11 (Sing a)long and Winding Road

"Joo are my soh-h-nshine, my only soh-h-nshine"
Archimandrite Andres had spontaneously burst into song as we sped along the twisting highway through the scenic mountains on our way to the site of the future Sts. Peter and Paul Seminary near the small city of Huehuetenango.  I was surprised, and a bit astonished that Fr. Andres does the driving himself on these long and treacherous road trips.  Between important phone calls he entertained us with endless stories from his eventful life.

Even though this is the main highway running through the whole country, it is only two lanes: that's one lane for each direction.  We stopped at a produce stand which was perched precariously on the shoulder of the highway, barely fitting between the traffic -- speeding trucks, buses, SUV's, cars, and even some kind of small three-wheeled vehicles --, and a steep sloping hill which it seemed to me the whole produce stand was in constant danger of falling down.  I could picture all of the various colorful fruits and vegetables rolling wildly down the long slope and into a small river.

10 Lovely Icons

As we sat on the porch munching on green mangoes we could hear a Greek language recording of Byzantine chant wafting through the already hot and heavy mid-morning air.  Fr Alexios likes to listen to music while he paints the iconographic frescoes in the chapel.  Fr. Alexios is a Guatemalan priest and gifted artist who was raised by Archimandrite Andres.  He spent a year learning iconography in Greece, where he also became fluent in the Greek language.

Jose, our Colombian friend, has come to Guatemala to be taught icon painting by Fr. Alexios.  Jose, in turn, is teaching one of the orphan boys.

Fr. Alexios also teaches agronomy at the vo-tech college which is run by Fr. Andres.

Fr. Alexios showed us his latest icon and it was Matushka's name saint, Stylianos!

9 Links in a Small World

Fr. Andres charmed  us with colorful of stories from his life, not just in Guatemala; he has also lived in Rome, Colombia, and the US. It turns out his life and Fr. Peter's have intersected in a number of ways.

He taught at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, where Fr. Peter later got his master's degree and where our son Ben is currently in graduate school.

He was even in Buffalo once to speak at the University.  (We have been living in Buffalo the past fifteen years.) He became very ill and was hospitalized at Sisters of Mercy Hospital.  Since he had no health insurance, he couldn't pay the hospital bill.  The sisters very kindly sent him home and he sent them some money later. Fr. Peter told Fr. Andres that he had just visited someone at Sisters Hospital the day before we departed for Guatemala.

At one time when he was still a Roman Catholic priest he was the rector of a prosperous Hispanic parish in Oakland, California, which is where Fr. Peter was born.  Fr. Andres left this very comfortable life to return to Guatemala out of love for his native land and especially for the campesinos (poor country people).

8 Loving Pastor

Archimandrite Andres Giron is the principal of a K-12 school where he teaches three of the high school classes himself.  He also runs a vo-tech agricultural college which uses the land adjacent to his house to grow corn and raise coches which at first sounded to me like Argentine cars, but are actually Guatemalan pigs.  I thought the Spanish for pig was cerdo or marrano or if its a wild pig maybe even cajuche, but in Guatemala they are definitely coches.  (I guess its related to the Colombian name for a messy person cochino.) 

There is a steady stream of people coming to ask Fr. Andres for guidance, comfort, financial help, sympathy, etc.  He doesn't turn anyone away, but is always available to talk and pray with each person.  He has been known to personally wash and cure horrible wounds with prayer and home remedies. His love is lived out among the people and this is why they trust him.

7 Laundry in the Chicken Yard

After a noisy Matins service and a leisurely breakfast of the ever-present black beans and corn tortillas, I decided to borrow a broom and sweep our little room. I wanted to do it before the heat of the day.  I was surprised to find ashes amid the dust not only in our room but even more in the dirt from the long porch. I didn't think we were close to any volcanoes, but I asked someone about the ashes and was told they are from the burning of sugar cane fields which is done to harvest the sugar.  They said this is done at all times of the year, so the ashes are constantly around.  I was to learn the hard way to check for ashes and soot before sitting in a chair.

Everything at Nueva Concepcion is very lush and green and there are some beautiful plants that Fr. Andres has collected.  He is an expert gardener. The buildings are in various states of disrepair, but the original architecture of the main house is very nice.  Fr Andres designed it himself.

There is a very dusty, dirt yard behind the house with a roofed and chicken-wire-fenced laundry area.  I found it interesting that they let the chickens run loose (we frequently had to shoo them out of the living/dining room), and penned in the laundry to protect it presumably from chicken poop and, I guess, from eggs being laid in the dirty or clean clothes.

Some of the clothes lines are made from barbed wire.  This keeps the socks from blowing off of the line, but also rips holes into the cloth.  I have seen laundry hung to dry on a barbed wire fence before, but this was my first encounter with a barbed wire clothes line.

