The Gift Exchange

Today, we had our gift exchange with the bilingual students at the Federico Froebel school, which was largely successful with some difficulties, but ended in joy and gladness for all involved and worked out fine. In this post I’ll detail the difficulties experienced, how well it turned out, and a few gifts that were given and received.

The first difficulty experienced was by me this morning on my way to the church (where some of us get picked up) from my home stay. I realized on the ride that I forgot the gift I had prepared for the gift exchange, which were 3 packages of candies from Canada in a nice gift bag. Not wanting to inconvenience my home stay family, who needed to be somewhere evidently soon, I stayed silent about it until I was at the church with Aaron, my home stay buddy. Once Mr. Smith arrived, I asked him about it in a detached way (“Suppose I happened to forget my gift….what should I do?”), and his response was that we could get the gift to my partner tomorrow through a parent at the school that we know, but that today I would need to apologize in the best Spanish I know (since I know none, the best I can speak is in another Latin-related language – English; though I didn’t say this to him). So that was my personal difficulty; now for the group’s.

For this year as gifts the GCP program had a bundle of a HCS hoodie, a GCP t-shirt, and a copy of “Global Citizens: The Movie” that we would combine with our gifts to give. The difficulty we had with this though is that we didn’t know the sizes of our partners, as many of us couldn’t put a face to the names we were given. However, this was fixed quickly as their teachers found out the sizes of the students and delivered the list to us with their sizes.

This then caused the third problem; the average size of a Mexican is far smaller than the average size of a Canadian. When GCP bought the clothing, we bought it according to what would be best if we were exchanging with other Canadians, so for example there were more Larges than Mediums. Therefore, with the sizes the teachers gave, we realized that we wouldn’t be able to give everyone their proper size. Mr. Smith had to then go through the list of their students with the sizes, and tell us what size to give instead.

Next it was time for the gift exchange. We went down to them with our gifts packaged together with the clothing and movies, and formed a large circle with the students. Pair by pair were called up to meet in the middle, exchange the gifts, hug, sit down, and wait for everyone before looking at the gifts.

This public giving of gifts frightened me, as all I had was the initial package plus two little Canadian additions other people gave me because they realized how ridiculous all their Canadian gifts were to give. However, my exchange went smoothly. Later once we were opening up the gifts I explained privately to my partner that I forgot the rest of my gift at my home stay and that I could get it to her through a parent at the school some time later this week. She was fine with that.

As for my gift, I received a book and a note written in slightly broken English (though my Canadian classmates have written things worse than that). The note was long, about a page in length, and explained what the book was about. The explanation of what the book was about was necessary, because the book is in Spanish! Essentially, the book is about how businessmen in Mexico are like animals in the corporate jungle. The cover on the book has a briefcase in leopard print. I’m not exactly sure how I’ll read it, as online translation seems like a lot of work since I’d have to type everything in there, and the only other way I’d read it is to learn Spanish, which is also a lot of work. I still like my gift though, perhaps if even because receiving a book in a different language makes up slightly for forgetting part of one’s gift.

In the end of the gift exchange, everyone seemed happy and were smiling, and posing for many pictures. I’d judge our gift exchange to be a success, even with our small problems.

 

-Joel Therrien

The Museum

Courtyard of the museum

As we walked up through the massive museum doors, history began. Ancient archways and pillars make a beautiful courtyard that lead to the beginning of our adventure. After taking large amounts of pictures and acting like major tourists, we started our tour. Up the stairs to a room where the walls and frames were lined with gold (whether it was real or not doesn’t matter, it was beautiful). Sun rays bounced off the gold and glimmered in everyone’s eyes. Cameras snapping pictures here and there, students stand in awe at what we see. The first place we stopped at was a room filled with artifacts that had been taken out of Mitla. Gold bracelets, medallions, and necklaces were placed in cases for our dirty insignificant hands to reframe from. Benito spoke in a hushed voice as if to add to the fact that this museum was of more importance than anything we had to offer. Police men stood in every corner, watching our every move. As soon as Benito was finished his speech about tombs, and everything from them, we were able to go our own ways.

