WELUVUTAH

Slow the Gringo Down

2012-01-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

I have read that if you get impatient with a Latino service provider that you could aggravate the situation, and today I experienced that very phenomenon.

I was at the grocery store and found what I thought was the shortest checkout line, but after I had emptied my cart on the belt I learned that the family in front of me, after paying for their groceries, wanted to buy multiple gift certificates and do any number of other post-sale activities (including chat with the cashier).

What the hell do you do in situations like this? Normally I have a book or my iPod with me for situations just like this, but alas not this day. So you wait and watch, and wait and try to appear invisible, and wait and review the items for sale at the checkout, and wait and consider moving all of your stuff to another line, and wait …, etc.

Meanwhile, the senorita cashier (maybe 19 years old) can´t help but notice my growing impatience, and apparently, decides to stretch the process even more and Slow the Gringo Down.

Finally, after waiting for what seemed like enough time for a baby to be conceived and born, she´s just about to start scanning my items when some young hombre shows up with his few items and persuades her (without too much prompting) to process his sale before mine. I´m standing there where the bagger would normally be standing, watching this scene. She did not dare to turn around and look at me, and processed his sale while enjoying a chuckle with him in Spanish. And then post-sale, she continues to chat with him like he´s an old friend and they just met on the street.

At that point I lost my cool and angrily said to her in Spanish something like, “Young Lady! A little bit faster please!” Then the hombre looked at me as if to say, “What the F --- is the matter with you, Gringo?,” while continuing to stand in the middle of the lane. So then I angrily waved at him to get out, and barked “Adios!” Then he uttered a Spanish word at me that I didn´t recognize, which is probably a good thing. It sounded like a word I´ve heard yelled at soccer games toward members of the opposing team (or at members of your team if they are playing sucky soccer that night).

Then the senorita decides that she does not know the price of the vegetables and fruits that I´ve selected, and dispatches a coworker with them to the produce department to verify the prices. At this point I am standing in the lane where I should be, waiting to pay, and looking at her to see if she will at least look at me. No, she continues to scan the crowd looking for the lost coworker, and, not wanting to make her feel threatened, I too scan the crowd. After another long wait, and just before I was about to give up on the whole process, my produce returned.

When she finally handed me my receipt, I was so pissed that I was the one that could not, or dare not, look at her. It was not my finest moment in culturally sensitivity, and I sincerely hope that in the future I will be able to get out my ego and become the observer in situations like that, to be present in the moment and not be bothered even when it seems that I am being provoked.

In any case, grace appeared in the form of Juan, the young lad who appeared to wheel my groceries out to the bus stop. When he learned I was taking the bus, he dashed back into the grocery store to get me a huge plastic bag that would make it easier to carry all my groceries on the bus. While we walked the 2 blocks to the bus stop, I learned that he had just arrived from Peru to start law school in Cuenca. Maybe he should study shoppers’ rights.

Different and the Same

2012-01-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

A visit to a different country is an excellent opportunity to get out of what you think is normal, to see how life is lived differently by other people of the world. Several times since I´ve been here in Ecuador I´ve caught myself saying things like, “Why don´t they have that here?”, or “Why do they do that here?”, or something along those lines. But then I remember that my way is not THE way, and that what I am used to in my country is not what people are used to in other countries.

We all share the same Life, and we are all one in the innermost Self -- only the outward forms are different.

With that in mind, I´d like to share some of the differences I have observed in Ecuador … things that are not better or worse, just different.

Eggs are not refrigerated here … in the grocery store you´ll find them on the shelf, generally near the bread section.

Most stores are not open before about 9:30 AM, and most of the same stores are not open on Sundays.

No one wears shorts, except for a few of us gringos that have invaded the area.

Coffee cups max out at about 8 ounces, 10 ounces if you are lucky. (I have a 20-ouncer at home).

Lined yellow legal notepads, the kind I write on virtually every day, don´t exist here.

Vehicles have the right-of-way. If you´re in what looks like a crosswalk, and a vehicle arrives and wants to be in that space too, you better dash for the sidewalk or you could be in for a world of hurt.

As far as I can tell, smokers can smoke just about anywhere they please.

People standing in the middle of the sidewalk and talking will not move to get out of the way of a walker, even when they see a walker approaching … your job as a walker is to exit the sidewalk to walk around them if you want to continue walking in the direction you were walking.

Speaking of sidewalks, if you venture just a few blocks from the city center, sidewalks can be wide, narrow, undulating, or simply not there.

Catholic nuns still wear the habit here. I still remember Sister Stephan, she was the coolest nun ever. She would play softball with us at recess, and after drilling one to the outfield, she would speed around the bases with her habit flying in the wind while she held on to her headpiece. That Sister could hit!

Trash bins are tiny. The apartment building where I am living has 24 apartments, and if I am not mistaken, it is serviced by two tiny trash bins about the size of the one I have at my house in Salt Lake City.

There are no chicken buses here. (Well, Salt Lake City does not have any either). I miss chicken buses.

Extra large as a size is rare … you can look for days before you find extra large clothes. And when you find them, you´ll find them at places that sell to gringos. Yes, the people are of smaller stature here, but also you do not see here the epidemic of obesity that we have in the United States.

Speaking of smaller sizes, the countertops are lower here.

I could go on and one, but you get the picture. When you travel to a different country, you´ll find that many things are different … and that people are the same.

Journey to Cuenca

2012-01-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

Por fin ... we´re in the air.

I´m on a full Continental Airlines flight that just lifted off from Salt Lake City in route to Houston, and then I´m on to Panama City, finally arriving in Quayaquil later tonight. The airport was packed this morning, and the line to go through security was so long that it nearly reached the exit door. Fortunately, I had my iPod with me, and one 30-minute Pimsleur Spanish lesson lasted me all the way to the passport check desk. Waiting in line is so much more tolerable when you have something to occupy your mind, as opposed to watching anxiously with critical eyes everything that is happening around you. So, I wasn´t one of the people thinking things like:

"Why would anyone wear flip-flops in Utah in December while rushing to catch a flight? Now there´s a big clan of rich spoiled brats. How can you be so oblivious to the dozens of people waiting behind you -- move! Why do all the people with anything that looks like a kid get to cut in front of us? Got enough makeup on there, lady? Who the hell travels with a snow thrower? Hmm ... I didn´t know that a leopard skin top went so well with plaid pants?"

Actually, I´m exaggerating a bit with regard to the snow thrower, and I must confess that I did wonder about the guy in flip-flops while thinking to myself that that is something I don´t ever see me doing -- but who knows?

I´m excited to be on this adventure to Ecuador, and also a bit anxious about the prospect of teaching up to 4 different English classes a day. I´ll get my assignments during Teacher orientation a few days from now. But there´s a fair bit of travel to do before then, as well as new things to experience and new people to meet along the way.

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I´m on the plane in Houston, waiting to take off for Panama. Looks like we´re about 20 minutes late departing -- Latin American time has already started!

My final destination is Cuenca, which is increasingly becoming a popular destination for retirees from the United States and Canada. They can live in Cuenca for about half the cost of living in North America, and not sacrifice anything in the way of creature comforts.

Interestingly, the retired American couple sitting beside me on the plane considered moving to Cuenca, at least for part of the year, but decided against it after seeing 3 of their retired neighbors in Panama move to Cuenca only to return to Panama some time later.

I´m not sure that my wife and I can use that as a guage for the retirement-ability of Cuenca, since this couple (and presumably their friends) want to live where many other expats live in retirement. In fact, seeing expats such as these leave Cuenca might be a good sign for us -- we don´t want to go with the expat flow.

The retired gentleman sitting beside me said another thing that indicated how different him and I might think. I asked him what activities he´s engaged in right there in his Panamanian expat hot spot, and he said, "I mostly sit around and drink coffee with my buddies." Except for the caffeine, in my opinion that type of lifestyle is not very stimulating.

In some respects it´s difficult to believe that retirement is just around the corner, but the reality is that Sheri will complete her 30 years of service to the Government in 5 more years. Life already feels like it is flying by, so the next 5 years surely will fly by as well.

One of our goals in life, which we firest applied to our wedding, and which we seek to apply to every experience that feels like it could fly by, is ... no blurage. By that we mean that we are going to focus on preventing the experience from becoming a blur. Stay in the moment ... enjoy ... take in the sounds, sites, flavors, and feelings ... no blurage.

So, right now is the perfect time to apply that goal. I don´t want to wake up 3 months from now having failed to fully live my 3-month stint as an English Teacher to Ecuadorians. And on top of that, there is a whole new culture to experience ... different sounds, different sites, different flavors, different people. Sheri will be with me here for the month of February, and hopefully we´ll help each other stay focused on the present.

And speaking of the present, we are now in the air on our way to Panama City.

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I´m in the air again, this time en route from Panama to Guayaquil, Ecuador. We are scheduled to arrive at 11:30 P.M. Guayaquil-time, and at this point I have no idea how that compares to Salt Lake City time -- I´m not sure how many time zones I´ve travelled through, perhaps only a few.

When I arrive in Guayaquil I plan to take a taxi to the bus station, and then get on either the 12:30 A.M. or 1:30 A.M. bus for a 4-hour bus ride to Cuenca. I hope that I´ll be able to get some sleep on the bus.

When I arrive in Cuenca I´ll probably have breakfast and then do some exploring before going to the school where I´ll be teaching English. Teacher orientation will be the next day, but I´ll go to the school a day early to get the list of available apartments nearby. I already have a hostal line up to stay in for 4 nights to give me time to find an apartment, and can also stay there for the rest of the month for only $10 a night. For that price I´ll have a private room and bathroom, and have access to a shared kitchen.

I´ve entered a part of the world where Spanish is the default language, and English is an option when available. Another thing I´ve noticed is that I´m starting to tower over people in height; the difference is nowhere near as pronounced as it was in the highlands of Guatemala, but I´m definitely one of the tallest people in the room now. And speaking of differences, when was the last time you the reader received a complimentary meal on your flight? Evidently, that is still the norm once you fly out of U.S. airspace ... I received a meal both on the way to Panama and on the way to Ecuador.

We´re about 30 minutes from Ecuador. I think I´ll try to catch a few ZZ´s before we land.

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Wow! What a ride! As I write these words, it´s about 3:30 A.M., and I am sitting in my room in the hostal in Cuenca. I did not expect to be here so early.

Guayaquil was kind of a blur. The passport verification line went fast, and so did the line to go through customs. Next thing I know I´m in a taxi headed for the bus station. I must say that the bus station in not nearly as pretty as it looked in the online pictures. It´s an extremely large, cavernous, building, with dozens of little tiendas inside, most of which were closed at midnight. I fumbled around in there trying to find my way to the ticket office, and after being sent in 2 or 3 different directions, I found myself taking the elevator up one floor. There I spied a bus with the engine running and it was looking like it was ready to leave. I asked 2 guys standing nearby where that bus was going, and they said Cuenca. So I asked if I could get on, and they asked me for my ticket. I said I didn´t have one ... and so after paying an under the table $1 fee, they let me through the gate and flagged down the bus with me (as it had started to pull away from the curb). Turns out the guy helping me was the driver´s assistant, so he took my one bag and through it under the bus in storage, and then we both jumped on and away we went.

And boy, did we ever go. Somehow I managed to get on the "midnight express." Everything I had ever read said that the bus ride from Guayaquil to Cuenca should take at least 4 hours, but we made it in 3 hours and 20 minutes. That bus was barreling down the highway, slinging us all back and forth as the skillful bus driver navigated the curves in the road as we ascended from sea level up to Cuenca which sits at 8300 feet above sea level.

I´m here!

Ecuador, here we come!

2011-12-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

God willing and the creek don’t rise, I will be leaving next week for Ecuador to begin a 3-month stint as an English Teacher for a nonprofit academic institution by the name of Center for Interamerican Studies (www.cedei.org). Sheri will set out on February 1^st to join me, eager to spend the month of February traversing the city of Cuenca and surrounding areas in search of all the best restaurants, yoga classes, woven fabrics, and anything else that looks fun and adventurous.

I will be blogging about our adventures at http://weluvutah.blogspot.com/, and sending each blog article to the friends and family on our email distribution list. If you’re reading this email message, you’re on the list and will be receiving our updates. However, if you would prefer not to receive our updates, just reply to this message and ask to be removed from the list – no problem, I’ll remove your email address immediately!

It would be fantastic if you could send a donation to the Tandana Foundation through our FirstGiving website www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/spanish/tandana. This is an organization that is forging friendships and providing direct assistance to many people in Ecuador.

Hasta luego, Amigos (See you later, Friends). Voy a escribirles otra vez muy pronto de Ecuador. (I’m going to write to you again very soon from Ecuador).

Keith and Sheri

TEFL - Teaching English as a Foreign Language

2011-11-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

If you have ever thought about teaching English in another country, and if you don’t already have a TEFL certificate (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), now might be a good time to get that certificate.

First of all, the TEFL certificate is widely accepted and will get you a job teaching English just about anywhere you want to go. The only certificate that might be a little more desirable is the TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) only because someone normally earns the TESOL through university studies, and thus it not only takes more time to earn the TESOL, it generally costs a WHOLE LOT MORE. But from what I have seen, the TEFL certificate is just as good … and a lot CHEAPER and LESS TIME CONSUMING to earn.

Now you can find schools all over the world that would gladly take your money (and as much of it as they can get) to give you a TEFL certificate without doing hardly any work. But that’s not what you want, right? Besides, if you get your certificate through one of these fly-by-nights, you may not get that job you want as an English teacher.

Before I started my TEFL training, I did extensive research on the internet to find legitimate certificate-issuing TEFL training institutes/schools. In my opinion, you can trust two schools in particular – BridgeTEFL, and the other is called i-to-i TEFL. You can find i-to-i TEFL at www.onlinetefl.com, they place students all over the world, and seem to have an excellent program. I was very close to choosing i-to-i TEFL because their online course was a bit cheaper, but they are based in Europe and I was afraid that my personal tutor as well as their online and print materials would be “European English,” and I did not want to add that to the mix. Having said that, I expect that some of my fears are unfounded, and that I probably would have had an equally good experience with them. But having said that, I chose BridgeTEFL, also widely known and respected, and based here in the United States. You can take BridgeTEFL courses locally if you can get in the class (which were booked when I tried), or you can take their course entirely online at www.teflonline.com.

I was very pleased with the BridgeTEFL program I took online at www.teflonline.com. It is not an easy program by any stretch of the imagination – it took me about 8 weeks to finish the course – but it was very informative, with very well developed materials and video tutorials. You will also have a personal tutor that corrects your assignments, and with whom you can communicate throughout the course.

Earlier in this message I said that now might be a good time to get a TEFL certificate because I noticed that both these training institutes have their prices about as low as their going to ever be. The 120 hour online TEFL course by i-to-i TEFL is currently being offered for only $249 if you purchase the course (I think) by November 11^th, more information is at http://www.onlinetefl.com/tefl-courses/online-tefl-course-120.html?source=ET_us_campaign_081111. BridgeTEFL has also discounted their online course, if you buy during November the price for the 120 hour online program is $416.50 (which is what I paid for it several months ago), and you can find more information at http://www.teflonline.com/tefl-course-120.php. Again, I felt completely comfortable with BridgeTEFL, and was willing to spend the extra money to go with them, and I took their online course.

Ecuador and Tandana Foundation

2011-11-02T15:37:00.000-06:00

God willing, Sheri and I will be in Ecuador for the month of February, 2012, and in preparation for our trip we would like to ask our friends and family to support the Tandana Foundation in their efforts to make friends in Ecuador.

The Tandana Foundation is a small charity that has a really cool philosophy about doing charitable work. On their web site at www.tandanafoundation.org it says that they seek “to form cross-cultural friendships, to experience a rich indigenous culture, and to make a difference in the lives of new friends.” It goes on to say what they are NOT … specifically, that the “Tandana Foundation is not about ‘helping the poor unfortunates’ or imposing a developmentalist worldview or any particular religion.” With a focus on making friends, in the last 5 years they have provided medical care to 3500 people, as well as dental care to an additional 650 people.

We think this philosophy is “right on,” and we hope that you will make a donation to their efforts to make friends in Ecuador. Donating to the Tandana Foundation through our FirstGiving website www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/spanish/tandana is simple, fast and totally secure … and is the most efficient way to support our fundraising efforts. You can also donate by sending a check to:

The Tandana Foundation

2933 Lower Bellbrook Rd.

Spring Valley OH, 45370

Another option for giving is to send money directly to us (although this is not tax-deductible like the above option). We will collect any money that you want to send directly to us, and we will carry the entire amount to Ecuador and do “random acts of kindness” … such as give a few bucks to someone on the street who looks like they could use a few, or stop by a local charity and hand them some cash, etc. How wonderful it is to see the love and gratitude that fills a person’s heart when they are helped by a complete stranger. You can send a check to us and we will see to it that the entire amount is given away in Ecuador.

Please forward our fundraising page www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/spanish/tandana to anyone you think might want to donate as well, and thank you for your love and support.

Sheri & Keith

Strengthen the Weakest Link

2011-10-22T13:11:00.000-06:00

I had a revelation this week. I learned something this week that might just be the answer to how each of us can dramatically improve our Spanish and accelerate our progress toward becoming fluent.

I learned that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

If you are reading this posting, you may have received my poll asking you to identify which of the 4 Spanish skills is the easiest for you to develop, and in contrast identify which of the 4 skills is the hardest for you to develop. The 4 Spanish skills are reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Almost everyone said that reading is the easiest, and that listening is the hardest.

It is now clear to me that for the majority of native English speakers who are learning Spanish, listening is the weakest link … and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

So, what shall we do? Obviously, we must strengthen the weakest link … we must strengthen our ability to listen while Spanish is being spoken, and strengthen our ability to understand what is being said.

All our time spent studying more grammar, reading more Spanish, memorizing more vocabulary, and other similar exercises will be wasted if we neglect to develop the skill of listening with understanding.

Listening is the weakest link, and if we improve our ability to understand spoken Spanish, we will improve the other 3 learning skills as well.

Here are some strategies for improving our ability to listen with understanding:

Strategy #1: Move to a country where Spanish is spoken. Not possible for most of us at this moment, so let’s move on to the next strategy.