Two large dogs were kept in kennels since they couldn't be trusted not to bite.  It was unclear whether they had just been penned up temporarily or if they are usually kept that way.  Several peacocks strutted in a pen. Lizards abounded not just in the yard, but sometimes under one's bed...

6 Lots of Hugs

"¡Que pases buena noche, Madre!" (Have a  good night, Matushka!)
"¡Igualmente, que duermes!" (You, too.  Sleep well!)

Slight variations to this warm exchange were repeated with each of the around 30 teenage boys. After awhile this became monotonous.  I rejected the impulse to throw in cute Colombian colloquialisms about dreaming of angels....soon my tired brain began to provide a mental soundtrack to the scene,  "....So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye..."  I couldn't stop my silly brain from conjuring up the going-off-to-bed scene from "The Sound of Music",  as each of the orphan boys gave a ceremonious hug to each person present before heading politely off to bed.  

There is an awful lot of hugging in Guatemala.  And the Guatemalan hug is not perfunctory; it is a very warm and firm embrace.  Fr. Peter says the Guatemalan hug lasts a few seconds longer than one expects.  Our Colombian friend Jose is in culture shock.  In Colombia you might be given an abrazo (bear hug), but only if the person hasn't seen you in quite a long time.  Poor Jose  is tired of all of the hugging and of being wished "Provecho!" (Bon Appetit) by complete strangers in restaurants.  He also doesn't understand why Guatemalan's don't seem to want to go swimming as often as he does.

5 Light Supper

Archimandrite Andres  came walking slowly onto  his porch, leaning heavily on Mauro, his cell attendant. He was thin and frail, and I could see fatigue and pain on his face.  Then he turned and looked at us with an amazing sparkle in his eyes.  I found it truly astonishing how lively a personality was housed in such a frail body.  He greeted us warmly and we all sat on the porch and had coffee before moving into the dining room for supper.

There was chicken and rice, fresh fruit juice,  and a salad of radishes and cucumbers.  Fr Andres likes to eat radishes since he believes they contain iodine.  I didn't know at the time how rare it was to be having chicken.  (Usually the rare appearance of meat consisted of a withered little hot dog, or a bone in the soup, I guess it is expensive to feed so many growing boys).  There was also the ever-present black beans and corn tortillas.  I was going to refuse the tortillas since I have never especially liked corn tortillas and there was plenty of other food, but something about the almost reverent way Mauro handed me the plate of steaming tortillas carefully wrapped in a cloth to keep them warm told me I should eat one.  So I took one and began to rip pieces off of the tortilla as Mauro was doing and using it to push the rice onto my fork.  This earned me a grin of approval from Mauro and I knew we were now friends.

Two weeks later when we were having our last supper together before our return to the US Mauro asked me if we had tortillas in Buffalo.  When I told him we could buy them in the supermarket he was horrified.  "Can't you find someone to make you fresh corn tortillas every day?" he asked with real emotion in his voice.  I was so touched at his sincere concern that I be fed properly.

4 Lively Vespers Service

Presvytera had tried to gently warn me, but nothing could have prepared me for the deafening sound of 30 teenage boys singing lustily (Byzantine chant in Spanish) at the very top of their lungs.  As the sound reverberated through the sultry tropical evening air I felt a surge of excitement.  It wasn't exactly a pleasant sound, a number of the young voices were finding their own key to sing in, but the sheer volume was quite impressive.  It reminded me of the common practice in Colombian grade schools of having the kids all read aloud at the same time, not in unison, but rather each at his own pace.

These orphan boys sing the Vespers service every evening before supper, and they get up early to sing the Matins service before their breakfast.  There is one boy assigned to ring the bell to wake the others at the appropriate time.  They sing the services without requiring any grown-up supervision, but if they see a priest in attendance, they grab him and insist that he serve, handing him the censer and books at the appropriate times and showing him what to read.

Mother Inez has done a good job of teaching the Orthodox services to the orphan boys who she sends to live with Fr. Andres when they are ready for high school.  They live in ramshackle dorm rooms which are in such a poor state of repair it almost looks like they are living in ruins.  Still, they keep their living quarters relatively clean (as a mother of boys, I was impressed), and always seem to have clean clothes for school and for services.  They each do their own laundry.

Some of the boys are quite friendly, but others, although polite, seem withdrawn.  I suspect many of them have been through difficult experiences.

Somehow, Fr Andres finds the money to feed all of these growing boys, and also is giving  them a high school education.  They are fortunate to have him to care for them.

I was encouraged by the enthusiasm with which these kids sing their prayers.

