Hello from the Mississippi Trippers

Ooh hey, didn't see yeah there.

So we're still alive. The bus ride was long (36 hours), greasy and uncomfortable. But we survived through movies, ipods, and sleeping in the aisles awkwardly. Easy to say we've never looked better. We're learning important life skills that we've seemed to have forgotten. Like sharing. We slowly, but successfully shared two single gas station bathrooms between all 31 of us while getting ready for bed time on the bus. We missed our opportunity to visit the Museum of Civil Rights, but "fortunately" got to tour the "wonderful" and "exciting" Graceland. in Graceland we got to sign the wall outside of Graceland (as seen in this photo) we arrived in south haven at around 6:30 this evening. After glorious and well needed showers we set out to experience the comfort food of the south. Deep fried broccoli... delicious. After our phenomenal meal we are finally settling into our rooms for the comfort of a real bed and a good nights rest. tomorrow we will be visiting New Orleans touring the french quarter. we are looking forward to the weather (expected to be 29), trying new food, and shopping. Good night Canada, stay classy. p.s have fun in the cold. :)
Sincerely,
Ryann and Kirstin.

Guatemala Update

So, as you probably know already, we're not in El Salvador. What's that, you want to know why? Well just sit down and I'll tell you a tale.

It all started yesterday at 5:30 AM. The children were running and screaming, awaking the shallowest of sleepers (so of course not Ryan). We awoke and had breakfast at Semilla and went over our plans. We were to go to the market and a human rights museum featuring the exhibit "Why we are who we are." In the afternoon we were to travel to San Salvador and spend the night there.

So we travelled to the market. On the way,we saw a man herding goats in the middle of the main plaza. The thing that alerted us of his presence was the cracking of his whip to keep his goats in line. At the market, we were given the task of "buying" basic necessities for a standard family of four on what would be an average farmer's budget (50 Q or 6 dollars). My group was fine (Ryan, Jim, Jordan, and Luke), but I'm sure the other groups were not as great as us. Hillary's group was approached by a drunk man, who told them he loved them forever. We had a tough time finding items to supply a family for one day at a reasonable price. Most of the items surprised us. We asked for prices on various things including tomatoes (5 Q/15), beans (10 Q/lb), a chicken (40 Q), and toilet paper (4 rolls/ 22 Q). Based on these prices it would be hard to supply a family sufficiently since you would likely only be able to buy the most basic of things. Some of the participants also felt uncomfortable asking the prices without intent of buying goods since this was these people's livelihood.

After this, we went to the artisan market. There was a lady there wearing 6 hats, 10 table runners, and large amounts of clothing and bags. The strange thing was she was wearing them all in the heat that was roughly 27 C. A friendly man tried to help Luke find an adequate belt. He was quite determined to sell him a belt, and even went about looking in various stalls to find a proper fit. Luke had no choice but to buy this belt after he put in so much effort to find a good belt. The guys bought a few machettes, and a couple other gifts for various people, which may or may not include family members. This opportunity to buy gifts at the market gave us a chance to practice our bartering skills. I can quite confidently say I was the best. Some were better than others of course. We were all ripped off in the end.

Next stop on the tour we went to the museum. The exhibit mainly talked about the indigenous groups and their rights, and the bloody history of the people. The exhibit was interesting, but we were quite limited by our minimal knowledge of the Spanish language. It was definately worthwhile, but we're still processing what we got out of it.

We came back to Semilla for lunch and packed our stuff up to head out. We ate some delicious chicken. Shortly after lunch we were introduced to our driver, Mario. As fortune would have it, we needed gas. We proceeded to stop at a shell station which housed the cafe called "On The Run." Where's this going? Well, as Adriana returned from purchasing gas, two men came to different windows. One pulled out a gun and pointed it at Mario. He demanded all of our money. Needless to say, we handed what he wanted over. Among notable things stolen are Cassandra's passport and Gerry's camera, along with a lot of MCC's money. Remember the name of the cafe? Pretty coincidental eh? I thought the mood was quite dark in the van afterwards. I looked at the name and started laughing and sharing what I was laughing about. It cheered Hillary up at least. We immediately went to MCC afterwards and debriefed about our experience and our feelings surrounding the event. Thankfully everyone was fine.