Strategy #2: Pay a Spanish speaker to speak to you. Some private tutors can be expensive, and I have found that since I already have strategies for learning Spanish grammar and for reading Spanish text, the real value in having a tutor is not so much the language instruction as it is the opportunity to tune my ear to understand spoken Spanish. So instead of looking for a tutor, you can probably find any number of Spanish speakers who would accept much less money than a tutor to simply speak with you in their native language. This might sound strange, but I am simply looking for solutions for resolving our weakest link. For you women out there, go and befriend a native Spanish speaking mother who would like to work outside the home but cannot because she stays at home with her small children, and then shock her by offering her money if she will let you hang out with her and the kids in her home so that you can hear them speak Spanish. That might seem strange at first, but wouldn’t that benefit both you and the family? And for you men out there, go over to Home Depot on 21st South later in the day and find one of the Latinos who has waited in vain for work all day, and offer him a free meal at McDonald’s across the parking lot in exchange for speaking with you in Spanish while you eat together. Once again this might sound strange, but I am simply grasping for solutions. As for me, right now I am paying a friend in Guatemala (who has no training as a tutor) $5 an hour to speak with me via Skype, which is more than double what most Spanish tutors make in Guatemala. He is especially grateful for the income since he has been out of work for over 2 years, and he would love to have some more business, so let me know if you want in on this deal and I will introduce you to him and give you his Skype address.

Okay, you are ready to hear about listening strategies that are not so strange and outgoing, right?

Strategy #3: Signup for LoMásTv at www.lomastv.com. Admittedly, I have not even done this yet myself, but I am going to be signing up soon since it became clear to me that listening with understanding is my weakest link. This program only costs $9.95 a month, and it gives you access to 660 Spanish videos (over 38 hours) that include the Spanish text AND English translation, as well as other useful tools.

Strategy #4: Watch the videos at http://www.laits.utexas.edu/spe/index.html, these are the FREE Spanish Proficiency Exercises developed by the University of Austin at Texas. I have watched all of these videos one time, but I must confess that the energy I invested in this exercise was half-ass at best because at the time I did not know that listening is my weakest link, and that my Spanish chain is only as strong as my weakest link. It was hard for me to understand everything that was being said (especially the videos beyond intermediate), so I did not give it my best effort. I will go back through these videos again.

Strategy #5: Watch the Destinos series for FREE at http://www.learner.org/series/destinos/. This series might seem a little dated since it was produced several years ago, but it was developed by a team of second language learning specialists, and it will help you develop your listening skills.

Strategy #6: Watch the videos at http://langmedia.fivecolleges.edu/. I just found this site the other day, and have only watched a few videos, but this is right in line with what will help us most. This site was created by a consortium of five colleges, and is dedicated to enhancing cultural awareness and language learning. Check it out.

They are many other options out there for strengthening our weakest link, but these are some of the ones I plan to pursue. For the foreseeable future, I am going to make listening my mantra, and skew heavily in this direction all of my efforts to learn Spanish.

Please let me know if there are other listening exercises or helpful web sites and programs that you know about, and I will share them with other Spanish language learners.

Adelante!

There's always one more (damn) thing to do

2011-09-19T15:20:00.000-06:00

I am convinced that I would benefit from the daily practiceof meditation, in spite of the fact that I have never actually developed thatdaily practice.

Thousands of research papers, clinical studies, meditationteachers, and every day folk who merely practice meditation, talk about themyriad of benefits that can be experienced through meditation … such as:

improved blood circulation
less stress and anxiety
stronger immune system
clearer thinking
more feelings of well-being
better relationships
greater peace and love in the soul

My challenge is that meditation requires that I sit stillfor 10 minutes … meaning, that I have to stop doing what I am doing, and gofind a place to sit still for 10 minutes and focus on my breathing. Unfortunately, I feel that sitting still and “justbeing” for 10 minutes is a complete waste of time.

I have tried meditating in the past, but while I am sittingstill trying to meditate, my mind fills with all kinds of things that I couldbe doing. In fact, a little while ago asI attempted once again to sit still for 10 minutes and meditate, my mind filledwith various things I would like to say in this message about the benefits ofmeditation, so I stopped meditating to write these very words you are reading. It’s madness, I tell you.

There’s always one more (damn) thing to do.

So, I am going to try one more time to sit still for 10minutes and meditate. I cannot sitcross-legged, yogi-style, on-the-floor, hero’s pose, or any other way that issuggested for optimal meditate-ability. So, I’ll just have to sit in a chair on my two butt points (or whateverthey’re called), try to hang my spine (or something like that), sit with goodposture (if that’s even possible), and focus on my breathing (though most daysI don’t realize that I am actually breathing). I’m going to go meditate immediately after posting and sending thismessage.

If this kills me, please know that I was the exception tothe preponderance of evidence in support of the benefits of daily meditation …and may I rest in peace.

Lose 1 Pound a Day

2011-07-19T13:19:00.000-06:00

I recently completed an extensive health assessment, and I was not surprised to hear that I would do well to lose at least 10 pounds. As a result, I put myself through a mini boot camp last week to see if I could lose 7 pounds in 7 days.

Is that even possible?

Several weight loss programs promise that you will lose a pound a day if you follow their program and buy their products. So when I put myself through my own self-imposed boot camp, not only was I losing a few pounds, but I was also able to evaluate the hype surrounding weight loss programs and their promise of … LOSE 1 POUND A DAY.

Each one of us consumes a certain amount of calories every day through food and drink. If the number of calories consumed equals the number of calories burned, we stay at the exact same weight. What exactly is the limit to how many calories I can consume daily if I want to stay at the same weight? How about if I want to lose weight?

The daily calorie burn is different for each person, and the exact figure is calculated based on your gender, age, height, weight, and activity level. Here is how you calculate your daily calorie burn:

Multiply your body weight by 10. This figure is called your basic metabolic rate (BMR), and it is the number of calories you would burn if you stayed in bed all day.

For example, my weight at 190 pounds multiplied by 10 equals 1900. Thus, my BMR is 1900 calories, which is the minimum amount of calories my body needs every day for basic functions such as breathing, keeping my heart beating, regulating my body temperature, etc. Multiplying your weight by 10 gives you a fairly good estimate of your BMR, but you can find an online BMR Calculator at http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ that will take into account your gender, age, height, and weight … and thus, give you a more accurate BMR.

Is that it?

No, because you are not likely to stay in bed all day, and thus you burn more calories every day than your BMR.

Now, multiply your BMR by your daily activity level, and then add that amount to your BMR. Here are activity level factors:

Sedentary (sitting most of the day) – 20%
Lightly active (walking here and there; daily chores) – 35%
Moderately active (constantly moving around; daily exercise) – 40%
Very active (substantial exercise for a long time) – 50%
Extremely active (intense exercise for an extended period of time) – 60%

For example, if I was sedentary I would multiply my BMR of 1900 by the sedentary factor of 20% to get 380, and then add that amount of 380 to my BMR of 1900 to get 2280.

Woo hoo! When I am sedentary I still burn 2280 calories a day! 1900 + (1900 x 0.20) = 2280.
If I am just lightly active one day, I burn 2565 calories. 1900 + (1900 x 0.35) = 2565.
When I am moderately active, I burn 2660 calories that day. 1900 + (1900 x 0.40) = 2660.
And if I exercise heavily on a given day, I burn 2850 calories. 1900 + (1900 x 0.50) = 2850.
Finally, when I really work it, I burn 3040 calories. 1900 + (1900 x 0.60) = 3040

But wait, there’s more! Your body actually burns calories to digest food, and the number of calories burned is estimated to be 10% of your daily consumption according to your activity level. Thus, take the sum shown above based on your activity level, and multiply that amount by 10% … and then add that extra to the total. For example:

Sedentary, 2280 + (2280 x .10) = 2508 calories
Lightly active, 2565 + (2565 x .10) = 2821.5 calories
Moderately active, 2660 + (2660 x .10) = 2926 calories
Very active, 2850 + (2850 x .10) = 3135 calories
Extremely active, 3040 + (3040 x .10) = 3344 calories

This final figure is called your Total Daily Caloric Expenditure. It is a measure of how many calories a day you burn based on your gender, age, height, weight, and activity level.

So what would it take to lose 1 pound in one day?

Since a pound of body fat is equal to 3500 calories, theoretically I would have to eat nothing or very little during the day, and also exercise extremely that day to achieve a Total Daily Caloric Expenditure of 3500 calories. Thus, for me to lose 1 pound a day for 7 days, I would have to eat little or nothing all week, and exercise extremely every day.

Actually, I believe that I lost about 6 pounds during the week. Granted, some of it was probably the “water weight” that everyone loses at the beginning of a diet, and the scale in my house may not be precise, and/or I may not have replicated exactly the starting and ending weigh-ins (i.e. clothes worn, time of day, etc.), but even if I only lost 3 or 4 pounds, I am pleased. I can see the difference in the mirror, and I can feel the difference in the way my clothes fit.

So what’s the point? My point is that I think people can lose weight fairly quickly, and lose it in a safe manner while eating well but without having to starve. So how did I do it?

I burned a lot of calories exercising every day. On at least 3 of the days I exercised extremely for over an hour by bicycling up City Creek Canyon here in Salt Lake City, starting at about 4700 feet above sea level at my house and rising to slightly over 6000 feet above sea level at the end of the trail (7 miles up, 7 miles back). On every other day, my exercise was lighter … perhaps I only walked for an hour. FYI, a person my size can burn 100 calories per mile walking, or as much as 200 calories per mile running or bicycling swiftly.

Also, I ate 6 small meals every day, about every 2.5 hours to avoid feeling hungry. At each mini-meal I had a high quality low or non-fat protein source (such as non-fat yogurt, turkey jerky, non-fat cottage cheese, non-fat protein powder in a shake, etc.), some fruit, something whole-grain (wheat crackers, cereal, brown rice, etc.), and veggies. With each meal I drank at least 16 ounces of water in order to feel full. I had no cookies or deserts of any kind for the week, although after a long bike ride I may have had something like a 100-calorie Healthy Choice fudge bar (since protein after a good workout helps rebuild muscle).

I consumed no more than about 300 calories at each mini-meal, sometimes less, so I estimate that my daily intake was no more than about 1500 calories. Like I said, I never really felt hungry during the week, for if you eat something healthy about every 2.5 hours that includes protein you will stay satiated and keep your energy level constant.

So I cannot say that I proved the theory that you can lose 1 pound a day, but I think that you can lose at least half that much … and I know that you can enjoy the process.

Find Native Spanish Speakers to Call Via Skype

2011-06-15T10:31:00.000-06:00

If you want to speak Spanish, at some point you have to go beyond memorizing new Spanish words and studying Spanish verbs and grammar. Besides, that can get a little dry if that is all you are doing.

What you really want to be able to do is speak Spanish, right? That’s the fun part. In fact, there is a growing body of language teachers who say that we should spend FAR more time practicing speaking and hearing Spanish than we should spend studying Spanish. Personally, I think that there should be an even balance between study and conversation practice, for I find that the more words I know, the better I am able to express what I am trying to say.

So I strongly suggest that you find native Spanish speakers to converse with in Spanish one-on-one, and you can find those language partners in LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) and speak with them on Skype (www.skype.com). Here is how you do that:

First of all, you need a LinkedIn account. It is free to establish a basic LinkedIn account, just go to the web site and sign up. LinkedIn, which is kind of like Facebook for business professionals, will try to get you to sign up for a higher level account which costs at least $24 per month, but you don’t need that if you don’t want it. The basic, free, service works fine for finding language partners.

Once you have a LinkedIn account, join several LinkedIn groups where you can find native Spanish speakers who can help you speak Spanish while you help them speak English. Do a language exchange. So, at the top of the LinkedIn page there is a search box with a drop-down menu that enables you to search for people, jobs, groups, companies, etc … switch it to groups, and then search for Spanish, or Latino, or language, or español, or something like that. Your search will return various groups, ranked according to the number of members in each group. The groups with the largest number of members will appear at the top (numbering sometimes in the thousands), while the smaller groups will appear toward the bottom of the list. Here is a list of the LinkedIn groups that I belong to where I was able to find native Spanish speakers:

Association for Foreign Language Professionals
Exchanging languages
English Spanish Translator Org
Spanish Immersion
Spanish for Professional Purposes
Spanish in the USA
Spanish Speakers
Spanish language professionals
Hispanohablantes
OPENRED: SPANISH/ENGLISH WORLDWIDE NETWORK
Latin America Network
SPANISH TEACHING
Oportunidades laborales en Sudamerica - Jobs opportunities in South America
Mexican Professionals
Bicultural Latino professionals
Language Experts!!!
Marketing Connection LATAM

Once you are on a LinkedIn group page, there should be a button at the top that says “Join Group.” Some groups you are able to join immediately once you click that button, but other groups will take a few hours or days to join before the moderator accepts your request to join. I don’t believe that I have ever been refused entry to join a group on LinkedIn … most of these groups want to grow their group size as large as possible, so they will accept everyone who wants to join the group. For example, I am a member of a group called Mexican Professionals, in spite of the fact that I am neither Mexican nor (some would say) entirely professional. (Smile).

Once you are a member of the group, you can post a message on the group discussion board for all to see. At that point all you have to do is post something like, “Seeking conversation partner – I will help you learn English, if you will help me learn Spanish.” Actually, I recommend posting that message entirely in Spanish if you are looking for a Spanish speaking language partner (which is what I did). For example, “Le ayudaré aprender inglés si me ayudará aprender español.” Another thing you should put in the posting is your Skype ID, as well as to ask for the Skype ID of anyone who wants to become a conversation partner with you.

I posted a message like this written in Spanish on about 10 message boards, and I was FLOODED with responses. They poured in over the next 3 days … non-stop … I actually had to go into all of the boards about 3 days later and delete each of my postings (which also deletes all replies to the postings) because I had to work overtime to keep up with all the people who wanted to do a Spanish-English language exchange with me. (I deleted the postings after, of course, I had gathered the contact information of prospective language partners). Replies came from all over the world – Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Spain, Chile, from Latinos living in the United States, and from various other Spanish speaking countries. It appears that there are many more native Spanish speakers who want to find an English language partner, than there are native English speakers looking for a Spanish speaking partner.

I highly recommend that you do the courteous thing and at least reply to everyone who contacts you. Either reply on the message board acknowledging each of the people who replied, or send each person a private message via LinkedIn. Like I said, after only a few days I had to go back and delete my original posting to stop the flow of incoming messages. I now have the contact information of over 50 people throughout the world who are willing to trade Spanish for English with me. (NOTE: Don’t be giving out personal information – like a credit card number, duh! – because I expect that there are shady characters out there. Nonetheless, I am always careful and have never had any problems … I have only ever found nice people to converse with via Skype).

Now you have to go into Skype and send or receive a “contact request.” Skype enables you to make free calls through the Internet (not using phone lines) to any other Skype member throughout the world. It is a pretty amazing thing to be able to talk for an hour for FREE to someone living in Argentina or elsewhere in the world. Again, the key is that the other person must also have a Skype account … if you use Skype to call a cell phone or landline, it will cost you (although it is still only pennies per minute); but if you make a Skype to Skype call (one member of Skype calling another member of Skype), the call is FREE. I even have the Skype app on my iPhone, and I can use that app to call a Skype member (although I am sure that type of call counts against the total amount of data usage I am allowed on my iPhone). I think that you can establish a Skype account for as little as $10, and then you download the application to your computer. If you only use Skype to call another Skype member, you will never even use up that $10 it cost to join Skype … this is money that sits in your account and is used up if you should ever use Skype to call a landline or cell phone. If you only use Skype to call another Skype member, that $10 will stay in your Skype account. So … while you are in Skype, send a “contact request” to the Skype IDs that you received from people while in LinkedIn, and once they accept you will be connected. Or, perhaps a LinkedIn group member that saw your Skype ID listed in the group message you posted will send you a Skype “contact request” that you will find in your Skype inbox the next time you log into Skype, and once you accept that request that person will become one of your Skype contacts.

This is how you can find language exchange partners in Linkedin that you will converse with via Skype.

The other thing I might mention is that while you can certainly make voice calls using Skype, it is more personal to make video calls using Skype. If you have a webcam installed, and your language partner also has a webcam (which is usually the case), in Skype you can both see and hear the person you are talking to, while they can both see and hear you. Again, pretty amazing stuff, and it is FREE, FREE, FREE. You do have to buy and install a webcam, however you can get a very nice one for very little money. I researched webcams and found a highly rated one on sale at Best Buy for about $30, I bought the Logitech HD Webcam C510. Most of the Logitech webcams are highly rated and recommended, and range in price from about $25 up to about $90. My webcam also includes a microphone, so the only other thing I needed was speakers plugged into my computer, and I was good to go. (If I want to, I can also switch to a headphone set with microphone instead of using the webcam’s built-in microphone).

There are hundreds or even thousands of native Spanish speakers out there right now looking for native English speakers who are willing to do a language exchange. When I meet someone new via Skype, I usually suggest speaking for 15 minutes at a time in one language, before switching to the other language for 15 minutes, and then back again, etc. Most people are willing to have a least a 30 minute conversation, and I find it best just to schedule an hour so that there is a time limit. Also, keep an eye on the clock so that the conversation does not skew in favor of one language … the idea is to get an even exchange, spending 50% of the time in Spanish while spending the other 50% of the time in English. Some people have suggested speaking English to me while I speak in Spanish to them, kind of a two-language-at-once conversation, but I don’t feel that is a good idea because you need to hear Spanish as much as you need to practice speaking it, and your language partner needs to hear English as much as they need to practice speaking it. So go 15 minutes at a time in one language, and then 15 minutes in the other, then back and forth again.

I have so many Skype contacts that are language partners, that invariably when I log into Skype now I see that some of them are already logged into Skype. (You can see the online status of all of your Skype contacts). So, if I want to strike up a conversation, all I have to do is send a chat message to someone logged in to see if they are available for a conversation, or I can just call them straightaway via Skype to see if they pick up the call. (I usually poke them with a chat message first to see if they reply). But the other thing that I have found is that now when I log into Skype, my Skype contacts will see that I just came online, and sometimes one or more will send me a chat message asking if I have time to have a Spanish-English exchange right then. Therefore, you can be spontaneous and go online and see if you can find someone to converse with (which I do occasionally), or you can establish a regular schedule with specific partners to have a conversation at a specific time and day each week (which I prefer to do, and I have about 5 of those regular partners right now).