3 Lap of Luxury

We were welcomed by a truly wonderful arrangement of tropical flowers and a colorful paper sign on the door to our room in Nueva Concepcion.  Just in case we didn't know the place was run by men and boys, there was a cobweb on the door as well.  Inside there was a wooden double bed frame with a lumpy cotton mattress.  The bed frame had two little cupboards built into the headboard.  Each cupboard had a key, so one could place one's wallet and passport in a little locked compartment.

Presvytera Sandy Chakos came in to hang some curtains she had very thoughtfully made that afternoon, thus giving us a bit of privacy.  I quickly unpacked the 30 plastic mattress covers and new underwear for the orphan boys and a few other items she had asked me to bring from the states: sugar-free drink mixes for Fr. Andres who is diabetic, sew-on jewels for making priest vestments, a prosphora seal.

Just when I was starting to despair at the thought of trying to sleep later in the oppressive heat, Presvytera delighted us by producing an electric fan.

We shared a bathroom with our Colombian neighbor, Jose.  He would politely knock on the door before entering.  The bathroom had two doors, one from each bedroom. The cold shower was actually quite welcome in that steamy climate.  There was some kind of an electrical problem which caused the light in the bathroom to make crackling noises.  If the light was on and you happened to touch the doorknob, you got a pretty strong electric shock.  We soon learned to make sure we had on flip-flops before touching the doorknob.  The rubber of the thongs insulated us from the cement floor and kept us from being shocked.  Once again it was Presvytera we had to thank for having recommended we bring the flip-flops to wear in the shower.

I unpacked the sheets Presvytera had told me to bring and put them on the bed.  We were so grateful for P. Sandy and all of her help in settling into our hot little room.

2 Long and Winding Road

The cassocks and beards make it easy for Orthodox priests to to spot each other in a crowd so we were soon introducing ourselves to Fr. John Chakos who had come to pick us up.  He was accompanied by Charlie, a Guatemalan who works for Fr. Andres Giron.  Archimandrite Andres is the leader of the Guatemalan Orthodox Church.  We settled into the double cab pick-up and headed out of the city.

There was a heavy stench in the air which did not begin to dissipate even after 20 minutes or so of driving. This was not just the usual smell of exhaust smoke, or even the sulfuric air associated with some factories.  It was the smell of rotting flesh.  I asked Charlie about it and he gave me an explanation which I have now forgotten. I was really glad to be leaving that city.

Lunch was at Fr. John's favorite, "Pollo Campero"  which is a Guatemalan fast food chain.  Like at the Colombian "Kokorico" there are waitresses.  We sat where Charlie could keep an eye on the suitcases in the open back of the pick-up.  I noticed Charlie had a pistol on his belt and I thought, "Apparently, this is a dangerous country, but I'm glad we have Charlie to look after us."

The drive to Nueva Concepcion was typically hair-raising with a lot of big trucks which are hard to get around on the two-lane highway, but Charlie proved to be an expert driver.  Some of the scenery was truly spectacular as mountain drives in the tropics tend to be.

After a few hours we were glad to put up the windows and turn on the air conditioning as we reached the lowlands where the heat was oppressive.  As we neared our destination we turned onto an unpaved road amid clouds of dust.  There were tobacco farms on both sides of the road, replacing the earlier sugar cane.

I was happy to be approaching the end of our journey.  It was hard to imagine we had started the day at our comfortable rectory home in Buffalo.

1 Landing

Looking out the window at the lovely greens and grays of the tropical mountains and then observing the jarring contrast of beautiful housing developments right smack next to horrifying shantytowns, I tried to tune out the loud profanity emanating from the woman in the seat directly behind me.  I thought to myself, this is a lot worse than the sometimes crude language spoken in parts of Colombia where as a teenager I had once had to tell my sweet Christian mother not to use a certain word she had learned from the cowboys on her visit to a ranch in Colombia's Llanos (eastern plains).

Soon we were on the tarmac and I watched the luggage being unloaded hoping to see something familiar and thus be reassured that our suitcases had not been misplaced.  I noticed among the luggage there were a lot of plastic containers held closed with tape which were being used instead of suitcases.  This struck me as odd.  I was to find out later that any cheap plastic container which could be bought in the States for pennies, was extremely expensive in Guatemala.  Even the plastics that are made in Guatemala are pricey because since imported products are taxed heavily domestic products have no price competition.

Another thing I was not aware of at the time is the fact that the runways at the Guatemala City airport are shorter than usual, their length being restricted by the mountainous terrain.  For trans-Atlantic flights the planes must take-off from Guatemala City with only a little gas in their tanks and then refuel somewhere before heading out across the ocean.

I felt sure we were in for some kind of a big adventure.