture than Mayan culture is, though the differences can definitely be exaggerated – everybody is Guatemalan, everybody eats tortillas and beans, and everybody is really some kind of mix between indigenous blood and European blood. The easiest adjustment of all was the non-adjustment: that is, not having to learn a Mayan language. Some Volunteers are very excited about learning their Kek’chi, Q’iche, or Mam, but I have to say that speaking Spanish is just fine by me. I can’t imagine how lonely I would feel if I couldn’t communicate with the people at all.

I work in the municipalidad (muni for short, it means city hall) of my municipio (municipality, although it might help you more to think of it as a county with lots of separated, smaller communities within it) with three offices at once: the OMP (Municipal Planning Office), OMM (Municipal Women’s Office), and UDEM (Municipal Economic Development Unit). My OMP consists of two young guys: a coordinator (21 yrs. old) and a technician (21 yrs. old). The OMM is actually vacant; the coordinator I mentioned earlier actually stopped working there the day I arrived. And the UDEM is one woman (25 yrs. old). We’re small and inexperienced, but are a fun team together, and our all being about the same age helps quite a bit. I would definitely say that I am getting to be pretty decent friends with all three.

Up until now, work has actually been quite busy. Four things have been happening:

1. Our current city hall is old as crap and pretty dingy. Also, I don’t really have any space to work. So it’s getting demolished and a new one will be built in its place over the next year. This means a lot of packing stuff up and moving it. Hooray for manual labor! One of my most fun and challenging activities so far was buying boxes to pack stuff in for the move. In Guatemala, you don’t go to Kinko’s and order yourself up a whole bunch of boxes. Instead, you go to all the market vendors and ask them if they have any empty boxes of plastic cups, eggs, Corn Flakes, margarine, etc. that they don’t plan on using and you negotiate yourself a price. Then you take your numerous cardboard boxes and haul them around the city until you can get them on the bus back home. In a certain way, it definitely was fun.
2. As I mentioned, city hall is going bye-bye. But there was a controversy as to where the new city hall should be built. Some said that it should be constructed such that the central plaza could be made larger so that it could hold town gatherings. However, the mayor and city council had already submitted the plans and received approval to build the new city hall on the same grounds as the old one. In an interesting meeting, the two sides debated it out and the mayor and his supporters won, although there were some allegations that the mayor had recruited his supporters from the outlying communities to come to the meeting and drown out the opposition. In any case, my opinion as an urban studies major (which translated into Spanish means much more like urban planning or urban designer) was solicited by my OMP coordinator on my very first morning on the job. (Not that I was able to voice it.) Then in the afternoon, I elaborated a ridiculously fast 3-hour urban design of the central park taking into account the assembly’s decision to build the new muni on the site of the old one. Again, the tough part has been getting the authorities to pay attention to it and get behind it.
3. I believe I described before that Guatemala has a very progressive system of community councils that supposedly identify and formulate projects that they consider important. These groups are called COCODES at the community (neighborhood, village) level and COMUDES at the municipal level. Working with each of these groups is the main focus of my OMP work. The COCODES have to be re-elected every two years, and the time has come to reelect them before Christmas. So we’re working hard to hold 17 community assemblies in the five weeks before Christmas, teaching them about the function of the COCODE and holding elections to form them. Eek!
4. Unfortunately, there have been some personal problems between a city councilman and a member of my host family which erupted into a fistfight last week. Some people think that it has to do with the controversy about the new muni building, but it actually wasn't. This has put me in an awkward position in the muni, but I’m trying hard to stay out of the drama and cultivate relationships with the city councilmen.

That’s the update on life. Exciting to be a real Peace Corps Volunteer, starting to cultivate the relationships that count for real!

Swearing-In Speech (in English)

Wendy, thank you for the introduction. Mr. Ambassador Stephen McFarland, Mr. Luis Alberto Montenegro and Adolfo Orozco representatives of INACOP, Martha, Wendy, Roberto, Salvador, Peace Corps staff, thank you very much for your presence.

A special shout out to Peace Corps’ drivers – thank you very much! And I would like to stop myself for a second to thank enormously the Guatemalan families to whom we owe so much, thank you, matiosh chihüe (thank you in Kachiquel), for being with us this morning and sharing the joy of us becoming, as we say, agents of change.

Finally, fellow trainees – whoops, I didn’t mean trainees, I meant volunteers!! Wow, isn’t it awesome that we’ll never again have to use the word trainee, right? Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to stand in front of you this beautiful morning and express a few thoughts to you.

We are here full of hope because finally, we are going to start the work that we came to do. The work that we have been planning for up to five years. And in this moment we now do feel prepared and excited. But at the same time, we are perhaps a little nervous too because of something, we are nervous too because of the so-called “the Peace Corps question” which we ask ourselves. What is this question? The question is, “Am I making change? Will life in my town actually be better when I leave in two years?” We ask ourselves these questions to motivate our work. But these questions can sometimes depress us, or at least make us question our purpose.