So let me say one more time, there are hundreds or even thousands of native Spanish speakers out there right now looking for native English speakers who are willing to do a language exchange. What are you waiting for? Go out and find them … and make some friends all over the world!

Top Ten Reasons to Learn Spanish

2011-06-10T09:12:00.000-06:00

Learn Spanish because it is fun to learn it.
Learn Spanish to enhance your mental functioning … it works much better, and is a lot cheaper, than popping ginkgo biloba pills.
Learn Spanish because it is the fourth most commonly spoken language in the world, and you can easily find a Spanish speaker wherever you are in the United States.
Learn Spanish to better appreciate Spanish-speaking cultures … the people, the history, the arts, the food, the literature, the music, etc.
Learn Spanish to enhance your travel experiences, as well as to open up study abroad opportunities.
Learn Spanish to improve your employment potential.
Learn Spanish to improve your knowledge of your own language … it will enhance your understanding of words that you use every day, and also improve your grammar.
Learn Spanish to make new lifelong friends, perhaps get to know better some of your relatives, or maybe learn more about your own ancestry.
Learn Spanish to become a more loving person.
Learn Spanish to better understand what Nelson Mandela meant when he said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

What is happiness?

2011-05-11T17:06:00.000-06:00

Last night at in our Spanish conversation group our topic of conversation was … What is happiness?

As expected there were various responses to this profound question … each person has their own idea about what constitutes happiness. Some of the ideas include:

Happiness is having good friends.
Happiness is achievement.
Happiness is financial security.
Happiness is having control of your life.
Happiness is doing work that is completely fulfilling.
Happiness is knowing your purpose in life.
Happiness is peace of mind.
Happiness is helping others have a better life.

What are your thoughts? Respond to this message by completing this sentence:

Happiness is …

Simpler is Better

2011-05-05T10:10:00.000-06:00

For the last few years my wife and I have been simplifying our lives. Basically, we’ve been getting rid of a bunch of stuff, and downsizing wherever possible. Here are some examples:

In West Virginia our house sat on 15 acres of land, and it took me over 10 hours to mow everything using a fairly large John Deere tractor. Now our house sits on a small city lot, and I can mow the lawn in about 10 minutes.

We used to have two pick-up trucks and a car, but now we have one car and a scooter.

Our library of books was once rather impressive, and I in particular was quite proud of my extensive collection of reference materials (probably because I thought it made me look smart, although the books only collected dust year after year). We have given dozens of books away over the last few years, and now we are more apt to borrow books from the library than to buy them.

Same thing with CDs – Why did we need dozens of CDs when we listened to them only while on road trips? I sold several of them on eBay, and many more we simply gave away.

Sheri in particular has weaned herself from a large collection of clothes, and now participates in “minimalist” projects such as the selection of a limited wardrobe to wear for a couple months at a time. It sure makes getting dressed a whole lot less complicated.

I should be embarrassed to admit that I could only wean myself of 10 of a total of 40 screwdrivers, but hey – that’s 25 percent! I expect that someone will have to pry my tools from cold, dead hands.

We recently cancelled our DirecTV service and telephone landline, which not only simplifies our lives but saves us over $115 a month. Now most nights you can find us sitting in our comfy IKEA lounge chairs, me happily studying Spanish while Sheri is happily knitting away or reading.

Many of us hold onto way, way, way too much stuff … and life really is simpler with less. And simpler is better.

So go ahead and start going through all your stuff, all the stuff piled in your garage and in your basement and in your attic and in your closets. Figure out what you need and what you don’t need any more … and give away everything you don’t need. I recommend giving it to smaller thrift stores that directly benefit the community, for example my preferred recipient here in Utah is Crossroads Urban Center.

By giving away all that stuff that is just collecting dust you’ll make your life simpler, plus you’ll feel good about sharing some of your abundance with others. But of course you can keep some of your most cherished items … for example my Spanish language learning resources are staying right here with me, together with my tools in my still warm hands.

Fail Often and Shamelessly

2011-04-30T09:51:00.000-06:00

I encourage everyone to fail OFTEN and SHAMELESSLY.

This philosophy applies to just about any area of life where you want to learn and grow – and especially to LEARNING SPANISH. Countless people, probably since the advent of humankind, have told us that we must be willing to fail BEFORE we can succeed. Here are some examples:

Failure is the tuition you pay for success.
You’ll always miss one hundred percent of the shots you do not take.
I’d rather be a failure at something I enjoy than a success at something I hate.
While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.
In order to achieve anything you must be brave enough to fail.
Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Don’t think about failure. Think about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.
Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.
A life without mistakes is a mistake within itself.
You must be willing to do something poorly before you can do it well.
He who never fell, never climbed.
Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

So with regard to learning Spanish, I encourage everyone to fail OFTEN and SHAMELESSLY. Make tons of mistakes speaking Spanish –it is the only way to learn. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You will simply not learn to speak and hear Spanish unless you are willing to make many mistakes along the way. SO GET OUT THERE AND START MAKING MISTAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look for every opportunity to speak with someone in Spanish … any time you see someone who you think might be Latino, try it out. Speak in Spanish to the bank teller … insurance agent … cashier … teacher … landscaper … software developer, etc. Just go up to someone at every opportunity and say, “Buenos dias … ¿como está? … permitame presentarme, me llamo Keith,” and try to get a conversation going. Is there anything wrong with that – no!

The worst that could happen is that someone gets offended by the fact that YOU THOUGHT they were Latino and that they speak Spanish. That has happened to me only a few times, but in reality that is a rare occurrence. But I don’t worry about that, and I will tell you why. Countless times in my life I have interacted with someone who spoke little English … and I don’t get offended! I am happy to try to help someone try to communicate in English. Likewise, I encounter Latinos frequently in life (especially living here in Utah) and I always find them happy to converse with me in my BROKEN Spanish. Latinos are wonderful and friendly people, and will be more than happy to help you with your Spanish.

So get out there and … FAIL … OFTEN and SHAMELESSLY … to speak and hear Spanish. ¡Olé!

P.S. If you want an opportunity to make mistakes speaking Spanish, join us for the Sólo en Español Camping Trip this coming weekend, where only Spanish will be spoken all the time – total Spanish immersion!

Let's Talk About Your Feelings

2011-04-17T14:14:00.000-06:00

Are you still sad (triste) that the Utah Jazz traded D-Will to the New Jersey Nets?

Do you feel guilty (culpable) for not practicing enough Spanish this week?

Are you confused (confundirse) and overwhelmed (abrumado) because you cannot figure out whether we are in Spring, Winter, or Summer right now?

If so, don’t be worried (preocupado) … Sólo en Español Associates can help! We are a supportive, caring, full-service group that can help you talk about your feelings (sentimientos).

In fact, you need to be prepared to talk about your feelings Tuesday night at Mestizo using any of the following adjectives:

exhausted - agotado
confused - confundirse
ecstatic - éxtasis
guilty - culpable
suspicious - sospechoso
angry - enojado
hysterical - histérica
frustrated - frustración
sad - triste
confident - confianza
embarrassed - vergüenza
happy - feliz
mischievous - travieso
disgusted - disgustado
frightened - miedo
enraged - enfureció
ashamed - vergüenza
cautious - cautelosos
smug - petulante
depressed - deprimido
overwhelmed - abrumado
hopeful - esperansado
lonely - sola
lovestruck - enamerado
jealous - celosa
bored - aburrido
surprised - sorprendió
anxious - ansiosos
shocked - sorprendió
shy – timido

Remember! – at Sólo en Español Associates there is always hope (esperanza).

Daily Contact with Spanish

2011-04-11T11:51:00.000-06:00

You can learn to converse in Spanish, but NOT if you keep sabotaging your hard work and progress. Why spend weeks or months, and maybe a lot of money, only to sabotage your development by NOT doing anything with your Spanish for days or weeks at a time? It doesn’t take much to preserve what you have learned, but it does require DAILY CONTACT with the language. Be VERY AFRAID of going even a couple days, and especially NOT a whole week, without doing something.

From what I have read by language learning experts, even 15 minutes a day is enough to preserve your current level until you can find more time to devote to building upon what you know. If you want to keep building on what you know, you should spend at least 1 hour a day, but if you merely want to PRESERVE your current level, 15 minutes a day will do.

If you’re strapped for time and in PRESERVE mode, I recommend listening exercises that are FUN. If you are lacking motivation or just plain tired, studying a grammar book is not going to pump you up. Here are some fun listening exercises you can do to stay motivated and in contact with Spanish:

Pimsleur – The best program available, and you can borrow it from the library. It will help you listen and speak, and it is fun and easy to use.

Destinos – This is also a free program, and available at http://www.learner.org/series/destinos/. What could be easier than watching these episodes? This program will keep your ear tuned to hearing Spanish, and it also includes fun and simple exercises.

LiveMocha.com – I haven’t done much with this program lately, but it is free for the first few levels … and since it is a community of learners, you can make friends with native Spanish speakers who are learning English. Help each other learn … they help you with Spanish, you help them with English.

Spanish Jackpot

2011-03-30T07:33:00.000-06:00

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you hit the jackpot by winning the lottery? Or, what if some distant relative that you did not even know left you a bunch of money? What would hitting the jackpot do to your life?

Though I must confess to buying a lottery ticket while we were in Washington State this past weekend, I’m one of the people that think that winning the lottery is more likely to ruin a person than help them. Imagine how complicated your life would get once all of your friends and family found out that you suddenly acquired a bunch of money … instantly everybody and their brother would be asking you for money. And of course, you would be tempted to gorge yourself on your winnings, and, after spending luxuriously on yourself for a few years, you’d have to spend more and more each time to get the same high. It seems that you could easily wind up being a tired, old, lonely, cranky, selfish, unloving, poor, bastard, shell of a human being. That’s a good thing?

My plan for attempting to avoid such a pitfall is a pledge to immediately give away half the money, perhaps by setting up a foundation dedicated to doing good “para siempre.” But even then I’d have to fight off everybody and their brother for the half of the money I kept for myself!

Speaking of jackpots … I hit the Spanish jackpot about a week ago, and I still haven’t told anyone. I’ve been holding out and keeping this treasure all to myself! I stumbled upon this incredible Spanish learning resource on the internet, which is in my opinion every bit as useful as Destinos. And what’s more, it is free and available to everyone … you just need to know where to find it.

Do you want some?

Not so fast, Buster! Before I will show you how to find this Spanish jackpot, you must email me and explain how you will use this jackpot to benefit the world.

Aaargh! Don’t you hate it when people put a condition on receiving a gift! What an “atorrante” (scumbag) I am!

Sorry Charlie, that’s just the way it is going to be. I got the goods, and if you want some of the treasure I am going to make you work for it. If you enjoy learning the Spanish language, you will really appreciate this resource. Once again, send me an email and explain how you will use this jackpot to benefit the world, and as soon as I receive your email I will reply and send you the link to this Spanish language learning booty.

12 Mindful Movements

2011-03-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

The following 12 mindful movements are adapted from the seminal work of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. He developed 10 mindful movements that he and his friends have been doing many years, but I changed a few and added a few movements to make the series more amenable to my body ... specifically, to make it easier on my back, hips, and knees.

The first 6 are the same as his, and I modified the 7th. I replaced his 8th and 9th movements (since I prefer not to balance on one leg) with 4 exercises I regularly do for the benefit of my back and hips (which are the new 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th movements). And the 12th movement is essentially the same as Thay's final movement (Thay is the name his friends call him), however I do it at only a 45 degree angle, and I made it more of a Tai Chi "heaven and earth" stretch. I hope you enjoy them.

The 12 mindful movements are rooted in breathing. They help bring the body and mind together, and help you live more fully in the present moment. Stay balanced. Breathe into your belly, and enjoy your breathing. Remember to smile.

1. Breathe in and lift arms, stretch forward. Breathe out and lower arms. Do 3 times.
2. Breathe in and lift arms to sky, stretch upward. Breathe out and lower arms. Do 3 times.
3. Place fingertips on shoulders, breathe in and bloom like a flower. Breathe out and return fingertips to shoulders. Do 3 times.
4. Stand with feet a bit wider than shoulder width. Breathe in while making half circle with arms, breathe out while completing the circle. Reverse direction and complete another circle. This makes one set … do 3 sets.
5. Bend over and drop arms to earth. Breathe in and raise arms to sky, stretch upward. Breathe out and drop arms to earth, stretch downward. Do 3 times.
6. Put hands on hips. Bend forward and breathe in while making half circle with upper body, and at the point you are leaning back breathe out while completing the circle. Reverse direction and complete another circle. This makes one set … do 3 sets.
7. Breathe in to stand on tippy toes, breathe out while squatting and extending arms. Do 3 times.
8. Lie on floor and breathe in, then breathe out while pulling knees to chest. Do 3 times.
9. Sit on floor with right leg extended, breathe in with legs crossed and left foot at right knee. Breathe out while twisting back to right. Reverse and twist back to left. This makes one set … do 3 sets.
10. Lie on floor and breathe in, then breathe out while pulling right leg up and over for hip stretch. Reverse and pull left leg up and over. This makes one set … do 3 sets.
11. Lie on floor and breathe in, then breathe out while doing stomach crunch. Repeat at least 12 times.
12. Step right and forward at a 45 degree angle. Breathe in while bending knee, lifting right hand to sky, and extending left hand to earth. Breathe out and return to starting position. Do 3 times. Reverse, and do 3 more times.

Bow and give thanks with a smile.

Theory of Spanish Relativity

2011-03-06T09:04:00.000-07:00

While listening to Wayne Dyer recently, I learned that just ONE IDEA is enough to make a dramatic improvement in my life. Just one thought, one insight, one new direction, one idea can change my life for the better.

That’s probably why I feel compelled to keep writing a weekly email to all my amigos. I have no idea how many people actually read what I send, but I believe that if just one thing said, one time, somehow or another helps just one of us to improve our Spanish, it is all worth it. So here (in so many words) is the one thing I would like to say today.

For most of us, fluency is the goal. However, many language learning experts say that the later in life that you start on the second-language path, the less likely it will be that you become fluent. The key issue is time-on-task … when we were children, we had seemingly all the time in the world to learn another language, but as adults we have many competing priorities. It’s really not about capacity to learn as we get older, although mental functioning does change somewhat over time, but in reality the key issue is how much time and opportunity we have to learn. And the good news is that language learning is good for the mind NO MATTER when you start the process, and here is an article that supports that fact http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/18/foreign-language-learning-good-for-your-brain/?hpt=Sbin.

And the ONE THING that I would like to share with you today is that YOU can and should define what fluent looks like for you, because you don’t have to rely on, or be bound by, what someone else defines as fluent. If Spanish fluency is defined as having the same grasp and command of Spanish as I have of English, well I can tell you right now that it is highly unlikely (save an act of God) that I will ever achieve that type of fluency in Spanish. I’m not the brightest bulb on the porch, but I feel that I understand English pretty well … and since it has taken me 50 years to get to this point with English, which includes near complete immersion in the English language for 50 years, then by reason it would take the same amount of time and immersion experience to get to the same level of Spanish mastery. Do I need to leave everything and everyone, move to a small Spanish-speaking village in Central America, and hope to live to be 100 years old? I think so, because that is about what it would take to get to the same level in Spanish that I now have in English … and it might take even longer since I might not find Catholic nuns in that small Spanish-speaking village to make sure (by discipline, piercing stare, ruler, etc.) that I learn my lessons.

So what does it mean to be fluent? Here are some dictionary definitions:

• Merriam-Webster – Capable of using a language easily and accurately
• Cambridge Dictionary – When a person is fluent, they can speak a language easily, well and quickly

Goodness gracious! By those definitions, I am not sure that I am even fluent in English!!

How about this one:

• Dictionary.com – Able to speak or write a specified foreign language with facility

I like that one … able to speak “with facility.” What does that mean? Who knows, so I may as well claim it and tell the world that I can speak Spanish with facility!

In one sense, I have already achieved what I set out to do with Spanish … that is, I already have the ability to help two people communicate with each other – one that speaks only Spanish, the other that speaks only English. I may not be the best interpreter in the world, but I am already an interpreter. So for me, everything from now on is gravy … whatever more Spanish I can learn will only make me a better interpreter, or should I say intérprete.

So define for yourself what fluent looks like, if in fact fluency is your goal. If a few Spanish sentences roll off your tongue fluidly, then you should be heartened by the fact that you were fluent in that moment. Fluency is only a matter of degree, and you are somewhere on that fluency scale with everyone else who is learning Spanish. And that’s my THEORY OF SPANISH RELATIVITY.

Spanish Vocab Builder Month

2011-02-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

On behalf of the Salt Lake City Spanish Meetup (http://www.meetup.com/saltlakecityspanish/), I hereby declare the month of March as “Spanish Vocab Builder Month.” Henceforth, people all over the world are encouraged to be especially intentional during the month of March to increase their vocabulary of Spanish words.

Moreover, I will lobby to have Spanish Vocab Builder Month added to the “official” list of commemorative months found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commemorative_months. There are several other good causes that have already laid claim to the month of March, but I figure that Spanish Vocab Builder Month is already more important and more noble than other commemorations currently held during the month of March, such as National Noodle Month and the Manly Month of March.

So, in honor of the inaugural Spanish Vocab Builder Month, let’s have fun together during March and see just how many Spanish words that each of can add to our repertoire of vocabulary.

Bronze performers will learn 1 new word a day, or 31 new words by the end of March.
Silver performers will learn 2 new words a day, or 62 new words by the end of March.
Gold performers will learn 3 new words a day, or 93 words by the end of March.

To determine performance, each of us must take the self-assessment prior to the beginning of March … and then we will re-test at the end of March to get a count on words learned. To do the self-assessment, go to http://www.meetup.com/saltlakecityspanish/, in the red menu bar mouse-over More and click on Files, and then click on 1020 Most Useful Spanish Words - Spanish Only to download the Excel spreadsheet with the list of the 1020 most useful words in the Spanish language (adapted from the book 1001 Most Useful Spanish Words by Seymour Resnick). Take the test by filling in the spreadsheet, let me know when you are done and I will send you the list that includes the English equivalents so that you can grade your results, and then email me through my blog at weluvutah.blogspot.com your count of known words prior to March 1st, 2011.