Once you step out of the room, you stepped into a hallway of doors, old wooden doors. These doors lead to all different types of artifacts or past cultural events. Every room held their own story. Every room was dripping in knowledge of Oaxaca and Mexico. Running around the Museum with child-like wonder towards every piece of information we could find, everyone in my class dispersed among the huge museum. Memories were made, as the police men would ruin our small attempts to have fun. Shushing us, and telling us not to touch things (all while in Spanish) were their favorite things to do to us. Although behind their serious mustaches we could see them starting to chuckle at us white teenagers.  Going to the museum was time well spent. I learned many things that day, mostly how to say “do not touch” in Spanish.. – Jojo

Benito Hernandez

There is a man whom I’ve recently met, and never thought I would ever meet a more curious, more knowledgeable character. Benito Hernandez is the name of that said man, and I’m very glad that I have met Benito. His knowledge of Mexican history, and the fact that his English was better than most English-speaking people, were two extravaganzas. Even his idiosyncrasies were that of a knowledgeable man. The perching of his sunglasses on the tip of his nose, like a bird of prey on a single branch. The leaning back, like an old oak tree exhaling after a long hot day in the sun. The wiping of sweat that festered under his noble explorer’s crown. The continual asking of the question “See?” that sounded more like “Say”. The hands always at ease on his aged stomach. The keeping of an archaeology book in the back of his vest, keeping it close and eager, like a gunslinger and his gun, ready to fire off answers to any cocky, arrogant, taunting question. Most of all was the stare he’d give you. Parents usually want their kids to look people in the eye when they converse with someone. Benito took that concept to heart tenfold.  But, idiosyncrasies aren’t what sum up Benito, however, I’m pretty sure there isn’t a word in any tongue to sum up that man.

Benito is very knowledgeable about Mexican history, old and new, however, he preferred the old. He had a particular interest in the Zapotec people. I only just learned that he is Zapotec himself, although I knew it in the back of my mind. Unfortunately, he doesn’t speak the language himself, but, at least he has studied the Zapotecs more so than people do about their own heritage. I could see Benito as a fantastic history teacher, but, he instead is a tour guide, full time. I heard that, and it amazed me, that he is willing to put up with knaggy tourists all day, and explains the same thing over and over again. I guess that’s what a teacher does too, but teachers just tolerate the same students every day. So, he isn’t missing out, if not, has it better off.  I bet he even thought that one through. Good going, Benito!

All throughout the tour, he would stop and tell us specifics about certain things, as tour guides usually do. However, most tour guides don’t stop to look at certain trees, and give a history of them either, then again, Benito isn’t most tour guides. Although most of the people that surrounding me were so bored with his continuous stopping to look at specific vegetation, I was very intrigued. Either it was because it was rather interesting, or the fact that Benito was speaking period. Either way, I was entertained and interested, and thus, he was doing his job. I know I asked him a couple questions here and there, either to hear him explain it, or just know more about the culture and traditions.

Hearing Benito explain something is like how an old man recollects. Benito will take the long way around to say what he wants, and sometimes the journey was worth more than the destination. I asked him about this decorative skull, and if that was the origins of the candy skull. Benito could have just said “I don’t know” or something, but that wouldn’t be very “Benito”ish of him. He proceeded tell everyone else what a candy skull was, and then answered my question with “Could be. Could be.”  Although my question wasn’t answered, I was still enthralled with everything he had to say. For only I was taking notes, otherwise, I would have come out of this a lot smarter.

All in all, Benito Hernandez is a curious character, but you couldn’t ask for anyone better as a tour guide, or even as a person himself. He truly made my tour better sevenfold, at least. If I didn’t have Benito as our tour guide, I wouldn’t have been half as interested, and wouldn’t have come out of it, feeling like I know a little more than I did before.

Here is to you, Benito Hernandez. For being the best tour guide a dumbfounded English-speaker could ask for. For if there is anyone who I aspire to be like when I’m older, it is you, my friend. Cheers. – Dylan Glada

First Day of School

The first day of school was exciting. I began the first day by arriving to a pleasant, sophisticated preparatory school with the name Federico Froebel standing out. It was as if the experience was déjà vu. Personally, it felt like it was the first day of kindergarten all over again. The first day at a new, foreign school, everybody is curious, nervous and anxious to converse with the Spanish students. I was greeted pleasantly at the door in English! My roommate and I were guided to the classroom where the Canadian students would study for the next few days. Our class arrived slowly; all looking hesitant not knowing what to think. We all felt like the stereotypical “New Kid”. After a few minutes of introductions from Mr. Smith, the grade 12 teacher, Laura, called our class to officially meet the Spanish students. We met in an outdoor gym and began a game to ease the awkwardness of introductions.

Each Spanish student had a baby picture and the game was to match the childhood photo with the corresponding student. Fortunately Taylor Adam and I had a set of twins to find. We located our objective fairly easy. I was introduced to Dolce and Carla. Their English was well developed and exceeded my knowledge of Spanish by a factor of 50. A few more introductions were made before the next event was underway. The second event was a relay. The Heritage students and the Federico Froebel students were divided into 5 separate teams. Each team was assigned to a game and had to finish as soon as possible. The first game was to eat three doughnuts suspended off strings. Second was to read a Spanish phrase correctly. Third was to walk with a lime on a spoon while holding the spoon in your mouth. The fourth event was to make a human circle and pass a hula-hoop around as many times as possible in two minutes.  My relay team consisted of Andrea, Abigail, Jenna, Courtney, Taylor and I. The games were a great way to break the ice and have a relaxed, tranquil and enjoyable.