I’m telling you the truth when I tell you that in these first few months in the field, we are going to face confusing and depressing feelings, thinking in these questions because unfortunately, change is slow and it is hard and the majority of the time, it doesn’t look like skyscrapers nor highways but it is something invisible to our eyes.

Well then, instead of meditating on this question, I suggest that we turn our attention to something more cheerful, something happier, something more to our liking, like…love.

Speaking of love, did you all know that I am married? Yes, it’s true, I got married here in Guatemala the second weekend I was here in country. Well, as you guys know, I’m really popular with the women here and…

No, just kidding, that’s a total lie. What really happened is that my second weekend here my Guatemalan family and my Spanish teacher decided to stage a wedding – that is, do a fake typical Guatemalan wedding. And in that way Devon and I got married. Through this experience we learned the traditions and culture of our town, Santa Catarina Barahona. Everything was very nice: we dressed up in traditional clothing, there were rings, flowers and of course, pepián (the traditional Guatemalan dish).

And amidst all of this happiness, they taught us many things, one of which what is a sute, here is one (it is a traditional weaving). This weaving is used in many Mayan towns and women use it like this (I put the sute balancing on my head), to protect themselves from the sun. Yes, yes, photo op, take your pictures.

Usually the bride weaves the sute by hand and gives it to her mother-in-law the day of the wedding. She will take about one year to weave it. And if you are an artisan weaver or if you have seen the artisans of this country, you’ll know how incredible are their patience and skill to do this kind of work. The sute, then, is a symbol of the commitment which is the key aspect to marriage.

But why am I talking about marriage when basically all of the volunteers in this group are single? Because I would like us to take each one of the activities we’ve carried out in this swearing in like a commitment, like a way of marrying ourselves, like a wedding. Today we begin our marriage, even if it is a short-term one, only two years, with the people of Guatemala. We will be like a bride who gives her sute to her mother-in-law. Today, we commit ourselves to the people of our towns. And this is the way I suggest we see our service: not like a job in which we measure ourselves only for our achievements and where this so-called Peace Corps question pursues us, but I suggest that we see it like a marriage focused on our commitment to our partner, our town.

For those of us who come from a results-based culture, it’s difficult to assign importance to changes that are not concrete achievements or visible to our eyes. All the same, I am sure that our committing ourselves will lead to many concrete achievements because, well, what does our commitment mean? It means that we stay with the people, that we show solidarity with them and that we try every day in our work with and for them.

Because generally it is easy to distinguish or separate ourselves from the people, to feel superior to them. It could be our particular ways of life or our education, our cultural norms or, really, a ton of things that can make us think like that.

But we did not come to Guatemala to be superior. And really, when you think about it we haven’t been either. We are weaker than we look. For example, just look at our stomachs, or at least mine. With all of my problems, perhaps it does not surprise you that my family calls me “Baby.” Because the truth is that I depend on them.

And in this marriage that we are going to establish with our communities, in this mutually dependent relationship, we are going to realize that we do not have all the answers, that we need to learn as much as teach and that accepting the help of another person is something that is in reality beautiful. While the world strains for upward social mobility, toward superiority, toward fame and wealth, we on the other hand identify ourselves with the poorest, with him whom lacks, with him whom the outside world does not care to know.

And what does it say to the members of the community that we want to spend two years working with them for their benefit? To the community it says this. You are important to us, and we believe that you deserve all the advantages that we have been lucky to have enjoyed. When we place ourselves at the same level as the people, when we integrate, when we take risks together with the people, we show solidarity with them, and being in solidarity, we can truly share life with them, supporting them and learning from them

In Santa Catarina, I know that I have helped to effect change in a few people’s lives; however, very little of that was through our official work, simply it was the result of living together with the people.

In any case, we are going to try as hard as we can to achieve lasting changes in our work, but we should not let ourselves be consumed by this so-called Peace Corps question. We are not going to get depressed over it. It’s better that we focus on living our commitment with the people, in being present and at the same level as them, in being faithful to them in all that we do in Guatemala. We trust that our presence in the country will be useful to bring forth meaningful changes here.

Well now, to end like a good wedding, on behalf of my fellow volunteers I will take the vows of our commitment in front of the community.

Where others are suffering, we will share their suffering.

Where they are happy, we will enjoy their happiness together.

Where there are problems, we will listen to them first.

Where we have the opportunity to feel superior, we will remain humble.

And never, never never never will we allow someone to tell us that being here was not worth it, that we didn’t accomplish anything, because our commitment is strong and our friendships valuable, and more than that, we know that change is not measured in quetzals or nor in dollars but in mothers and fathers and children and grandparents. That is how we will be. May God bless them, and may he bless us too. Thank you very much.