We will meet weekly in March on Skype for about 30 minutes to talk vocab, commiserate, laugh, cry, or whatever it takes to encourage one another to be Vocab Builders.

Obviously, to fully participate in Spanish Vocab Builder Month through Salt Lake City Spanish Meetup, you will have to be a registered member of our Meetup group at http://www.meetup.com/saltlakecityspanish/, and have Skype loaded on your computer. It is FREE to make Skype-to-Skype video and voice calls (meaning Skype members can call one another on Skype), and you can download the program at www.skype.com. If you want FREE, make sure you only download the Skype program and don’t sign up for their monthly service that also enables you to call landlines.

Finally, I DARE anyone to learn all 1020 words – that’s ONE THOUSAND AND TWENTY words – in fact, I’ll make a DOUBLE-DARE.

“Querer es poder”

The "Secret" to becoming Fluent in Spanish

2011-02-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

Last night nine of us Spanish enthusiasts celebrated 1 year of meeting at Mestizo to speak and hear Spanish. It was a fun evening. And this morning I discovered something interesting … it was exactly 2 years ago on the first Tuesday in February that I began learning Spanish; that was the first night of my adult education class in Beginner Spanish at East High School.

Which brings me to the topic for today: For as long as you enjoy the Spanish language, it is important to remain positive and upbeat about your progress toward fluency. Yes, set some aggressive goals and mark your milestones, but don’t let your goals become unrealistic expectations that discourage you from continuing.

Notice I said, “For as long as you enjoy the Spanish language.” No one can force you to enjoy learning Spanish – it is something you either enjoy, or you don’t. If you don’t enjoy it, I’m thinking that you should find something else to do, find something you enjoy doing.

But if you genuinely enjoy the Spanish language, keep moving forward … even if it means you stopped for awhile, and now find yourself starting over … even if it means taking baby steps for awhile … even if it seems that you are not progressing nearly as rapidly as you thought you would, or as rapidly as you would like. At the very least, you’re moving around a few neutrons or protons or whatever in your brain on occasion, particles that you would not be moving around if you were not learning Spanish, and this language-learning-particle-movement has to be better than mindlessly watching TV, window shopping, or hoping that you win the lottery (which would require driving to another state just to buy a ticket).

Seriously though … be hopeful for rapid advancement, but at the same time be at peace with, and grateful for, gradual progress. Yeah, it is work … and it will take continual effort over a fair amount time to become fluent … but lots of people have done it, are doing it, and will do it. Us too!

Despite what some bloggers, hucksters, and snake-oil salesmen want you to believe …. language learning experts say that the process of becoming fluent in a second language requires time on task over several years, especially if you are not currently living in a Spanish speaking country. The more years you spend dedicated to the task, the more fluent you will be. (Me too! I may be saying “you,” but I am speaking to myself as well). SPEAK SPANISH AND HEAR SPANISH AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, and at the same time continue doing your grammatical studies and reading Spanish.

So today I am looking at what Spanish I think I need to learn next, and I am formulating some goals for the next year … then I will start making steps toward those goals …. and periodically I will gauge my progress …. and if necessary, I will re-assess and keep moving forward … and during the first week of February 2012, Lord willing I live that long, I will probably re-assess and continue. As the personal growth guru Anthony Roberts says, here are those 4 simple steps toward reaching something you desire … in our case, Spanish fluency:

1. Set a goal
2. Take action toward your goal
3. Periodically, assess the results of your actions
4. If necessary, change your approach and continue toward your goal

I do believe that there is an energy, or power, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it, that accompanies INTENT … that if you make it your INTENTION to be or do something, that somehow or another the right opportunities and people and whatnot will show up in your life to assist you in fulfilling your INTENTION.

¡Que le vaya bien!

How to get from Guatemala to Utah

2010-12-02T07:46:00.001-07:00

We have one last weekend to spend in Guatemala, and then we’ll start making our way back home. Before we know it, we’ll be back in our daily routine, hanging out with the friends we miss, eating foods that we are more accustomed to, walking our dogs down familiar streets, and sleeping in our own bed. Of course, we have mixed feelings about returning. One part of us wants to stay on vacation, while the other part longs for the familiar.

The hardest part for me is to return a changed man, and then to stay a changed man. What good is it to be touched in the heart, and even to extend a hand to help, only to return to the familiar and be the same person I was when I left?

On one of our last mornings in Antigua, we took the chicken bus to Santa Maria de Jesús, a small farming community at the base of Volcán de Agua. While sitting on a bench in parque central, an elderly woman “walked” toward us. I put the word “walked” in quotes because the woman had a deformed foot and could barely walk. To use her deformed foot she had to twist her leg up to plant her toes on the pavement, and then gingerly step forward to place her other bare foot on the pavement, and then back again she would contort her leg to plant the deformed foot. She slowly, painfully slowly, approached us. I have a strong hunch that she broke her foot or ankle one day, and since she is extremely poor, she could not afford to have the foot set properly for healing. God knows how long it has been that way, and I expect it will be that way for the rest of her life. In an instant my heart became heavy with sadness for her. She stopped in front of us and said a few things in a language I did not recognize, undoubtedly her native indigenous language. I reached in my front pocket and gave her the 3 quetzals I had stuffed in there, and then she smiled broadly even though her smile contained only one tooth. And then she continued on her way. That type of experience should change me for life, but my fear is that I will return to Salt Lake City and after only a few weeks I will return to the man I was.

In contrast to my experience with the elderly crippled lady, that afternoon I went for a walk in an exclusive gated community being built not far from our homestay. Though many homes are still under construction, several people are already living there. A couple approached me walking on the sidewalk, and hearing them speak English, I introduced myself. I learned that they live in Washington State, and also own a home in Antigua (and who knows where else). I also learned that the prices for homes in this gated community in Antigua start at $500,000. Now I hate to be judgmental, and I pray that I don’t talk bad about someone and be completely wrong, but the people I met on the sidewalk seemed shallow and plastic to me. He was about 60 years old, and was fit and casually well-dressed. She seemed to be about 50 years old, looked like a walking Barbie, and had a face full of make-up, a wooden smile, and what I expect were plastic boobs. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if they were dead or alive … the whole encounter seemed stiff and cold and lifeless to me. Why is it that some people have so much, and others have so little? And why do the filthy rich seem so fake and dead, whereas the filthy poor seem so real and alive?

So … spiritually speaking … I don’t yet know how I am going to get from Guatemala to Utah. I don’t yet know how I can return a changed man, return a better man. Perhaps there is something I can do now while I am still here to prepare myself for a successful transition, I just don’t know. Maybe the first few days on American soil are the most critical, maybe during those first few days I need to sit myself down and beat into my head, “You are not the center of the universe!” It could be that it will require daily effort for the rest of my life to be the type of person that gives more to others than I receive. Or, it might just be that there is no great secret, and that I (and we) should simply embrace each day as it comes, and live in such a way as to please God and not to displease God. There’s no mistaking the times that we displease God, and even if you are reading these words and are a devout atheist, there’s no mistaking the times that you screw up and hurt yourself or someone else. Each of us knows right from wrong at the core of our being … and each of us feels better at the core of our being about doing what is right than doing what is wrong. Moreover, LOVE is the universal principal that applies to all people, everywhere, all the time – LOVE is what we all want, and we all feel more alive when we are extending love. So I still don’t know how I am going to get from Guatemala to Utah, but I do believe that there is a way to do it well.

FINAL THOUGHTS – We arrived safely in Salt Lake City Tuesday night, and yesterday was something of a blur as we spent the day retrieving postal mail, starting up again the services we had suspended, loving on our dogs, and settling back into our daily routine. As I write these words it is early Thursday morning, about 3:30 AM. I woke up this morning with that “fire in my bones,” the feeling that I just need to start writing regardless of what time or day it is, regardless of how the rest of my day is impacted. Thus, this is the last email update I will send to the family and friends on my distribution list regarding our trip to Guatemala. However, if you are so inclined, you can continue to follow my blog at weluvutah.blogspot.com.

So … how best can I conclude this series of updates? What is a good way to sum it all up? Today is a new day. In reality, it is the only day I have because there is no guarantee that tomorrow will come. My life is really starting to feel like a vapor, my life seems to be evaporating before my very eyes. Everything has changed, and yet everything feels the same. Out of gratitude to God for the opportunity to travel to Guatemala, should I rush out there today and try to make the world a better place all at once? Should I focus on me, on my family, on my immediate circle, on taking care of the daily affairs of life? Or maybe it would be better to approach today peacefully, reflectively, lovingly, trying not to control anything or anyone because I know that God is in total control. I guess I still don’t know how to get from Guatemala to Utah, but that’s okay … One knows.

Lago Atitlán and Maximón

2010-11-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

Some people think that Lago Atitlán is the most beautiful place on earth. Newagers believe that the “vortex” there is stronger than anywhere else (although I don’t really know what that means). After being there only a brief time, we had already met gringos that were so drawn to being there that they come back over and over again, or move there and never leave. I agree that it is extraordinarily picturesque.

As I understand it, Lago Atitlán is actually a sunken volcano that filled with water over many centuries, thus forming a very large lake (“lago” in Spanish). To give you an idea of the size of the lake, a boat ride from one side to the other at a fairly fast clip takes at least 30 minutes. Mountains and at least 3 volcanoes form the perimeter of the lake, and there are about 12 villages at various junctures around the lake. Each village has its own vibe, and some villages are very different than others. For example, Santa Catarina Palopó is an odd mix of the poor indigenous people (who have lived there for several generations) alongside the ultra rich who have built expensive second homes there. San Pedro La Laguna is a mix of the indigenous with hippies, college kids, and various other low budget bohemian types. Some of the villages have trash-filled streets and aggressive street vendors, while other villages are tidy and permit you to stroll down the streets without stuffing merchandise in your face.

Maximón is also at Lago Atitlán (pronounced mah-shee-MON). I try to keep an open mind about people, and I work very hard to find common spiritual ground with people who may be very different than I. But I must admit that I find it extremely difficult to understand why people venerate Maximón, and even more puzzling are the methods they use to venerate it. Maximón is basically a mannequin that has no arms or legs. People think that the mannequin is a physical representation of a saint, albeit an ornery saint that likes to smoke cigars and drink run. The people also think that if they bring gifts of money, cigars, and rum to Maximón that it will grant them the favors they are requesting … favors such as a job, or a husband, or even revenge against an enemy. They say it is good to stay on Maximón’s good side. As a result, people queue up to see Maximón, waiting patiently to approach the altar where there is a pagan priest who processes the requests. The priest will accept whatever gifts a person has brought to Maximón, and then the priest will perform some sort of cleansing ritual using the presented gifts, such as patting the person’s head with special herbs, and then dousing Maximón with the presented rum. It is bizarre to me. But this is the reality, and it is something I have seen with my own eyes. I went with my Spanish teacher to visit one of the Maximón shrines (there are about 3 primary sites in Guatemala), and we walked right into the shrine and stood near the altar to observe the rituals.

There are many theories about the origin of Maximón, some very different than others. Most people agree that the Maximón cult (if I may use that harsh word “cult”) is a blend of Catholic Church ritual with indigenous pagan ritual. When Spain colonized the country now known as Guatemala many centuries ago, the Catholic Church imposed it’s religion on the indigenous people who had been living there. However, the indigenous people refused to completely surrender their customs and beliefs, and thus the Maximón phenomenon was born out of this mix of oil and water. So, since it is nearly impossible to know for sure how Maximón came to be, I will just go ahead and posit a few of my own theories. What can I lose?

First, it could be that some of the indigenous people wanted to hold on to their rum-swilling and cigar smoking ways, and thus created Maximón in order to cloak their vices under the rubric of religion. That’s fairly plausible in light of the fact that people always seem to be able to justify malevolent behavior in the name of God. For example, since the beginning of time people have waged war against their fellow human beings, not blinking while babies are killed, women are raped, elderly are maimed, all while believing that they are doing the will of God by waging war.

This leads to my second theory on the origin of the Maximón phenomenon. The indigenous people of Guatemala were so severely victimized for so many generations by people who claimed to be representing God that the indigenous people created a vice-laden idol to worship, one that could not possibly be worse than the God of the so-called Christians who came and took their land by force, while raping and killing them. Thus, Maximón is an act of religious defiance, one that has lasted for generations despite how strange it might seem to the rest of us.

I’m not sure that I have a good segway from Maximón back to the topic of Lago Atitlán, but I would like to say a few more things about Lago Atitlán before I end for today.

We are now back in Antigua after our weekend spent at Lago Atitlán. If I had to do it all over again, I would have scheduled more time to spend there. It’s the kind of place I could spend a lifetime taking pictures, and never get bored. Every day is different, and every moment in every day is different. Thus the morning light on the lake is different than the afternoon light, and where there is wind one day there is no wind the next, and perhaps one day is overcast with a sliver of a moon while later in the month the moon is full and the skies are clear. The setting at Lago Atitlán is so dramatic – a great big lake held in the palm of volcanoes all bathed in the light of the sun and moon and stars – that it seems that an amateur photographer with a decent camera could make a good living just wandering around taking pictures and posting them for sale. But ultimately, and obviously, no photo will ever fully capture the beauty and essence of Lago Atitlán. The only thing that you can do is stay in the moment and soak it in as much as possible, and always be grateful for the experience. Just like life.

Colors

2010-11-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

With regard to clothing, I doubt that there is any place more colorful in the world than Guatemala.

The indigenous dress (traje) of the Maya is brightly colored and includes every conceivable color of the rainbow – purple, green, orange, blue, magenta, yellow, sky blue, pink, maroon, forest green, lavender, red, burnt orange, light green, cherry red, violet, etc. The clothing designs (particularly for the women) use a combination of colors, words, abstract shapes, as well as plant, animal, and human figures … all woven or stitched into the clothing by hand. The art which is their clothing reveals their values and beliefs, and each design is unique to a particular area of the country. There are a least 150 different traje designs, and the same basic design is passed on from mother to daughter when the latter is taught how to use the backstrap loom to make clothing. And while there are basic design customs, each weaver is free to creatively customize their clothing to their liking … thus the range of different designs is endless. All this clothing is made on a backstrap loom, and it is believed that the same type of loom has been used to make clothing and other products in Guatemala for over 4,000 years.

The backstrap loom fascinates me for a lot of different reasons. First of all, it is so basic and yet is used to make extremely complex creations. The loom is simply 2 blocks of wood with strings running from block to block. The weaver attaches one end of the loom to a post, tree, or some other fixed object, and the other end is fastened around the back at the waist. Then while sitting on the ground (usually on their legs), the weaver leans back to pull the strings taut. At that point they simply weave the various colored strings in and through the strings that are pulled taut … and a month or 2 months or sometimes as much as 6 months later, they complete that one project (blouse, skirt, blanket, etc.). This brings up another reason why the backstrap loom is so fascinating to me – it takes such incredible patience and hard work just to make one item. A woman will spend months making the blouse (hupil) of their respective area, which is quite sturdy and can be worn virtually every day for months or even years. But if you are one of the unfortunate Mayan women who cannot or will not weave, it will cost you a small fortune to buy a blouse made in the design and colors of your community. I heard of one person who spent 3,000 quetzales (nearly $400 U.S. dollars) to buy a blouse, which by my estimate could be as much as 4 months wage. Finally, I am fascinated by the backstrap loom because it seems enormously difficult (or even impossible) for a non-Mayan to learn how to weave with the same skill as a Mayan woman. And backstrap weaving IS something done by the women only, I reckon that any Mayan man who tried to learn to weave would be severely ostracized in the community due to the prevailing machismo and/or cultural expectations. I almost feel challenged to learn how to weave, I could possibly be the first male in human history to learn how to backstrap weave … except that I do not have 30 years to spare in order to learn how.

Who knows … it could be that weaving was first done by men, and then later the women took over and perfected the art. One of our close friends Warren is an extremely gifted knitter, he has been knitting for many years. And it just so happens that recently there was a feature article on him and his knitting in the Salt Lake Tribune, and in that article he explained that long ago knitting was actually a man’s thing. But ultimately women caught up and passed the men in knitting prowess, and pretty much left the men in the dust (except Warren, of course).

My wife Sheri is also an accomplished knitter, and I probably should be embarrassed to admit that I have often wondered, “How can anyone find enjoyment in knitting?” Sheri rarely makes mistakes anymore, but I have seen her knit complete sections, only to pull it all out again because it was not just right – that would drive me crazy! But there she goes, happily knitting away … together with all her knitting friends, happily knitting away and chatting in circle.

Back to the backstrap loom. A few days ago Sheri went with a Spanish translator to the home of a Mayan woman who has been weaving for over 35 years. Sheri spent the morning learning how to weave … and she loved it! As a result, she went back two days later for another 6 hours of weaving, and the Mayan woman watched over her shoulder the entire time ready to help and advise as needed. This is an art that has a steep learning curve. Mayans start weaving when they are very young, and it takes years under the tutelage of older women in the community before one becomes an accomplished weaver. To give you an idea of how painstaking the process is, at least at first … in 6-7 hours of weaving, Sheri was able to complete a section that was about 12 inches wide and 6 inches long. But to the Mayan community, weaving is not a burden – on the contrary, they experience hope and joy and community in their weaving. It is said that Mayan women believe that they are carrying on the work of God through weaving, and that their weavings are emblematic of the rich tapestry of God's creation.

Antigua, Guatemala

2010-11-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

The city of Antigua is unlike any other place in Guatemala – there is a fair amount of money here. The vast majority of the 13 million people who live in Guatemala are poor, but being in this small town of about 60,000 people is like being in an entirely different world. Let me paint a broader picture of the people of Guatemala.

Guatemaltecos can be classified into 3 primary groups: (1) indigenous people, which is by no means a homogenous group, for there are dozens of different indigenous groups here, each with their one language and customs, (2) direct descendents of the Spanish Europeans who colonized this country starting 500 years ago, and (3) “mestizo” people who are a mixture of the first two groups.