So now we had to figure out how to get Cassandra a passport. She did her thing at the Canadian Embassy today, securing a passport for our travels set for tomorrow at 6 in the morning. We slept in this morning and played Kaiser (Jordan and Ryan up 2 games to 0 over Matt and Luke, who think they're going to win the third) while she was doing this.

We also had the pleasure of heading to the community of Lo de Carranza in the afternoon. We met up with Manuel, who was part of the experience of last year's group. We toured the neighborhood as well as checked out the church and the preschool in the area built by past RJC trips. During our tour of the neighborhood, we got to check out some houses in the area as well as meet the locals and interacting with the kids.

On the way back, we encountered a bus that blocked the two lanes of oncoming traffic while trying to turn left, but the traffic headed the other way refused to let him in. The bus driver behind us got quite upset and furiously honked his horn in vain. We also encountered the longest red light in the history of the world. We sat at the light the in the time that it would take approximately to read this blog twice.

We leave tomorrow bright and early for El Salvador.

Your Intrepid Explorers

Jordan, Ryan, and Hillary

PS Thanks Hillary for going to bed and waking up Cassandra so she could proofread. We already know we cannot rely on the sppellcheck feature. I think we're good for next time though, and I'm not sure if I want to see Cassandra after she's prepared for bed again.

From Guatemala!

So, we had a fantastic day of flights that resulted in a few stories, a couple of missing essential components, and a confiscated bottle of hand sanitizer. We had somewhat of a scare right off of the bat when the nice lady from Air Canada announced our plane to Calgary may or may not be landing, which would have forced us to reschedule our entire flight scheme. However, the plane landed 1 second after she announced this. Thank you for not looking out of the window, Air Canada lady. So we made it to Calgary. Then I (Jordan) go through security. I let them zap my ticket and I walk through the metal detector. I get to the other side and the nice man asks for my boarding pass. I fail to find it. Fortunately for me, they found it under the table on the other side of security, so they searched my bag next. Then they took my hand sanitizer. I thought, "how the heck did this thing get through Saskatoon?" It's a pretty big bottle too. So we are about to board our plane from Calgary to Houston when the guy checking our boarding passes notices an incredible amount of Mennonite names. He then asks if we're from Steinbach or something.

Next on the itinerary, we land in Houston. We're all pretty hungry at this point. Almost all of the guys looked into getting some Texas barbeque. We find a joint and I request a BBQ sandwich. A meat slab the size of a football field is produced, accompanied by a word I cannot write on this blog, which was announced by the Texan behind me. If a local was impressed, you know it had to be big. Next we hear the PA system calling for Kate McArthur to go to gate E10. She lost everything. If you thought my boarding pass situation was bad, you should not read the extensive list of things she lost: her passport, all of her money, all of her boarding passes, her baggage claim sticker, her drivers licence, her pride, and a pack of gum. While this was happening, we all watched March Madness. At this point, a friendly Guatemalan man came to talk to us about the nuances of bartering and specific sites we should visit. Also, he highly recommended a chicken place in Quetzeltenango.

Next we boarded our flight to Guatemala City. Matt unnerved a lady sitting close to him. A friendly chap served us a microwaved burger in a plastic bag. Mmmmmmmmmmmm, death by... who knows what's in that thing. Whatever it is, it can't be good for ya. We did end up arriving at our destination relatively unscathed (remember Kate's pride), although Cassandra did somehow manage to get stopped and patted down at every possible security checkpoint, including experiencing the (in)famous FULL BODY SCAN. We were greeted by Adriana and Antony in a new van with a fair bit of headroom. Hillary could stand up in it, but that's not saying much. We spent the night at Semilla. We were all happy to be here. Especially Adam (insert mile wide smile here).

