An innocent conversation that made a nice lady very sad

So my wife is a very resourceful person which causes me to be always on the lookout for the weird, cheap items that she can repurpose. Now with the boys that has gone into overdrive as she creates a home with warm memories and US traditions mixed with Guatemalan spice. Usually she tells me what she wants to do and as I am out paying bills and doing paperwork I keep my eyes out looking for the things she needs for that.

So for the boys' birthday she made a balloon wreath to hang on the door to announce to the neighbors that there was a birthday at our house. She has plans to make one for thanksgiving and Christmas and all seasons apparently, but the styrofoam circles we found in Guate are too small for our doors apparently. So Tuesday I was riding around in a tuk tuk while getting new tires put on my micro when I saw a lady hanging up decorated styrofoam wreaths in circle and heart shapes. I called my wife who told me to go by and buy some if they were bigger than what she had.

I stopped by later and asked about them.

Jimmy: How much are the wreaths?

Nice lady: These here are Q50.

J: Ok do you sell just the forms without any ribbon on them?

NL: No, everything I have is decorated already.

J: Ok, I think I want one heart and one circle.

NL: Ok, who are they for?

J: I'm buying them for my wife who will use them on special occasions for my twin boys like birthdays and Christmas.

NL: Twins? That's really difficult.

J: Yes, I think it is harder than one. Is there a discount for buying two?

NL: Yes, of course. It will only be Q90 for buying two.

Once I got into the micro it finally dawned on me what our conversation had really been about. Wreaths like these are used to adorn places where people have died or the graves of loved ones. We are getting close to Day of the Dead here and it is a month of funeral festivities right now if there is such a thing. After more than 4 years I have tuned out the crosses and wreaths and signs on the side of the road. I'm usually too concerned with the live things that may jump out in front of me at any time.

Because I wasn't thinking I missed a very culture specific part of the conversation and because of this I communicated that my twins were dead. Now go back and read our conversation from her perspective and you'll understand why I feel really bad about this. Now every wreath on the side of road waves at me as I drive by reminding me of my stupidity. Oh, and my wife won't use the wreaths now because they have been "tainted."

Name This Bug?

I am constantly being called to kill all sorts of interesting things. Most of the time they are hanging out in the shower, but this was on our suitcase as we were unpacking. It wasn't very big and I guess looks like a spider. Anybody know what it is?

Missionary How To: Make it Unsafe to Return to a Village

Since we were no longer allowed to have services inside the community, we decided we should have them outside the community. You can read about our Micro HERE.

The only other thing we needed after getting the bus was a carport/roof (to have the services under) at our house. Since we weren't using the building in New Horizon for the foreseeable future, I decided the cheapest thing to do would be to take down the lamina (sheet metal) and the wood from there, bring it to our house, and have our albañil (construction worker/mason) put it up here. The only thing I would need to buy would be wood for the columns and to pay the workers. So we took down the lamina that I had purchased, and left covered the house with what was already there when we took over.

I have to interject that the house was offered to us for a period of 5 years, maybe more if they guy went to the states. The owner is the bodyguard for the governor of Cobán and so doesn't live in the village. He said we could build or do whatever we wanted to the building and wouldn't have to pay anything since he was loaning it for the Bible Studies. He doesn't believe in God, but his mom told him to do this. The house had three rooms, a roof over most of it and no floor. So we tore down the back room and made the entire thing much bigger, closed it off and poured a floor. Total we spent about Q75,000 ($10,000) after installing electricity and putting on the big roof. It didn't seem like too much since we would have it for the next 5 years, and I was confident that after that time we could arrange a payment or something for rent if he really wanted it back.

Before doing this, I spoke with the owner to let him know what was happening. Our goal was always to get back into New Horizon eventually, so in my mind we would be returning all the lamina and the building would go back to normal when we were allowed to start up again. The owner asked me to leave the doors and bars on the windows so that his sister could stay there, and while I wasn't happy about somebody staying in "our" building, I didn't want the sister and her baby to be out on the street either.

After taking down the lamina, the owner showed up at our house. Now he wanted us out completely, despite the fact that we still had 3 years left to our agreement. I told him that I would need to get my doors and windows and the rest of my stuff out of the second room and he seemed fine with that, although he would have preferred for me to just go ahead and give him the $1,000 worth of steel and work. When he left he was in a good mood and was grateful that I wasn't going to charge him half of the floor and walls that I had put up...so I thought.

He left my house and went straight to the building where he and two other men proceeded to curse my name that the lamina was gone. This was shocking in and of itself since the lamina was never talked about in a negative light, but the people with whom he was talking was the scary part. One of the men is known as "El Loco." It's never good to be called "Crazy" in Latin America, let alone have that be your nickname. He just recently arrived in the village because he is hiding from the police. He caries a big gun, only smokes marijuana, and sells the same. Why he was there talking bad about me, I'm not sure. It was probably just one Chapin getting another all riled up. Later I saw a teen from New Horizon with a black eye. He had been pistol whipped by...you guessed it...El Loco, for what he said was not smoking marijuana with him and for what another said was stealing his cell phone.

I would like to mention that my treating of somebody in a kind way and "covering up" his crime of stealing a cell phone is against the morals of the community, but harboring a fugitive who smacks around their kids and sells them drugs is perfectly acceptable. And don't get me started on the sexual abuse of their own family members...

We've had people upset with us before, but never waving guns while they did it, so lately we've been a little on edge. I went Wednesday and took down our doors per our agreement from Monday morning. He wasn't in the building, but he had ripped down our sign, stolen some chains and tried to hide the wire and light bulbs that I had left up for his sister (I say tried to hide because he put them in a gutter, not realizing that I'm tall enough to see in the gutter while everybody else needs a ladder.)

I left the wire and bulbs, but while the metal guy was cutting down the doors the owner's mom came by and threatened to call the police for stealing from a house that wasn't ours. The problem with that is that I am the only one with the receipts for anything. It was all a bunch of fluff and when presented with the facts she got mad and left.

So now we decide where to go from here. If we shake the dust from our feet and continue to other parts of Petén, is that because of our own personal wounds, or because it's a safe decision. Or do we continue on and risk being shot at by some drugged up loser after God had clearly tried to tell us that He was shutting this door. There has to be a balance between the two that doesn't involve us getting swallowed by a whale...

Here is the house as we first received it:

The next two show what it was like when we finished it.

And here it is showing how much of the roof we took and what it looks like now:

Do We Look Like Poor Gringos To You?

The other day we had to go to Santa Elena to run some errands. I hate going by myself, so all four decided to go and while we were there we went around to introduce our boys to some of our friends there. We saw our vet, who's wife is very outgoing and talks so much that she knows everything about us and has been DYING to see the boys. We also went by to see our lab technician who is the guy who told us we were pregnant and also knows too much about us both. We also really wanted to show them off to Cristina. We finally tracked her down in the market.

Walking through the market with two little white babies is quite the trip. Everybody is commenting about the twins and several of the more outspoken ladies yell at you to come over so they can hold the boys, talk about twins and smother them with kisses. While standing around talking to Cristina, an indigenous lady in her typical dress (we don't see too many dressed like that here because of the heat) came up to Shelley and handed her a Q5 bill. She said, "Take this for your children." The look on Cristina's face mirrored what I was thinking and she said, "For WHAT?" The lady responded, "It means something to me" and walked off.

Usually people are asking us for money, so it was very odd to have it happen this way in reverse. I have no idea what it means to this lady, whether personal or religious, but it was definitely an experience I won't soon forget. I'm sure everybody else watching also thought it odd.