There is a wide gap between the rich and the poor in Guatemala. It is estimated that about 25 families of European heritage control more than 80% of the fertile land here. Another stat indicates that 10% of the people receive more than 50% of all income in this country. The super-rich are a tiny minority that not only have most of the money, but they also hold most of the power because they control the political and governmental systems. Antigua, which is known world-wide for its Spanish language schools, is also one of the playgrounds of rich Guatemaltecos who come here on the weekends to escape the hustle and bustle of the capital Guatemala City (which is only 40 minutes down the road).

There is also a small percentage of middle-class families here, it includes those who have been fortunate enough to get through school and find professional employment, and those who through sheer tenacity have worked themselves out of poverty. The families who host Spanish language students are an example of the middle-class, and this income is vital to their livelihood. By the way, no language school would prosper here without having middle-class accommodations for language students, anything less would simply not be tolerable for many of the North Americans and Europeans who come here to study Spanish. But having said that, there is even a significant gap between the middle-class here in Antigua and the middle-class in Xela (4 hours west of here) where I spent the month of October. Here in Antigua the accommodations are very close to what I am used to in the United States, but the accommodations in Xela were somewhat spartan by comparison.

Most of the rest of the people who live in Guatemala are poor. At least 80% of the population live in poverty, and about one-third of those are considered to be living in “pobreza extrema” or extreme poverty. A person who is extremely impoverished likely has no job, has no education, might be in poor health, and is fortunate to eat one time a day. Thus, if I have my stats correct, well over 3 million Guatemaltecos are living in extreme poverty. But I don’t need stats to prove to me the level of poverty here, for I have seen it with my own eyes. I have been to Guatemala City and also spent a month in the Xela area, and it is painfully obvious to me that there ain’t no place in the United States – including Appalachia – that is anywhere close to as poor as the majority of Guatemala.

Education can be a ticket to a better life, but the school system here suffers from lack of funding and enforcement, and is also viewed with suspicion by much of the population. The largest percentage of the population is the indigenous poor, and many of them think that the school system is designed to erode their indigenous culture. Moreover, they need their children to work in the fields, and thus even the children who are enrolled in school often miss classes and/or stop school altogether after completing only a few grades. It is estimated that the literacy rate among indigenous women is around 30%. Another problem is that a good education is supposed to provide graduates with more opportunities and better jobs, however even when kids advance through the school system very often they cannot find work afterward … thus, people in the community see these poor results and think, “Why should I even send my kids to school?”

People wonder why my wife and I would want to come to Guatemala for vacation. Let me just say that we could have gone to Hawaii or Europe or Australia or many other places in the world for vacation, thanks be to God we are very fortunate and can afford to splurge occasionally. (Admittedly, a trip to some of those other places would have had to been considerably shorter to be affordable for us). But we came to Guatemala in part for the quality of the Spanish instruction, but also to invest our tourism dollars in a country that could really use the tourism income. Actually, the hardest part about coming here has been ensuring that as much money as possible gets to the people who need it the most. I don’t want to pay some tour company raking in tourist dollars to take me on a tour to show me where the poor people live, I would much rather hop on a chicken bus and go there myself. If you come here and feel like helping the less fortunate, you could take the money that you plan on spending on a tour, change it into a bunch of one quetzal coins, and walk down the dirt streets handing a quetzal to everyone you see. Occasionally we see someone sitting on the sidewalk here in Antigua with their hand out seeking a little help, and when you give them a one quetzal coin they are delighted and very appreciative … they might even be able to eat for a day on one quetzal. Yet one quetzal is worth only about one U.S. dime – how the hell hard is it to walk around giving out dimes?

People also wonder about how safe it is here in Guatemala … they rely too much on exaggerated news coverage, and imagine that there are gangs of thugs wandering all over this country ready to pillage. Granted, it is somewhat safer to be in the United States than it is to be this country, and granted one must take precautions, but in reality there is a very small difference in the degree of relative safety between the two countries. Many times while in Xela I walked home alone at night down poorly lit streets past many people I did not know, yet I did not once feel fear or have any problems. The people I passed at nights in the streets of Xela were people just like you and me … a woman walking home alone after her shift at Dominoes Pizza … vendors from the market walking to their trucks … kids walking home after school activities … a man walking into town to have a few beers at the sports bar … couples returning home from dinner at their favorite Chinese restaurant … teenagers going to the soccer match (“fútbol” here and in most of the world) … some lady walking to the beauty shop to get her hair done … a family on their way to Wednesday night Bible study … an elderly woman carrying on her head a basket of fruit that she was not able to sell on the street corner … and some gringo Spanish student heading back to his host family’s home after spending a few hours at the internet café.

Serendipity and Loss

2010-11-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

Sheri left Salt Lake City late Tuesday night on a flight to Los Angeles, and after a two hour layover she took a redeye flight that arrived in Guatemala City at 4:30 AM Wednesday. I was at the airport waiting for her with the taxi cab driver who had picked me up in Antigua at 3:50 AM. Sheri was a bit travel weary, but also very happy to be on vacation with me. And of course I was very happy to be with my Sweetie again after being apart for a month, by far the longest stretch we have been apart since we first met nearly 13 years ago.

We quickly settled into our home stay with a Spanish speaking family. Ruth lives in the home with her son who just finished high school, but two older daughters frequently stop by for a meal and to speak Spanish with the Spanish language students staying here. This is a beautiful and very large home with an interior courtyard (characteristic of the homes in Central and South America), where the family lives on the first level and the Spanish language students live on the second level. Ruth has had as many as 15 guests staying here at one time, however 5-10 is the norm. Ruth has been hosting students for nearly 20 years, and she is very good at what she does – this is her primary source of income. To begin with, Ruth is warm and gracious and funny. Secondly, she is an excellent cook who prepares for us 3 delicious and healthy meals every day (except Sundays when we are on our own). Another bonus is that Ruth is an excellent Spanish teacher, who not only requires that we speak Spanish in the house, but patiently corrects our mistakes while helping us to speak Spanish better. Finally, Ruth is a dog lover, and we have enjoyed getting to know her two boxers Rocky and Ruffy. Sheri and have our own room with a private bathroom here at Casa González, and we feel very fortunate to be staying here. Latinos often welcome family, friends, and guests into their home by saying, “Nuestro casa es su casa” (Our house is your house), and that is certainly the spirit in this place because Sheri and I feel very much at home here.

We’ve enjoyed several serendipitous moments since being here, and those moments always make me feel like I am just where I need to be. However, being where I need to be does not necessarily mean that everything is going my way, as I will explain a little later in this blog. Here are some of the fun chance encounters, coincidences, and moments of serendipity that have come our way: First, I kept running into the same fellow student from Xela during my first few days here, I bumped into Stella 4 times over 2 days and each time in a different part of the city. And the other day Sheri and I were wandering through the grocery store looking for granola when we bumped into another fellow student from Xela. Second, I went to a concert here before Sheri arrived and sat next to a couple who just happened to be studying Spanish at the same school where I had planned to start the next day (and there are dozens of Spanish schools in this city). But what’s more, Elena and Mark live in Canada not far from my home town of Toledo … and Elena’s birthday is in November (as is Sheri’s) and Mark’s birthday is in December (as is mine). Speaking of birthdays, a Third coincidence is that I share a birthday (December 20th) with the cleaning lady at our home Casa Gonzalez. (Oh, and Oscar my Spanish teacher in Xela was born the same day that Sheri and I were married, January 8th). Fourth, and back to the subject of my home town Toledo, the name Toledo has been popping up around here regularly … there is a meat distributor here in Antigua named Toledo … one day we met a man from Michigan with his young son, and we learned that the Toledo Zoo is one of their most favorite places to visit in the whole world. Fifth, a few seconds after saying goodbye to the man and boy from Michigan, we looked across the street and saw a residence named Casa Toledo … residences are often given a name here, and often the name is painted on a large square piece of tile that is affixed to the outside wall. Sixth, speaking of tile work, my first day at school I was explaining to my teacher that I dropped my given middle name Anthony when I got married, and that the name Anthony came both from my Grandfather and from the Catholic Saint Anthony of Padua … well, no sooner had I said the name Anthony of Padua when I looked up and saw a multiple-tile piece of artwork on the wall of the ancient convent that is now a Spanish school, the artwork was a painting of – you guessed it – Saint Anthony of Padua. Booga booga. These are all of the coincidences, chance encounters, and serendipitous moments that I can remember right now, but it seems that we have been saying, “Oh my gosh!” and “Can you believe it?” ever since we arrived here.

But sometimes I think that God has to bring us back to earth so that we don’t get too full of ourselves. We get to experience the excitement of serendipity and the feeling that everything is going our way … but we also get to slog along on occasion, to feel that we are swimming upstream, and to think that nothing seems to be going our way. The reality is that all of life is blessed, and we would all do well to accept whatever comes our way knowing that nothing in this world happens that God does not either cause or allow. Even so, we don’t have to wallow in pity feeling that the world is against us and that there is nothing that we can do to change our circumstances … rather, it is far better to do whatever we can to redeem the tough circumstances, to turn lemons into lemonade, to make the most of every circumstance we encounter. So I said all that to say this: Just when it looked like everything was going our way on this trip, that everything would go our way for the entire month we are here, that we had found the eternal spring … we had a tough day yesterday. It actually started out pretty well, we went on a fabulous tour of the city, the tour guide was knowledgeable and funny, and the tour was well worth the money we spent to participate. But then we went to the local sports bar to root for our beloved Utah Utes in their big game against TCU, a game that had national title implications. We got a prime seat right in front of a big screen TV, and proceeded to watch the Utes get slaughtered at home by TCU 47-7. What a bummer. But worse than that, one time when I could not bear to watch the game any longer and was looking for things to do, I went to the bathroom … and promptly dropped our digital camera in the toilet. Big time bummer. The camera is dead, and it does not appear to be coming back to life again. Not a huge loss, I purchased it used for only $80 specifically for this trip, we left our better camera in Salt Lake City. Nonetheless, I had big plans for the camera we brought with us, such as high resolution pictures of the nearby volcanoes (one volcano is active), pictures of this historic city, pictures of the people and markets bustling with activity, pictures of my lovely wife and I having big fun here, pictures posted to the web and shared with family and friends all over the world, etc., etc., etc. But now that there will be no more digital pictures of our trip here, you’ll just have to believe everything we tell you about this place and about what we are doing here. And true to my philosophy on life, I believe that dropping that camera in the toilet is the best thing that could have happened to me at that moment.

One last thing for this week … today we celebrated my lovely wife’s 50th birthday. We’ve had lots of fun today, we started the day at a fabulous breakfast buffet, went to church, had a nice lunch at a local restaurant, and after I finish blogging we are on a way to a have thali at an Indian restaurant, and afterward we are going to play Spanish bingo. So if you get this message, be sure to wish my Sweetie a happy birthday!

The Chicken Bus Adventure

2010-10-31T13:42:00.000-06:00

My last week in Xela went by fast, as last weeks do. Monday was spent walking all over over the place with two ladies from Pop Wuj looking for party supplies, we were planning the quarterly birthday party for the kids at the Guardería Daycare Center. We dipped in and out of makeshift booth after makeshift booth, into the small stores called tiendas, and back out again, in and through the booths of the various street vendors.

The Mercado (market) is quite a spectacle, it is near the center of town and is roughly 4 blocks long by 4 blocks wide. It is a cacophony of sounds, smells, and sights – hundreds of vendors selling clothes, plastic stuff, shoes, soaps and shampoo, underwear, cell phones, spices, sombreros, produce of seemingly every kind and color, and much more. A person could virtually buy anything they would ever need in this market, and for many this is their life – they don’t go to the bigger and fancier stores, instead they buy from each other, and sell to each other, while bartering often.

Most of the people here are much shorter in height, and I expect that centuries of malnutrition has something to do with that. So for whatever reason, God has raised up this culture to experience life in closer proximity to the earth, and indeed the overwhelming majority of Guatemaltecos seem much more appreciative of the earth and its bounty. I do not know what the statistics say, but based on my own observations, it is very common for someone here to be 4 feet tall or shorter, especially among women. I am only 6 feet tall and I stayed in the Xela region of 300,000 or more people for a full month, and without exaggeration I cannot recall ever seeing anyone taller than I … except for some of the gringos studying Spanish there. The sidewalks and streets are much narrower, the overhangs and displayed merchandise is much lower, so as you can imagine the circuit through the market while hurriedly trying to keep up with my 2 fellow party planners was a harrowing experience for me. At times I had to bend over at the waist to navigate pathways. And it was comical for the vendors as well, often they would smile and snicker watching me dip and duck my head to avoid knocking something out or even to avoid impaling myself.

Here is a funny story. I looked in several places for plastic bathroom sandals in my size 12, including 2 large department stores. The biggest size I could find anywhere was a 43, which appears to be a U.S. size 11. So finally I asked a sales associate in the shoe department if there was anything IN THE WORLD bigger than size 43, and then I pointed at my feet while saying, “Necesito algo mas grande.” She looked down at my feet and burst out laughing. I laughed too.

Nonetheless, we all know that the true measure of any person is not the length of one's inseam but the size of one’s love. And in that sense, I encountered many giants in Xela.

Tuesday all 40 of the kids from the Guardería Daycare Center were bussed into town for the party (since the water source in their community was expected to be non-functioning for several days, if not weeks). We found a nice area on the lawn at the local sports complex where we could enjoy a meal together, potatoes in thick gravy with chicken, all folded neatly into a plantain leaf to keep warm. Each one of the kids who had a birthday in the past few months received a gift from the 3 quetzal store (our version of a dollar store). We had purchased 3 large birthday cakes at one of the many bakeries (or panaderías) in town, and smiling faces all around declared that the cakes were a hit. Finally, we strung up 2 large piñatas (one for the older kids, one for the younger) filled with tons of candy and nuts, which the kids took turns whacking. Interestingly, many of the kids took lighthearted whacks at the piñata before eagerly passing the stick to the next person, apparently to preserve the fun for as many others as possible. Finally, when each piñata had had enough, the staff person turned it upside down to shower candy and nuts down on all the kids who had gleefully scampered underneath.

Wednesday I chilled out, and Thursday I went to the weekly dinner that is prepared by students studying Spanish at Pop Wuj, it is a combination dinner and graduation ceremony. To my delight, there just happened to be a professional cook from Australia studying Spanish at Pop Wuj who had spent the last year with his wife in Mexico studying Mexican cooking while writing a cookbook. As a result, we feasted on mole chicken Oaxacan style, followed by a sumptuous desert of blackberry crisp with a sweet cream drizzle on top. After dinner all of the graduating students (including me) gave a brief speech in Spanish, and afterward each graduate received their diplomas, conferring herein all reasonable and expected rights and privileges henceforth and forevermore.

Friday morning I arose early in order to catch my 6:30 AM bus to Antigua, the last leg of which was The Chicken Bus adventure. Linea Dorada is the best, most expensive bus line operating Greyhound-type buses in Guatemala, but even their buses can be non-plush (as I discovered on the way to Xela from Guatemala City). And Linea Dorada has the only non-stop routes, faster and generally safer from point to point than the other bus lines. But alas, Linea Dorada does not go straight from Xela to Antigua, I would have had to go all the way into Guatemala City and back out again to Antigua. So, I took what I thought was the next best bus line, Alamo.

I had asked Alamo earlier in the week if each of their buses had a bathroom, and was told “por supuesto” (of course). Well, of course my bus had no bathroom – thank God I only had time for one cup of coffee in the morning before dashing out the door for the 3 hour ride to Chimaltenango. She was an older bus too, appeared even older than I – which is pretty old in bus years. And that old gal of a bus had a name too, the Pacific Princess. She reminded me of that cantankerous old comic strip character Maxine, not everything worked as well as it used to (or worked at all), but she was still feisty and ornery. While running through the gears on our way out of town, each new shift to a new gear was more than the grinding of a gear, it sounded more like a grinding plus clunking type sound. The bus was nearly fully when we left Xela, but then we started picking up passengers along the way. At the first stop before we had even reached the edge of town, we picked up some hombre who sat in the seat across the aisle from me. He promptly looked heavenward and made the sign of the cross – I took that to be a good sign! At the next stop, again while still on the outskirts of town, we let on the bus several vendors who streamed down the aisle holding buckets of tortillas, bags of donuts, and baskets of snacks, all announcing in Spanish at the same time what they were selling and at what price. Along the way we stopped at least 3 more times for these vendor opportunities. In fact, one time an indigenous girl and the little one tagging behind her got so carried away selling stuff to customers that the bus pulled away and started heading down the highway … they scrambled back to the front of the bus, and when the driver saw them he uttered what could have been a Spanish expletive before stopping the bus again to let them off to begin the long walk back.

One month ago I travelled by bus from Guatemala City to Xela at night, so I was not able to see clearly the devastation of the mudslides Guatemala has suffered this year. But the bus I took to leave Xela was during the day, and thus I got a good look at the devasting mudslides, in places the mud and rock not only covered the two lanes going in one direction, but the mud and rock was piled higher than the top of our bus. It was as if the whole mountain had moved over and took back two lanes of the highway forcing the traffic into a single lane going both directions. And there were even a few places where there was only one lane available, thus we queued up and waited for the oncoming traffic to pass through on the one remaining lane, and then the traffic going our direction was waved through while those headed for Xela had to wait. I expect that tt is going to take months to fully open that 4-lane divided highway.

I had assumed that at the “bus station” in Chimaltenango I would be able to find one or more of the supposedly four shuttle companies that shuttle people to Antigua about 40 minutes away. However, as we descended into town the bus driver’s assistant came to my seat and asked for my luggage tags. At the time I thought, “Wow, this guy is really efficient!” But shortly before the bus came to a stop the guy came back to me again and said something like, “Chimaltenango ahora! (now!).” The bus stopped in the middle of the road, thus stopping all traffic behind us heading into town, him and I jumped off the bus and he quickly opened the luggage compartment under the bus, I pointed to my bags and he grabbed them and tossed them into the street, he then slammed shut the compartment and jumped on the bus and away they went.