I was rudely awakened by a man mowing his lawn at 5:30 am. We gathered for breakfast in the dining hall and discussed our plan for the day. Adriana picked us up and brought us to the MCC Guatemala El Salvador head office. We were formally introduced to Adriana and our itinerary for the next 12 days. After this review, we were given the long answer of everything that is done by MCC in Guatemala and El Salvador. We were served a delicious lunch made by a very very nice Guatemalan lady. Much better than that burger yesterday.  After lunch and a quick soccer match where Adam found a way to get hit in the face multiple times, we travelled to the City Cemetary and did a scavenger hunt to find graves of historical figures in Guatemala's history. We observed the obvious juxtaposition of mausoleums for the rich and a wall grave for the poor, indicating the great disparity between the poor and the rich. We ventured to the edge of the cemetary where we viewed the dump. There was an incredible amount of vultures and an incredible amount of people looking to recycle the garbage that was incessantly being brought in. Afterward, on our way out, Gerry McLellan was approached by a local man who had a little bit too much to drink and was looking to practice his English. Way to be a sport Gerry. I (Jordan) was also gawked at by a number of Guatemalan girls who were perplexed by my height and pale complexion. All of this was followed by a spanish lesson where we were introduced to our new Spanish names. Notables include Gerry being changed to Heraldo, Luc to Lucas, Jordan to Hordan, Kate and Katie to Katerina I & II, and Jim to Diego.

For the next couple of days we will be in El Salvador working with the locals of La Linea. We're looking forward to connecting with the local youth there.  We will most likely be out of contact, so check in again on the weekend for our next update.

A special thanks to the spell check feature of hotmail, which only told us that most browsers do this automatically. You're a champ.

Salud!

Jordan, Hillary, and Ryan

Crossing Borders With Care - Guatemala 2011

Our Guatemala/El Salvador adventure begins soon!  Today in Chapel our group was "commissioned' by the RJC community as we prayed together for safety and a wonderful time of great learning, new friendships and adventure together.

We will be leaving this Sunday morning and after a long day of travel via Calgary and Houston we will begin our service and learning tour in Guatemala City with MCC's Connecting People's program.  We anticipate visits to El Salvador, Guatemala City, San Marcos and the cloud forests, Xela and Antigua.  We have a busy itinerary with many unique and exciting experiences in store!

We will post on our blog as time and technology permit.  We look forward to learning in very practical terms what Christ meant when He taught to "love your neighbor as yourself".  We appreciate your prayers for our group and your interest in our adventure.

Adios!!

Service Education Blog 2011 Going Live Soon

Watch this space for information and updates about Guatemala,
Mississippi and ALSO service and learning trips happening in just a
couple of weeks!

Guatemala trip begins on March 20, 2011

Mississippi leaves for their trip on March 24, 2011

ALSO in Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton and begins on March 28, 2011

Slide Show from Mississippi Trip

The group that went to Mississippi for ALSO (working with Habitat for Humanity) put together a short slide show.

The Last Day in Mississippi

Hi Everyone!
Hopefully by the time you hear from us next it will be in person!
That's right, we are done our service work and are waiting to leave the Habitat for Humanity compound.
Today we worked at the house and the warehouse again till lunchtime and then we had lunch on the bus on our way to a beach!
On Wednesday Les, one of our bus drivers, came up to us and asked us if we would like to go to the ocean on Friday afternoon if all the work was done. Of course we said yes. So, today we went to a local beach in Waveland and dove in!
Unfortunately the weather was and still is taking a turn for the worse, so we only spent about an hour and a half on the beach. It is now raining cats and dogs outside and if you step out into the lovely thunderous afternoon you will get soaked.
Tonight we spend on the bus and drive all day tomorrow until we reach Jamestown, ND, where we spend the night in a hotel. The next morning we finish the trip with a ten hour drive to RJC. Monday morning bright and early we start school again.
Sorry for no more pictures, the computers aren't being very nice and won't let us put them on. You'll have to wait.
Thanks repeatedly for your prayers and support.
Katie, Bronwyn, and Judith