The language barrier has drastically decreased compared to the Christian Zicatella Youth group in Puerto Escondido which has made communication much more hassle-free. I am now looking forward to playing basketball in gym class as well as joining the Spanish students in their classes. – Isaiah Cato

Cascada Adventures

The alarm sounded off at 6am, Monday morning. After tedious room inspections, we were off to start the day. It’s a two hour drive to La reforma, where the majestic waterfall resides. The road was gravel, really narrow and ridiculously curvy. After finally realizing it was near to impossible to sleep in these conditions, we had arrived at our destination. The second we were able to see the waterfall the flashing camera’s came out to capture the beauty before us. Everyone was eager to jump in and enjoy the refreshing cold water that has been so absent to us. A group of us swam out to the waterfall, although the current and force were strong we managed to slip behind it. It was a neat experience, being behind a waterfall, grasping on to slippery rocks to keep above the water. After some of us had conquered swimming straight underneath it, it was deemed to dangerous and we had to stay in eye sight. The waterfall was wonderful and we all really enjoyed it. That was adventure number uno. Which brings us to our second adventure; Cliff jumping! A majority of us were thrilled with the idea and quite ready to dive into the cool water. But some, not naming any names here, it was a bit more of a step. The class began jumping as Mrs. Roberge starting snapping pictures trying to capture the back flips and cannonballs and unfortunate belly and back flops. The higher of the two cliffs, was a bit scary I’ll admit. Standing there with a slight breeze brushing past,trying to focus on the thrill at hand. Behind and beside me, my classmates are encouraging me to jump, or maybe they just wanted me to hurry up; it was hard to tell at that point. Nonetheless they counted to 3 for the second time and as I gathered my last breath of air, I jumped into the welcoming water below me. Next up was one of our own; Vitaly. He climbed on up to the higher cliff looking confident and ready to conquer. That changed as he started to stare down about 20 ft below him. He was now hesitant and worried. David and George started encouraging him in Russian, with no outcome they moved to English. Now everyone was in on it, counting down and trying to persuade him to jump. It took some time and we earned some great sunburns awaiting, but it was worth it. Nicely done Vitaly!

Our third and final adventure was the Rock Slide.

More people were hesitant about this one figuring that sliding down really hot and hard rocks was perhaps pretty unappealing. But once we had it wet down and people came up saying it was deceiving and wasn’t as painful as it looked, we were ready. And what better way to try something new than a little boy vs girl competition. Who could make the longest train and stay together the whole way down. The boys tried first, and Id give them an A for effort. But next we had the girls and without question we definitely won. Maybe that was cause we already outnumbered them…maybe not. People were slipping and sliding and splashing around. Glancing around me at this hidden paradise seeing all my friends over joyed and laughing together realizing we were here, in Mexico enjoying our remaining days of being high school students. We ended the day exactly how we should have, with a group photo.

- Alex Flansburg

Drama Blog

The seats are filled all around me and George is trying to tell me to calm down. My breathing is heavy, my whole body is sweaty and shaking and I feel like vomiting. Our group is a short few minutes away from performing our skit in front of 100 or so Mexican people at an outreach on Zicatela strip. The music is humming through my head but I can’t process the words due to my nervousness and lack of Spanish vocabulary. Trying to calm myself I start praying under my breath, I come back to Earth when Corissa taps me on the shoulder and says “we are going to pray before our performance.” After praying for strength and a stronger stomach we get called up to do our drama. Walking up I feel my legs shaking underneath me and everyone’s eyes watching me. Our biggest fear going up in front of everyone was our skit was the same as the group ahead of us.

My uneasy thoughts have made me completely forget what I should be doing; so I’m shocked when George is telling me to get in my starting position (laying on the ground). During the skit I can feel my whole group’s different energies coming out making the skit more real to me. In the end I came off strong and people couldn’t stop complimenting our group. I’m so grateful for the group I got to work with. They built me up and I could lean on them, I think God had a plan and I definitely hope we did a good job representing him.

- Brittany Kittle

Zicatela Church

The church we attend here in Puerto, “La Casa de Oración de las Naciones”, we have nicknamed the Zicatela Church. Every Sunday morning and Thursday evening, we file into the Palapa-covered meeting place in our fancy clothes, armed with fans and water bottles. We greet the friendly people and maybe try a word or two of Spanish, and then we find places in the rows of green plastic chairs. After the walk from Casamar and perhaps a little too much fun the night before, everyone seems a bit lethargic. But when the music starts, we all get excited. It is loud and upbeat, but beautiful. I love singing and praising God in Spanish! Although we speak a different language than the people here and have some difficulty communicating, we are all united when we sing together. It is also neat to recognize familiar and dear songs and be able to sing them in Spanish.  After the singing, the announcements commence, and as the sweat pours down our backs we begin to envision the homemade popsicles that are passed around in little bags after church. Lime, coconut, grape, mango…okay, the sermon is starting. Focus.