Perhaps you have been places where unemployed or homeless people try to help you with your bags. I remember one time exiting the subway at street level in downtown San Francisco only to be greeted by 3-4 people all wanting to help me with my bags (for a fee, of course). Well, when my bags were tossed into the street at Chimaltenango (literally into the street that crossed the road my bus was on), immediately several men grabbed at my bags. I literally yanked two of my bags back out of the grasp of my helpers, who are not really trying to run away with them, but the assumption is that if they carry your bags for a few steps then you will at least give them some money. And if you are not careful, in some instances your bags could walk away … or if you are not watching, some people will open some of the zippered compartments to see what they can quickly pilfer. I grabbed all of my bags while saying emphatically, “no gracias,” and shuffled to the nearest curb.

What now? I was at a crowed street corner in Chimaltenango, and there was nothing that even remotely resembled a bus station nearby. Beside me two muchachas (teenage girls) were selling fruit or something on the sidewalk, so I said to them in Spanish, “Where is the bus that goes to Antigua?” They both excitedly pointed at The Chicken Bus that had just arrived on the other side of the street and that was rapidly filling with people. I thought, “Oh what the heck, here we go!” I scrambled with my bags to the other side of the street, and then The Chicken Bus driver helper saw me coming and made a beeline toward me, and the 3-4 other bag helpers who had just tried to grab my bags saw me coming and they were back in the hunt, they all wanted to take my bags and stick them on top of The Chicken Bus. For local people who ride chicken buses, anything of any size gets put on top of the bus in racks welded to the top. I’ve seen just about anything you can imagine riding on the top of chicken buses … huge baskets of fruit, bicycles, crates of merchandise, car tires, you name it – if it does not fit inside with the wall-to-wall people, it goes on top. However, before coming to Guatemala I was told by friends who had been here to never let my bags out of my sight, and that stuff is too often stolen out of the bags that tourists allow to be put on top of chicken buses. So I clutched all 3 of my bags, and stuffed myself onto The Chicken Bus. (Incidentally, I’m pretty sure that they are called chicken buses because in the rural areas often livestock rides on the chicken buses together with the people).

By the time I got on the bus, all the seats were taken … with 3-4 people squeezed into each bench seat, people are often shoulder to shoulder across the aisle. There were also people packed into what was left of the aisle, standing among the mass of people. I was standing on the steps leading into the bus, the door of the bus was open and we were already going down the road. I had my backpack strapped on my back, and my 2 other bags were in front of me on the bus floor in the only remaining space on the entire bus. Then the bus driver and driver’s helper started yelling at me to get further onto the bus, and that I was not allowed to stand on the steps. I was thinking, “Where the heck do you want me to go?” In fact, I may have uttered that very thing out loud, but fortunately it was in English. Then they started yelling at those standing in the aisle – actually, the standing passengers were kind of sitting on the shoulders of the seated passengers, legs reaching down into whatever cracks that were available – that those standing in the aisle needed to move further down the aisle so that we could get my gringo butt off the steps and onto the bus. So the big squeeze commenced, each of us in the aisle squeezed down the aisle, past young and old alike, past mothers nursing their babies, past babies sucking on breast milk, me trying not to drop one of my bags on any of the wizened gray-haired abuelas (grandmas) at the end of their lives, trying not to drop one of my bags on the Abuelas’ grandbabies who are just getting started on life. At some point I was able to stuff my three bags into the racks above the seats, but the driver was barreling down the narrow curvy road, and at one curve in the road I saw my backpack fly off the rack and bonk a muchacho in the head. Fortunately, it was a teenage boy … he acted only mildly annoyed, and pushed my bag aside.

I was a bit on edge, even more so because the night before I left Xela I had heard about a language student who had been pickpocketed at the market. He foolishly walked around with valuables stuffed into his open jacket pockets, and got caught in a web of bandits who work as a team. Someone dropped something on the floor in front of him as a diversion, and when he stooped over to pick it up, his jacket pockets opened to the world, and from both sides bandits deftly grabbed what was inside (wallet, passport, etc) before disappearing into the labyrinth of vendor booths. So I was on The Chicken Bus feeling a little, shall we say “out of my element,” when suddenly I could feel someone tugging at the zipper of my zippered jacket pocket. Instantly I reached for my pocket and wheeled around while loudly saying, “No!” … only to find myself gazing sheepishly into the eyes of a baby girl.

And then The Chicken Bus driver helper started working his way down the aisle, climbing over people in order to collect the 5 quetzal fee from each rider. Perhaps they should instead pay people to risk life and limb like this. The smart people knew to get their 5 quetzales ready ahead of time, but the dumb gringos (yes, there were a few of us on board) had to apologize to everyone in the immediate vicinity that we bumped while trying to retrieve 5 quetzales from a pocket. Then about the time I started to think, “Okay, we’ve all paid, we can all now remain ‘comfortably’ packed like sardines for the remainder of the journey to Antigua,” about that time the bus driver stopped the bus to let off riders and take on more riders. We made 3 of these stops along the way … each time, people were squeezing out of seats, squeezing down the aisle, and then popping out the door almost like the cork on a bottle of champagne. One time I literally had to ask a woman to lean forward in her seat so that I could step on the seat behind her butt in order to rise up and let people pass who were trying to get off and/or on the bus. One time 3 ladies squeezed by me to get off the bus, but they got stuck going forward and could not get off the bus for all the people in the aisle, and thus those ladies came back past me and bailed out the back of the bus (which I thought was pretty clever).

I joke about it now, for all of us would do well to find ways to laugh about our humanity. At the time while on The Chicken Bus it all seemed so uncomfortable, maddening, even inhuman. But this is the daily reality for many who live in Guatemala, chicken buses are the cheapest form of transportation, and for many the only form of transportation. I am glad that I experienced it.

Believe it or not, I arrived in Antigua safe and sound; the only casualty that I am aware of is the canister of Pringles potato crisps that got crushed in my backpack sending little bits of crisps all over everything inside. Fortunately, The Chicken Bus parked in the chicken bus parking lot at Antigua with all the other chicken buses parked there for a brief siesta. I waited until everyone else had exited the bus before pushing my bags down the aisle, and then I stood on the steps of the bus one last time in order to thank the bus driver for patiently waiting for me to exit … and for patiently waiting for me to get my butt off those steps!

There were more bag helpers at Antigua, but I just kept saying “no gracias” while I ambled past dozens more vendors in booths, and then schlepped my bags up the cobblestone streets of Antigua, which was once the capital of Guatemala as well as one of the most influential and grand cities in all of Central and South America.

Week 3 Update from Xela

2010-10-23T11:16:00.000-06:00

My Spanish language learning school Pop Wuj (www.pop-wuj.org) was founded in 1992 by five people who wanted to create something different than the for-profit schools that began to proliferate at that time. At last count there were 43 Spanish language schools here in Xela, Guatemala, but Pop Wuj may be the only non-profit cooperative run by teachers. Pop Wuj is now managed by 12 Directors, each one with a different area of responsibility, such as President and Director of the Social Work program, Administrator, Treasurer, Secretary, Director of Academics, Director of the Medical Clinic, Director of the Stove Project, etc. Pop Wuj is not the only school here that operates programs that use volunteers, for several of the other schools also connect language students with volunteer opportunities.

Monday I went with Carmen, President of Pop Wuj and one of the five original founders, to a community on the outskirts of Xela. When we got there we were escorted behind a quasi-car repair shop to the dwellings in back, and then were invited into a room where there were seated 8 women on plastic chairs, as well as about 4 young girls and one baby. Each woman gets 100 quetzales each month (about $12 U.S. dollars) from Pop Wuj to help pay for transportation to Xela for school for their child, and also to buy school supplies, food, etc. However, since most of the families have several kids, there is some sort of sliding scale for multiple children, in other words 100 quetzales for the first child, 90 quetzales for the second child, and so on. Carmen usually goes once a month to dispense the scholarship aid, however she began by apologizing for missing last month since she had a family emergency. After Carmen finished speaking, I was invited to give my prepared presentation on the basics of computing, and on the positives and negatives of using computers. You may not have known that though these indigenous people often live in concrete block homes with dirt floors, they are exposed to computers on a daily basis. For one thing, many of them carry a cell phone (which is kind of a mini computer with an operating language and a keyboard that is used to give the cell phone commands). Also, not only do they see computers every day around them when they are in town (at the bank, in stores, at the dozens of internet cafes here, etc.), but also all of the public schools now have computers that the kids are using. Thus, though the parents may not know how to use a computer, they need to know what their kids are experiencing, and obviously they need to know that there are some risks with their kids surfing the internet, risks associated with excessive computer use, etc. I must admit that I was a bit surprised to see a laptop on a bedside table in the room when Carmen and I walked in, evidently the whole community pitched in to buy the laptop for everyone´s use. As a result, judging by the applause I received after my short presentation, I think they were very appreciative of the information I shared with them. It is interesting because I have never ventured too far into the weeds of computer technology, however to this small community of indigenous people I am perceived as an expert.

Tuesday Carmen, two indigenous women who work at the school, and I went to interview a woman to see if she qualifies to receive a concrete block stove to be built by the Pop Wuj stove project team, the school has built several hundred of these stoves over the years in the homes of indigenous families. Many thousands of these homes still use an open pit fire in their home to cook meals, with no way other gapz between the wall and the metal roof to release the smoke outside. Over 60% of Guatemaltecos burn wood to cook meals. Thus, over time the walls of the "kitchen" become caked with soot, there is a high incidence of respiratory disease in these communities, and everyone in the family risks getting burned by flames or embers at cooking time … especially the small children who wander about. Pop Wuj builds a concrete block stove with a metal plancha top that also includes an exhaust pipe, not only does the exhaust pipe send the smoke outside, but the stove is 40% more fuel efficient (thus saving them money and saving the forests from being decimated), and the new stoves retain heat in the winter months (it never snows here, but it can be rather chilly on Winter nights). To determine if this lady qualifies to have a stove built for her (which was a no-brainer in my opinion), we ran through a series of questions to determine her need. My job on this day was to ask all the questions on the form while Carmen took notes, questions such as how many kids does she have, how old is each child, is each child in school or working, what is the name, educational background, occupation, etc. for both mom and dad (too often the dad has left to try to immigrate illegally to the U.S.), has anyone in the house been burned by the current stove (the answer to that was yes, but not seriously), and lastly why do you want a stove. Not only was the cooking space for this woman caked with soot, she has 8 children living in the home raging in age from 9 to 22 (and two children had died, one at age of 4 and the other at age of 9). She is 44 years old, but she looks like she is twenty years older, the only thing that gives away the fact that she is not older is that her hair is still jet black with no gray whatsoever. It is really difficult to describe the living conditions in this home, I really have nothing to compare it to, but it definitely seems third world poor. All of the floors are dirt (whereas in other indigenous homes there are at least concrete floors in one or two bedrooms). While I was asking the questions, 2-3 chickens were wandering about in the room. Life sure seems hard for this family. Then we went to the home of the cleaning lady for the school, a bit nicer home in light of the fact that students of Pop Wuj over the last 15 years have constructed 75% of this home. A few steps outside of the side entrance into the home compound there were two pens, one containing 2 turkeys and 6 chickens cramped together almost standing shoulder to shoulder, and beside that pen was a small pigpen about 5 feet by 5 feet with a pig in it, and there was a baby pig roaming about. This indigenous family actually lives pretty well, they had concrete floors, a newer corrugated metal roof, and they seemed to have enough food available. Even so, the poverty here is severe, but I suppose that if that is all you have ever known than perhaps it is more tolerable. I don 't know.

Wednesday I went with the mobile medical clinic operated by Pop Wuj to a small indigenous village about an hour´s drive from Xela. The school had rented a van to transport us, including the dentist who does contract work, a volunteer pediatrician from the States who is here for 6 months, 4 students from the States (two in med school, 1 RN, and 1 in nursing school), Carmen and her husband Roney (who oversees the clinic), and me. The "pharmacy" we brought was a 4 drawer plastic filing cabinet filled with various meds, the dentist worked in one room of the concrete block house, the two medical school students received patients in another room, and the 2 nurses served on the frontline processing new arrivals while asking a bunch of questions and checking vital signs, etc. Gradually people from the community started streaming into the clinic, and waited their turn in the "waiting room" on plastic chairs set up on the dirt floor of the courtyard outside someone´s home. You may wonder what I was doing there ... well, at some point I did get to work in the ¨pharmacy¨and was assigned the task of cutting pills in half; afterward, the pediatrician agreed that I could now put "pharmacy assistant" on my resume. But we also gathered everyone in the waiting room around me on plastic chairs under a shade tree to hear my presentation on the positives and negatives of using computers. One by one someone would hear their name called and leave my presentation to go see the doctor and/or dentist, and then return to the circle at the same time someone else was called out to get checked. Then Carmen did her monthly scholarship gig, dispensing 100 quetzales per child (or less) to the mothers.

Thursday was a busy day as well, and what makes each day so busy is that I do the social work program in the morning, and then in the afternoon I have Spanish school for 4-5 hours until about 6:00 P.M. After school I check email, go home to have our late dinner (sometimes as late as 8:00 PM), and generally fall fast asleep soon afterwards. Thursday I went with Carmen, with the pediatrician, and with a new medical student to the daycare facility Guardería that Pop Wuj funds. The doctors measured the height of each kid, checked their weight, gave each vitamins as well as anti-parasite medicine, and checked each for lice. (Part of the reason we made the trip is that it was reported that several of the kids had lice, so they were also dispensing special shampoo). Then each kid came to me and I recorded their name, birthdate, and age ... in part to have a record of when to celebrate the kids´ birthdays, usually at a group party 3 times a year. There are a total of 40 kids in the program at Guardería, ranging in age from 3 to 15. Carmen has asked me to coordinate the school year ending party for them Tuesday of next week ... including piñatas, treats, and what not.

Friday Carmen and I went back to Guardería, which is the third time I have been there. Although it is only 20 minutes or so from the school, It is quite an adventure getting there ... the paved roads end and the pot-hole filed dirt roads begin, made even worse this year by all the rain in recent months which came streaming down off the mountain creating big gulches in the road that are too deep to drive over. Also, in spite of the holes, Carmen tends to drive as fast as she can, which makes the trip there a bone-jarring adventure. Honestly, I don´t know how the shocks on her car last even a month. When we arrived and stepped outside the car we could hear the unmistakeable sound of a tire going flat, there was a big ol´nail in the right rear tire. So, with the help of a neighbor who had a jack, we first fixed the tire. Then I went inside and gave my presentation on computers, and then Carmen went through the monthly dispensing of scholarship money to all the mothers and talked at length about hygeine, etc. I was in the other room hanging out with the kids while Carmen was having her chat with the 15 or so ladies, and then just before we were about to leave one of the workers at the day care center brought me her laptop that was disabled by a virus, so I spent a long time with that ... first I had to figure out how to boot up in safe mode while reading the instructions in Spanish, then I did a full system restore back to a date about 3 months ago (because they thought the virus hit them about 6 weeks ago), and I had to wait for quite a long time for that program to run (since the laptop was much older and slower) ... and voila, it appeared to boot up normally albeit without 3-4 programs they had installed in the last 3 months (one of which was a virus protection program installed after the problem was discovered). Before I did the system restore I tried to explain in Spanish what I felt we needed to do, and that some of the recently installed programs would be deleted, but she had no clue what I was talking about and so she pulled over an 11 year old for me to consult with. I explained everything to him as well, and he basically just kept nodding his head ... so I figured, okay we are good to go!

So there you have it, this has been my life here in Xela for the last week. The school actually asked me to go on a stove building project this morning, Saturday, but I had to say no ... it has been an exhausting week, and today I need to do laundry and catch up on a bunch of other things. And tomorrow I am going on an all-day trip with one of the Spanish teachers and 5 other students to an 18,000 acre coffee plantation, and it just happens to be harvest time so it should be very interesting.

Love to you all from Sheri and I, and if I may speak for the citizens here as well, love from all Guatemaltecos.

Guatemala - Rich, but mostly Poor

2010-10-17T11:38:00.000-06:00

I just completed my second week here in Guatemala, and I would like to begin this entry by sharing a few stories about my experiences here in Xela.

It is hard to know for certain what a place is like until you actually visit it, and in my own life there have been times that my pre-conceived notion about a particular place ultimately proved to be completely mistaken. For example, for some odd reason when I was already in my early twenties I still thought of Canada as a vast wilderness with cute little villages sprinkled throughout. And then one day some of my buddies and I crossed into Canada at Windsor (near Detroit), and we drove the highway for several hours until we dropped back into the U.S. at upstate New York. Along the way we passed through Toronto, and seeing that huge, metropolitan, city for the first time completely and forever shifted my perspective on Canada.

Last night here in Xela I began my night by having dinner at Sabor de la India … and the food there was every bit as authentic and delicious as any Indian food I´ve had in the United States. Last week I had yummy Chinese food. There are many people here of German descent, in fact there are large sections of the main cemetery where only bodies of German descent are buried. In my school alone (and there are at least 35 Spanish language schools here) recently there have been people from Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Canada, United States, and various other countries of the world. And maybe I should not tell you this, but Wendy´s is here, as well as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Dominos Pizza, the Wal-Mart owned Paíz chain of stores, and of course McDonalds has a prime location here in Xela in a historic building right beside Central Park. Perhaps this picture of Guatemala is different than the one you´ve had.

After dinner last night I went to the grand Municipal Theater in downtown, a gorgeous (albeit aging) classic theater with two levels of balcony seating that wrap around both sides of the stage, where people sit at tables in little booths in the balcony and look down at the show and at those seated on the main floor. We were treated to a concert by a renowned classical guitarist by the name of Thisbault Cauvin, who hails from France, and though he is only 25 years old, he has already performed in Beijing, San Francisco, London, Paris, Hong Kong, and who knows where else. Yep, he performed right here in supposedly backward, unsophisticated, isolated, Guatemala … he is headed to Costa Rica next, and then to famous cities in South America.

After the concert I went to see the local professional soccer team Xelajú play in the downtown stadium. The whole stadium was ringed by vendors hawking merchandise, food, beer, and various other trinkets … just like you find at the stadiums in the U.S. In thrilling fashion, the goalie for Xelajú blocked a penalty kick in the 85th minute, thus preserving a win for the home team. The stadium was packed, although small by U.S: standards, it holds only about 10,000 people. But it is not small in spirit, for the end zone fiesta with all the fireworks, music, dancing, and banner waving by ravenous fans was about three times the size of the end zone fiesta at Real Salt Lake soccer games. By the way, this is the original fútbol … a sport far more popular throughout the world than American football.

However, Guatemala is indeed a nation of contrasts. The reality is that the majority of the people here live in poverty, and even the small middle class population here does not enjoy nearly as many creaturely comforts as we do in the United States. Unfortunately, our country has benefited greatly to the detriment of many who live here, you can read for yourself about the history of our stealing of resources from here, about the misuse both of the lands but also the mistreatment of the people. I´m not sure that much of anything will ever be done to change or fix that, but at the very least we can support organizations that provide assistance here, and each of us can do little things to help … such as support fair-trade organizations, buy authentic Guatemalan handicrafts, or even come here on a trip and infuse some tourist dollars into the economy. Here is a link to pictures of one little thing I participated in recently, http://www.flickr.com/photos/appleplatypie/sets/72157625051444517/, I spent a few hours helping to build a stove for an indigenous family. I twinge a little when I say the word “family” because many of these homes that are chosen to receive a brick stove (to replace the open pit fire used for cooking meals) are headed by single mothers with several kids, their husbands have either left to try and immigrate illegally to the United States, or the mother suffers from domestic abuse at the hands of an alcoholic husband. It must be said that there are many normal, happy, family clans living here, however the poverty is extreme … and you can see the collective burden in the faces of many here on a daily basis.

I hate to end this post on a sad note, but that is the reality in Guatemala. May we always be grateful for the opportunities that we enjoy, and may we always help those less fortunate.

Abrazadas

2010-10-16T12:12:00.000-06:00

Con frecuencia las muchachas y las mujeres caminan de la mano o del brazo aqui, es como mostran amistad con ellas mismas. Habría mujeres haciendo esto por muchas síglas en este paíz.

Quizás en pasado había otra razón por este comportamiento, por ejemplo en un lugar peligrosa una mujer preguntaría su amigo si pueda agarrar el brazo. En todo caso, hay muchas mujeres hacerlo ahora.

Antes de llegué aqui se alguien me diría que yo vería este comportamiento aquí, quizás yo no lo creería. Quien sabe? Es posible que yo preguntaría ... por qué? Es posible que pensaría ... que estrano!

En el futuro aqui mujeres caminarán de la mano o del brazo, mostrarán sus amistad a otros y estarán mas seguro juntos.

Y serán personas que harán preguntas como ... por qué las mujeres hacen eso? Y a proposito, quien entiende mujeres?

Picups estan en Todas Partes

2010-10-16T11:41:00.000-06:00

Yo tenía cuarenta años cuando compré una picup por la primera vez. Desde entonces he comprado tres mas y en mi opinión tenerles siempre han sido utíl.

Sin embargo cuando alguien tiene una picup, siempre hay cosas que puede hacer. Por lo tanto a veces es mas facile no tener una picup, contrato alguien para el trabajo. Entonces vendí mi ultima picup hace cuatro meses y no la extrano. En el futuro creo que nunca compraré otra picup.

He visto muchas picups desde llegué aqui. Con frecuencia hay varios miembros de la familia montando en la palangana de la picup. He visto sentarse en la palangana los niños, los padres, los abuelos, y otras personas y animales.

No es seguro montar en la palangana pero es muy común aqui. Y aunque hay una ley que solo tres personas pueden andar en la palangana, la mayoría de las personas ignoran la ley.

Ten cuidado

2010-10-08T10:03:00.000-06:00

En este ciudad y en latinoamerica en generalmente, es las responsabilidad de los peatónes para esquivar teniendo un accidente con un vehiculo. Este es importante saber porque cuando hay una accidente entre un vehiculo y una persona, el vehiculo gane.

No hay nada de los paso de peatones aquí. Donde una calle cruza otra calle, es necesario mirar a la izquierda y a la derecha, y entonces – corre!

Usualamente vehículos no reducen sus velocidad cuando personas son presente. Porque no, quien sabe … pero este es la regla aquí. Y aunque es diferente en mi país, yo no debo pensar que es mejor en mi pais.

Cuando una persona esta en Guatemala, es importante hacer el mismo de los Guatemaltecos hacen.

Cosi

2010-10-07T12:05:00.000-06:00

He estado en Guatemala solo siete días pero ya tengo una buen amiga nueva. Ella se llama Cosi.

El primer dia llegué a la casa de mi familia anfitrión muy tarde, casi las once de la noche. Cosi el perro estuvo aquí y despierta para me saluda. Nuestro amistad comenzó cuando Cosi saltó sobre mi pierna. Estuve sorpresa porque no supe que pasó. Inmediatamente miré abajo y ví una cara alegre.

Todos los días desde llegué in Xela cuando regreso a la casa al fin del dia, Cosi corre a mi y me da un grande bienvenido. Ella me pregunta, “¿Cómo te fue hoy?” Siempre digo, “Me fue bien, estoy aprendiendo mucho. ¿Y tú?” Y siempre Cosi dice, “¡Me fue magnifica hoy!”

Ayer en la manaña después de desayuno, regresé a mi habitación y me fijé algo diferente. Aparentemente alguien hubo estado allí porque mi colcha fue en una diferente posición. Miré con más cuidadoso y encontré Cosi en mi cama escondando debajo de la colcha. Y cuando traté levantar ella, ella no quería salir.

Hoy en la manaña después de hacer mi cama fui a la cocina por un momentito para conseguir una taza de café, y cuando regresé – ¡otra vez! – me encontré Cosi en mi cama. ¡Por favor no dice a mi bonita esposa que estoy dormiendo con una señora aquí!

Limosneros

2010-10-05T11:41:00.000-06:00

En Estados Unidos es facile encontrar limosneros. En Guatemala es dificile encontralos.

¿Por qué?

Aprentemente hay mas oportunidad en Estados Unidos y nuestro país tiene mucho mas dinero, pero no puedo caminar al centro de Salt Lake City sin encontrando muchos lismoneros preguntandos por ayuda.

Desde llegué aqui hace cuatro dias he visto solo tres limosneros ... un hombre que no tuvo una pierna, un otro hombre que no tuvo un pie, y un otro hombre que tuvo cuerpo y cara que sufrir quemaduras graves.

Aparentemente, aqui si un hombre puede trabajar, él trabaja.

La Virgen del Rosario

2010-10-04T18:51:00.000-06:00

Hoy es un dia muy importante en esta ciudad, es la celebración de la Virgen del Rosario.

No lo sé cuando salí nuestro casa, pero mientras estaba caminando oí musica en la calle. Entonces ví una procesión saliendo una iglesia Católica. Las personas llevaban una mesa, y en la mesa había una estatua grande de la Virgen. Atras de la estatua había personas tocanaban varios instrumentos y había muchas otras personas caminaban lentamente. Enfrente de la procesión había una niña y a veces ella tiró petalos de rosa al pie de la estatua. Todas las personas estaban muy contentas.

Mas tarde fui al centro par ver la celebración en el parque central. Había cientos de vendedoras que venden comida y artesanías, tambien había partidos para los niños y bandas tocando musica. La festividad fue muy alegre y divertida.

Xela es muy bonita

2010-10-03T09:24:00.000-06:00

Llegue en Xela, no lo sé ... creo que hace dos dias. El viaje a Xela en el autobus fue interesante, muy largo, a veces un poco peligroso, pero exactemente que debe estado.

Mi español no es muy bueno ... lo siento ... pero espero que el mejora durante este mes.

¡Xela es muy bonita! He caminando en muchas calles y avenidas, las calles ir este a oeste y las avenidas ir norte a sur. Es diferente de donde queda nuestro casa en Salt Lake City, el barrio se llama Las Avenidas. Allí las avenidas ir este a oeste. Creo que voy a estar muy confudo cuando regreso.

Mas sobre Xela pronto, ahora necesito ir a comedor para comer desayuno con mi familia anfitrión.

En la estacion de autobuses

2010-10-03T08:59:00.000-06:00

Estoy en la Ciudad de Guatemala, aqui en la estacion de autobuses. Este lugar no es mucho diferente que las estaciones en Estados Unidos, sin embaro no he oído nadie hablando inglés desde he estado aqui. La idioma es la diferencia principal y quizas la sola diferencia. El baño no es muy limpio, las sillas son plasticas, los autobuses huelen mal ... pero gracias a Dios por las personas que trabajan aqui, y gracias por las personas que toman autobuses, y gracias por mi oportunidad a tomar un autobus hoy a Xela. Autobuses son buenos ... y las estaciones de autobuses tambien.

Las Cosas Que Son Iguales

2010-10-03T08:49:00.000-06:00

Me fue bien el vuelo de Salt Lake City y acabo de llegar en Atlanta. Estoy sentando en un restaurante en el aeropuerto, bebiendo café, y esperando mi vuelo a la Ciudad de Guatemala.

Voy a estar intersante para mi ver las personas que van a estar en el avion a Guatemala. ¿Ellos seran Guatemaltecos ... Norteamericanos ... personas son de Europe ... otros? ¿Quien sabe? Quizas, algunos de todos.

Estoy muy emocianante viajar a Guatemala para aprender mas español y conocer las personas que vive allí. Las vidas de ellos son diferentes que mio, sin embargo en otra manera somos iguales. Espero que encontrar las cosas que son iguales mientras honrando las que son diferentes.

I don't mean to brag, but ...

2010-09-23T10:54:00.000-06:00

Last night we went to bed at our normal time (around 9:00 PM), and this morning I woke up when my mind and body were ready.

I don’t mean to brag, but by 6:30 AM this morning I had already gone on a long bike ride up the hills around our house, practiced my Spanish lessons for 2.5 hours, had a bowel movement, taken a shower, dressed, checked the internet and email, and brewed some coffee and enjoyed a cup.

I don’t normally awaken during the 3:00 AM hour, but I have discovered it to be … incredible, spiritual, glorious, magical, peaceful, and more. There’s just something about being up after the last stragglers have gone to bed, but before most of the early birds.

I believe that all of life is holy, so I can’t really say that one hour of the day is more spiritual than the others. But it just seems that way.

Try it out. Go to bed early some night, and set your alarm clock for 2:45 AM. Spend the 3:00 AM hour sitting in your home, or if it is safe to do so, walking around your neighborhood … observing life, listening to life, feeling life, learning from life.

If there is a problem, just don't notice it!

2010-09-21T13:20:00.000-06:00

That seems like a fairly pragmatic solution, doesn’t it? If there is a problem in my life, or in your life, or in the lives of those around us, just don’t notice it … ignore the reality … pretend that it doesn’t exist. Maybe it will go away.

This practice of ignoring a problem is captured in a commonly used Spanish expression, an expression that can take on many forms, such as:

Si hay pobreza, que no se note. If there is poverty, just don’t notice it.
Si hay corrupción, que no se note. If there is corruption, just don’t notice it.
Si hay hambre, que no se note. If there is hunger, just don’t notice it.
Si hay marginación, que no se note. If there is marginalization, just don’t notice it.

Some people believe that there are way too many problems in this world, and the need is far too great. They say to themselves, “Anything I might do, any help I might offer, any money I might give, won’t make any real difference in the grand scheme of things.”

But is ignoring a problem the best solution?

About the only time that tactic works is when we are focusing too much on a perceived problem, one that remains a problem only through our continued focus on it.

At all other times, don’t fall into the trap of “just don’t notice it.” Face the problem, and do what you can to alleviate the problem … remembering that every little bit helps.

My family has started a little fundraising page to help alleviate, just a little, the poverty experienced in Guatemala. Check it out at http://www.firstgiving.com/spanish.

And thanks for all the little things you do.

Spanish On The Go

2010-09-14T15:20:00.000-06:00

I make the most progress learning Spanish,

not with my nose buried in a book,

nor camped in front of the computer,

nor even by writing copiously (as much as I like to write),

but by conversing with my friends Tuesday nights at Mestizo,

and while walking or bicycling in the neighborhood interacting with Spanish learning programs.

Reading and writing is good, but hearing and speaking seems better … and it is much easier to exercise while hearing and speaking, than it is to exercise while reading and writing.

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “The legs are the wheels of creativity.” I take that to mean that exercise improves thinking, and I heartedly agree with that.

You’ve already heard about my preference for Pimsleur, it’s easy to carry that program with me on my iPod or small cassette player while walking or bicycling.

However, today I’d like to share with you my preferred podcast.

If you go to the iTunes store, click on Podcasts, and search for Spanish, you will find several Spanish podcasts available for free. I’ve checked out several of these, but my favorite so far is News in Slow Spanish. The title just about sums it up, this a program that gives you the weekly news (as well as grammar lessons) very S-L-O-W-L-Y. The podcasts are FREE through iTunes, but for about $100 a year you can get access to all the transcripts as well. I have all the podcasts, but I have not yet subscribed to the program … in part because I am getting ready to leave the country for awhile, but also because there is a “study group discount” available. If anyone reading this blog is interested in getting in on the study group discount, please let me know.

So go to http://www.newsinslowspanish.com/ and check it out. One aspect of the program which is not my favorite is the inclusion of “vosotros” tenses, which I am not bothering to learn since I am focused on Latin America. In that light, what I did purchase is the partner program, ¡Hola Viajeros, which you can find through a link on the site, or by going directly to the web site http://www.holaviajeros.com/home.php. This audiobook contains fun stories based on travel adventures to Latin America, and I’m guessing that the Spanish on these programs is “Latin American” Spanish. Ask me in a few months how well I am liking the ¡Hola Viajeros audiobook. And again, let me know if you are interested in going in with me on the News in Slow Spanish study group discount.

HABLAR

2010-08-21T15:52:00.000-06:00

I have decided to enhance my understanding of Spanish verbs by learning one verb inside out, backwards and forwards, so well that I can run through all the conjugations in all the tenses in all the voices … in my sleep.

At least that is my plan, I’ll report back once I have learned one verb inside out, backwards and forwards … and tell you whether I have applied that command of one verb to all the other verbs.

So how is that going to work (you might ask) in light of the fact that there are “AR verbs,” “IR verbs,” “ER verbs,” and irregular verbs? No sé, pero estoy aprendiendo si es un buen idea. Besides, the only way to prove whether an idea has salt is to test it.

So the next question is … which one verb is the best verb to concentrate on? I guess that depends on the learner, but it seems best to choose one of the most commonly used verbs … and in that case, should my experiment not succeed as well as hoped, at least I will know one verb inside out … all the tenses … in my sleep.

The verb that I have chosen to focus on is HABLAR (to speak). It is one of the top ten most commonly used verbs, and it appears to be highly regular throughout all of the tenses. Nonetheless, the other reason I have chosen HABLAR is to give a nod to the learning theory behind Pimsleur.

According to Pimsleur, “meanings reside in the sounds of the spoken language.” When we were children, and before we started making sense while speaking, we would hear (ESCUCHAR) people speak (HABLAR) with meaning. Gradually, we learn the meaning of the speaking, and at some point we begin to speak with meaning ourselves … and for the first few years of our language development, it’s all about hearing and speaking and grasping meaning.

Pimsleur goes on to say that “speaking a language is the necessary first step to acquiring the ability to read a language with meaning.” For those who are able to hear and speak, hearing and speaking come before reading and writing. Moreover, reading can be defined as “the act of decoding graphic material in order to determine its message;” or to put it another way, “reading consists of coming back to speech through its graphic symbols.”

I am not a learning theorist, but this makes sense to me. However, the problem is that when we begin to learn a second language, we tend to focus primarily on reading and writing … but maybe we should concentrate instead on hearing and speaking long before we ever pick up a book.

I have followed several paths hoping to accelerate my understanding of Spanish, and Pimsleur is the method that has helped me the most. Now I hope that hearing, speaking, and HABLAR will enable me to grasp fully that second spoken language.

AARP

2010-08-10T15:04:00.000-06:00

Not too long ago when someone mentioned the AARP to me, I thought of gray hair, Ben Gay, and senior centers. I imagined little ol’ ladies sitting around doing what little ol’ ladies do – chatting, knitting, volunteering, making a quilt, and what not. I thought it was good that the AARP existed for people like them, because it means that those old people on fixed incomes will get a 10% discount at the diner by flashing their AARP card.

Well, the other day in the mail I received an invite to join the AARP. The letter came complete with a temporary ID card that I can flash to get the 10% discount myself.

It must be said that they have lowered the required age for membership to 50, which I happen to be turning this year. In fact, I have already claimed old fart status from time to time (with all due respect to all older people, whom I love) … like when twenty-somethings look at me cross-eyed when they discover I don’t care too much for texting. In those situations, all I have to say is, “Sorry, I am just an old fart.”

Hmmm. Now that I have taken a closer look at some of the AARP benefits … I can get discounts on travel, and movies, and restaurants, and (time for a little Spanish) muchas otras cosas … I think that I am going to really enjoy being a card-carrying member of the AARP.

Sheri & Keith Adventure

2010-08-02T11:22:00.000-06:00

Three years ago we left the hills of West Virginia and travelled 2,000 miles west to Salt Lake City. We live in a great neighborhood called The Avenues, which is located between downtown and the University of Utah. This is probably the most diverse neighborhood in the entire county … a mix of urbanites, professional people, vegetarians, university students, protectors of the environment, animal lovers, kindred spirits, and various other people that make this neighborhood unique and feel like home. Hiking trails, the grocery store, a LIBRARY (which Sheri especially loves), restaurants, and other things we enjoy are within walking distance of our home.

All-in-all we love it here for lots of different reasons – heck, we even purchased the domain name WeLuvUtah.com. Probably one of the best things about being here in the Mountain West is that we are much closer to various sites we’d like to visit, such as Jackson Hole and Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, the Northwest, various Colorado towns, Boise, and we could go on and on. We are much closer to Sheri’s family, but alas we are further away from most of Keith’s family. We think that we might be here another 6 years until Sheri retires in 2016, but you never know – we are always up for adventure. The airport is also nearby, so please come visit us … our house is your house!

Speaking of adventures, we’d like to tell you about our plans to go to Guatemala later this year.