The sermons here are obviously in Spanish, but when we are here, there is a translator for much of the service. Pastor Salvador is the pastor, but the church members also take turns delivering the message. There is a strong sense of community here. People are warm, friendly, and unaffected.  I have enjoyed getting to know the youth here immensely. Sometimes we have the mental picture that these people are radically different from us because they speak a different language and live in a different culture.  But as I have spent more time with the youth here and as we have connected on different levels, I have realized that we have so much in common. Each person is unique and has vision about what he wants to do with his life.  And each person has a relationship with God that makes him or her my brother or sister in Christ.

“For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.  For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free – and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many.”   1 Corinthians 12:12-14

-Sarah

The Rushin’ Wave

One day, when the sun was high and the sky was blue, four well known adventurers, George, Vitaliy, David, and Alisha decided to go and conquer the ocean. They were armed with surfboards and swim shorts. They painted their faces in white, in fear of getting burned by the sun that was so hot. They were little bit afraid of ocean water, because it would always get in your mouth and taste… salty. Anyways, they couldn’t go by themselves because the waves were high, and they didn’t know how to use their surfboards. They met two guys that had cool tans and could speak a little bit of English, so they asked them for help. First the adventurers had to pass a test. They took their boards and paddled the sand until they could get from one end to the other. Then they learned couple cool tricks and were good to go. Everyone passed the test and was ready to go in the ocean to fight the waves. The fight was brutal, huge waves would crash on them and bring them back to the beach, then the sand would get in their swim shorts, sun burned their legs because they forgot to put sunscreen on them, and salty water was all around them. But in the end they all made it and each surfer rode several waves and was so happy so they decided to become professional surfers and move to Mexico and live on the beach and drink coconut milk. The end. – Vitaliy, David and George.

Photo Mania 4: A New Hope

The Mission

For our first movie night in Puerto Escondido, we watched a film entitled “The Mission”. In the movie, we meet the characters Father Gabriel and Rodrigo Mendoza. Father Gabriel is a priest of the Jesuit order, whereas Rodrigo is a former slave trader who killed his brother after finding him with his fiancée. Father Gabriel and Rodrigo are previously acquainted, having met before in the mountains where Rodrigo wanted to take the Guarani people as slaves in the place where Father Gabriel was making a mission with the people. The two only begin to get to know one another in a more positive way when Rodrigo comes to the Jesuit monastery place because he is depressed and saddened after killing his brother. Father Gabriel gets Rodrigo to go with him up the Iguaza Falls up towards the place where Father Gabriel started the mission with the Guarani people. Father Gabriel has Rodrigo scale the falls with a bag of Rodrigo’s old slave trading armour tied to him. This is where an example of leadership comes in. The other members of the Jesuit order think that Rodrigo should be allowed to scale the falls without the bag of armour attached to him and even go so far as to cut it off him. Father Rodrigo ignores their pleas, as he sees that Rodrigo took up the bag of armour again even after having it cut off. Father Gabriel can see that Rodrigo does not want forgiveness from a Jesuit priest, and that it is Rodrigo himself who needs to decide when his penance is over. The bag of armour was penance for his crimes, and Rodrigo did not feel like he had yet served the full penance. Father Gabriel chooses the servant leadership path, letting Rodrigo take the lead in choosing his penance, while still guiding him to where he needed to go in his life. He ignores the struggles Rodrigo faces, and steps back instead. Rodrigo ultimately finished his penance after a Guarani man cuts the bag of armour off him, it being seen as forgiveness from a member of the people he had previously been persecuting. His burden is lifted from him, and he feels peace. Had Father Gabriel not stepped back into a servant leadership role, Rodrigo Mendoza might never have felt that he was forgiven in life. Father Gabriel also lets Rodrigo choose his calling, which is helping the mission, guiding Rodrigo but ultimately letting him make the decisions. Later in the movie we see another example in leadership when Rodrigo goes to Father Gabriel and informs him that he wants to become a Jesuit priest. Father Gabriel tells him to look up Corinthians 13 on his own. It is servant leadership in that Father Gabriel is serving Rodrigo while still leading. He is helping Rodrigo go where he needs to go in life but stepping back and making sure that it is Rodrigo making the decisions and moving towards his goals using his own will rather than being forced into it.  - Melissa Grounds