God willing, Keith is leaving for Guatemala on October 1^st to spend one month in the city of Quetzaltenango (commonly known by its indigenous name Xela). Keith was given a passion for learning Spanish about a year a half ago, and now spends several hours each week learning it. He was laid off in January, which turned out to be fortuitous since that gave him extra time to study Spanish while he looks for work. (And thank the Lord for weekly unemployment checks!). While in Xela, in addition to 5-hours a day of Spanish language school, Keith will be participating in community development projects run by the nonprofit teacher’s cooperative called Pop Wuj. These projects are dedicated to supporting public health, education, and sustainability … particularly in the indigenous Mayan communities. Check out http://www.pop-wuj.org/volunteer/community-development.html.

Sheri will join Keith in Guatemala on November 3^rdin the city of Antigua, and for the rest of the month we will vacation, eat lots of ethnic food, visit plantations, go on excursions, and also do some volunteer work at local charities. While Keith continues Spanish immersion training in the mornings at Antigua, Sheri will spend the mornings knitting, doing yoga, taking cooking classes, reading, and also being tutored in Spanish for one of the weeks. Sheri also looks forward to learning more about Mayan textile arts, such as the beautiful multi-colored garments and other items made through backstrap-weaving (which Sheri plans to try her hand at too). We definitely plan to go one day to the famous twice-weekly Mayan market in Chichicastenango where there are many Mayan vendors selling their beautiful and colorful handmade items. Check out the market by going to www.virtourist.com/america/guatemala/index.html, click on Chichicastenango, and then page through the photos taken at this Mayan market.

Mayans are the indigenous peoples who have been living in that part of the world since before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In spite of the hardships that they have endured, Mayans are peace-loving people who are dedicated to preserving their ancient customs, and are celebrated all over the world for their brightly colored fabrics and textile arts.

We would like to do something to help Mayans during our upcoming trip to Guatemala, and we’d like to ask for your help as well. Please go to our fundraising page at www.firstgiving.com/spanish and share some of your hard-earned money with the needy in Guatemala.

Thank you so much for your love and friendship. We are so glad that our paths have crossed in this lifetime, and we hope that you will prayerfully consider helping the Mayan people we will soon cross paths with while in Guatemala. Keith will be blogging regularly at http://weluvutah.blogspot.com/, and we will also send you periodic updates on our Guatemalan adventure.

Paz (Peace)!

Sheri & Keith Kreuz

Rich and Poor

2010-07-14T14:00:00.000-06:00

I walked by a Salon & Day Spa on Main St. here in Salt Lake City that offers expensive hair care, manicures, and various and sundry other pampering. Anyone who pays the price is welcome as a customer there, but I expect that most of the clients are middle class and higher, many of them rich by just about any standard.

Not 60 feet away (I know because I stepped it off) in the alley behind the Salon & Day Spa is a trailer park with 16 dilapidated trailers, I expect that most of them are 40 years old or older. (I know because my Mom lived in one just like them for several years). The skirting around the bottom of most of them was caved in, no doubt offering critters a place to stay. The trailers sit about 10 feet apart, and the grass in the trailer “park” was burnt to a crisp.

I wonder how many of the rich people who frequent the Salon & Day Spa give any thought to the people living in that trailer park? I, too, can be counted among the rich, for I was on that walk while I waited to pick up the license plate for our new car.

Though the gap between the Spa and the Trailer park was less than 60 feet in distance, the gap between the people in them is far as it relates to privilege and wealth. What can we do to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor? The following link is one place to start: www.firstgiving.com/spanish

Laughter

2010-06-23T12:51:00.000-06:00

A fun bunch of people gathered last night at Mestizo, and we took turns practicing Spanish by building a sentence that included an infinitive verb form together with the name of a fellow participant. Of course, the weekly exercise is just something to do during a lull in the conversation, and last night we gabbed so much that the list of Spanish verbs only made its way around the circle 2 times.

I seem to do a lot of laughing in our Tuesday night group. Sometimes I laugh at myself for the way I whip comments together after pulling Spanish words out my head, kind of a Spanish gumbo soup, hoping that I make sense. (The confused looks of others, combined with silence, generally means I need to take another stab at articulating what I want to say). Other times I laugh with others at their antics. And sometimes I laugh just because I enjoy learning Spanish, feeling fortunate to have found this new path only after the first 48 years of my life.

I hope that you, Dear Reader, enjoy laughing often and heartedly. Laughter truly is an elixir, one of life’s most precious gifts. Not that we should ignore the harsh realities of our brothers and sisters throughout the world who experience hardship as I write. We feel their pain, and we feel our own pain when we’ve been given a hard row to hoe. But we also seek to lift ourselves and those that are around us by refusing to let anyone, or anything, take away our joy. Laughter helps sustain joy, so may you laugh today … and even better, may you help someone else laugh today.

Okay, I got a little philosophical there at the end – but keep laughing!!!

Our Spanish Conversation Group - Lessons Learned after 4 Months

2010-06-02T10:18:00.000-06:00

Four months ago today we started our Spanish conversation group Solo en español. Here are some lessons learned from the last four months:

People come and go. In the last 4 months we have had more than 30 different people participate … some come once and never return, others come regularly for awhile until competing obligations pull them away, there are some that keep coming back periodically, and still others come virtually every week.

The group will never be all things to all people. Since language levels vary, elementary conversation will be too advanced for those just starting to learn the language, it will feel just about right for some, and it will feel, well, elementary to more advanced learners. Also, the format will be subject to debate.

Establish a primary focus. From day one, our primary focus has been to insist on speaking only in Spanish as much as possible. That’s why we named the group, Solo en español. Us gringos will never learn to speak Spanish while living here in the United States if we keep giving up and falling back into English to say something. So, for 1 hour out of the 168 hours in each week, we “bite the bullet” and do our best to communicate in Spanish.

Free is better. For several weeks we paid a native Spanish speaker to be our moderator, we felt that having a native Spanish speaker present would prevent a bunch of gringos from reinforcing each other’s errors. However, because the accounting became a mess (who has paid what?), and because pay-to-participate was likely keeping away participants, we just decided to make it free to any and all.

We rely on the kindness of native Spanish speakers. It is very, very helpful when native Spanish speakers participate … and because this group is not a language exchange (where half the time is spent in Spanish, while half the time is spent in English), obviously native Spanish speakers who are trying to learn English can feel a little shortchanged by participating in this group. However, there are various English conversation groups around for those who want to learn to converse in English, not to mention the opportunity to practice English while going to and fro in the city. We NEED native Spanish speakers, we LOVE native Spanish speakers. J

A conversation starter is helpful. It is good to come prepared with a topic to start talking about, otherwise you might find yourself sitting around and staring at each other.

It pays to advertise. We have found participants by word-of-mouth, through the posting on the chalkboard at Mestizo, by posting ads on Craigslist, through notices on Salt Lake City Spanish Meetup, by participating in various other groups, and through other channels. This weekly email recap – intentionally sent as a blind copy in order to protect privacy – is itself sent to almost 90 different email addresses that have been collected. If someone gets tired of my weekly ramblings and wants to be removed from the list, it takes all of about 10 seconds to do that – done deal. Nonetheless, I try to put something insightful and/or helpful in each weekly email.

Be kind to yourself. Speaking just for myself, it would be easy to be frustrated with my progress based on the number of hours each week I spend learning Spanish, I envisioned myself being much more conversational by now. However, it is best to stay in the moment, do your best, be patient, and be kind to yourself when assessing your progress.

Lastly, and most importantly, help one another. The motivational speaker Zig Ziglar often says, “You can have anything in life that you want, if you just help enough other people get what they want.” Obviously, a person’s intention is askew and their motivation is not true if they help others just to get something out of it. The only thing we can do with our life is give it away, and the happiest and most blessed people in this world are the ones who give freely of their time, talent, money, and self.

Pablo Neruda

2010-05-27T08:57:00.000-06:00

Pablo Neruda is arguably the most famous Latin poet of the 20^th century. He lived from 1904 until 1973, and he used his pencil to fight for social justice and equality. He wrote the poem below, La United Fruit Co., in 1950 to bring attention to the injustices done to native populations. During this sad chapter in U.S. history, ruthless Central and South American dictators teamed with U.S. companies (such as the United Fruit Company) to exploit laborers and forcefully suppress democratic movements.

The original Spanish version of the poem is shown below first, followed by an English translation.

La United Fruit Co.

Cuando sonó la trompeta, estuvo
todo preparado en la tierra,
y Jehova repartió el mundo
a Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, y otras entidades:
la Compañía Frutera Inc.
se reservó lo más jugoso,
la costa central de mi tierra,
la dulce cintura de América.

Bautizó de nuevo sus tierras
como "Repúblicas Bananas,"
y sobre los muertos dormidos,
sobre los héroes inquietos
que conquistaron la grandeza,
la libertad y las banderas,
estableció la ópera bufa:
enajenó los albedríos
regaló coronas de César,
desenvainó la envidia, atrajo
la dictadora de las moscas,
moscas Trujillos, moscas Tachos,
moscas Carías, moscas Martínez,
moscas Ubico, moscas húmedas
de sangre humilde y mermelada,
moscas borrachas que zumban
sobre las tumbas populares,
moscas de circo, sabias moscas
entendidas en tiranía.

Entre las moscas sanguinarias
la Frutera desembarca,
arrasando el café y las frutas,
en sus barcos que deslizaron
como bandejas el tesoro
de nuestras tierras sumergidas.

Mientras tanto, por los abismos
azucarados de los puertos,
caían indios sepultados
en el vapor de la mañana:
un cuerpo rueda, una cosa
sin nombre, un número caído,
un racimo de fruta muerta
derramada en el pudridero.

United Fruit Co.

When the trumpet sounded
everything was prepared on earth,
and Jehovah gave the world
to Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, and other corporations.
The United Fruit Company
reserved for itself the most juicy
piece, the central coast of my world,
the delicate waist of America.

It rebaptized these countries
Banana Republics,
and over the sleeping dead,
over the unquiet heroes
who won greatness,
liberty, and banners,
it established an opera buffa:
it abolished free will,
gave out imperial crowns,
encouraged envy, attracted
the dictatorship of flies:
Trujillo flies, Tachos flies
Carias flies, Martinez flies,
Ubico flies, flies sticky with
submissive blood and marmalade,
drunken flies that buzz over
the tombs of the people,
circus flies, wise flies
expert at tyranny.

With the bloodthirsty flies
came the Fruit Company,
amassed coffee and fruit
in ships which put to sea like
overloaded trays with the treasures
from our sunken lands.

Meanwhile the Indians fall
into the sugared depths of the
harbors and are buried in the
morning mists;
a corpse rolls, a thing without
name, a discarded number,
a bunch of rotten fruit
thrown on the garbage heap.

Guatemala

2010-05-04T22:09:00.000-06:00

If you want to learn Spanish … and learn it inexpensively, go to

Guatemala

Spanish language learning has grown tremendously in popularity over the last 20 years or so. And the concept that is the most talked about, that seems to be the most effective, is called “Spanish immersion.” In other words, go somewhere to eat, sleep, hear, speak, and study Spanish all day, all the time.

There are literally dozens of language learning programs in each of the Latin American countries (and in

Spain

as well), in all of the biggest cities within each country.

Peru

Argentina

Mexico

Costa Rica

Chile

Honduras

, etc. – wherever you want to go, you can find a school that will teach you Spanish.

There is a web site www.123teachme.com that allows you to select a country, and then a city within the country to learn how different language learning schools rate. I believe that the ratings are based solely on student feedback.

The schools in

Guatemala

are prized for some of the following reasons: (1) They tend to be less expensive than schools in other countries, (2) Guatemalans tend to speak Spanish more slowly, thus it is more palatable to gringos, and (3) the Mayan culture in

Guatemala

is very interesting.

Guatemala

, the 3 most popular areas for Spanish language study are Antigua, the Lake Atitlán area, and Quetzaltenango (the official name, but locals call this city by its Mayan name Xela).

From what I have read, Xela is the best place to go to learn Spanish. It is the least expensive of the 3 most popular areas in

Guatemala

, and there is very little English spoken in Xela. Thus, the opportunity to cheat and speak English is very limited. You are literally forced to speak Spanish. It is a large city, the second biggest in

Guatemala

. Twenty hours of language learning 1-on-1 with your own private tutor, including room and board with a Guatemalan host family, will run you about $160 per week.

The Lake Atitlán area is the medium priced option. Some friends of ours told us that this area is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Lake Atitlán is a large endorheic lake (one that does not flow to the sea) that was formed by volcanic activity thousands of years ago. There are various villages around the lake, the biggest of which is probably Panajachel. There is a lot to see and do in this area besides learning Spanish, such as the twice-weekly market in Chichicastenango where there are many Mayan vendors selling their beautiful and colorful handmade items. Check out the market by going to www.virtourist.com/america/guatemala/index.html, click on Chichicastenango, and then page through the photos taken at this Mayan market.

Antigua is the most expensive, and the most tourist friendly area in

Guatemala

for Spanish language learning. It is a small town, but one with lots of gringo conveniences, lots of English speakers, lots of restaurants and boutiques, but still Guatemala ... in other words, a poor city by comparison to most U.S. cities. Twenty hours with a private tutor including room and board with a Guatemalan host family is about $250 per week in Antigua.

Let’s go to

Guatemala

and … aprender a hablar Español!

Pay in Advance

2010-04-21T07:03:00.000-06:00

God is the administrator of justice in this temporal life and in the eternal life beyond.

I’d like to say that again, but in a slightly different way. There is one life … experienced both temporally and eternally, and God’s sovereign justice infuses it all.

And I gotta believe that true justice is really that – it is true, and it is justice. Somehow, some way, it all evens out for everyone … eventually.

So if you’re cheating life, or cheating your neighbor, and you feel like you are getting away with something, I want you to know that some day you will receive your due. I believe that God’s justice demands it.

And if I am deluded and somehow think that God’s true justice does not apply to me, I am just that … deluded. One day I am going to reap my reward. The Bible puts it this way – by our standard of measure we will be measured in return.

What goes around comes around.

The exciting news is that if you are genuinely, lovingly, quietly, honoring life and reflecting God’s live-giving ways, you have peace in your heart and look forward to what God has planned for you.

Not only is God’s justice true, but God’s foreknowledge is real, and as a result I have this feeling that sometimes we pay in advance, or get paid in advance. In other words, we should not expect all of the reward (good or bad) to come after the word or deed. Instead, I think that we can expect some of the reward (good or bad) to come before we actually do or say something deserving of a specific reward.

Pay in advance … or get paid in advance.

I have a hunch that sometimes we are blessed in advance because God knows beforehand that we will do or say something to reflect God’s love, and that specific blessing-in-advance could come moments, days, weeks, or years in advance.

On the other hand, sometimes we are rewarded in advance with trouble, heartbreak, financial setback, sickness, or whatever because God knows that we are about to do or say something NOT reflective of God’s love, and that specific hardship-in-advance could come moments or even years in advance of our life-negating word or deed.

Today is the day, and now is the time … for you and me … to do and say the things that give life, and reflect God’s love.

Invest now in the eternal.

And who knows, we might just receive a blessing today for something we will do or say years down the road. Set your heart, and so be it.

WHAT YOU DO IS INSIGNIFICANT – DO IT ANYWAY!

2010-04-06T07:40:00.000-06:00

We saw “The Blind Side” this past weekend, and I would encourage everyone to see that movie. At one point in the movie they mentioned the following quote from Gandhi:

“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

How true.

Over the last few years I’ve thought a lot about what my life means, about whether I’m making a positive impact in the world, about … will it really matter that I lived?

My life is meaningless in and of itself. From dust I was formed, and to dust I shall return. Then my dust will be added to the dust of everyone else who has ever lived, and there will be more dust.

You see, it’s not about my life or your life, and it’s not about what you or I have done, can do now, or will ever do … it’s all about a higher purpose that is at work through all of us.

We say “my life” because we need word symbols to make meaning out of our existence, but the life we live is not our own, it is a gift that is given moment by moment.

And that is why we … do it anyway. Anything you do, or I do, is insignificant in and of itself, but we give and we share and we love and we care … and we work and we play and we help and we pray … because we are all part of God’s gift of life.

And the more selflessly we do anything, the more likely that it is God who is at work through us … however insignificant our doing and being might seem.

Mind-boggling Array of Options

2010-03-24T11:27:00.000-06:00

There is a mind-boggling array of options for learning a new language.

Books. Web sites. Music. Computer programs. CDs. Conversation groups. Movies with subtitles. Immersion schools. Online software programs. Tutors. College and/or adult education courses. Community forums.

Also, there are any number of people who like to think (or who would like you to think) that they have the best system for learning.

So how do we decide what path to follow?

Personally, I like the multi-prong attack, and at one time or another I have used (or continue to use) just about all of the options listed above.

However, since I still consider myself somewhere between beginner and intermediate at best, I can’t really tell anyone the best path to follow toward bilingualism.

Nonetheless, there is a little 4-step process that I have used for many years that enables me to keep moving forward in life, and helps me to avoid frustration along the way. And I’d like to share that with you now.

Step 1 – SET A GOAL. At some point you simply have to determine your objective, otherwise you may go anywhere, nowhere, or some place you don’t want to go.

Step 2 – MOVE TOWARD YOUR GOAL. Do something, anything to move toward your goal … and take baby steps if necessary. Standing still is not helpful, so pick up the phone and make that call, or do some research online, or ask a friend, or go to the bookstore, or do something that moves you toward your goal.

Step 3 – MONITOR YOUR RESULTS. Are you actions moving you toward your goal? Is the system you are using helpful? Are the people that are around you contributing to your progress? Are you at peace in your heart with the path you are on?

Step 4 – IF NECESSARY, CHANGE YOUR TRAJECTORY. If what you have been doing isn’t working as well as you had hoped, isn’t moving you toward your goal, try something different, something new. And even if you have spent months, years, following a path only to discover that it was a big waste of time, you don’t have to remain stuck there. If you still want to pursue that goal, take a different path … or if you want, set a new goal and start moving toward that new goal.

We had a fabulous time speaking Spanish at Mestizo Coffeehouse last night, and that included a first-time participant with a strong command of the language who had seen the group announcement on the blackboard at Mestizo. All are welcome, regardless of experience or proficiency.

One day at a time, even one moment at a time ... and enjoy the process.

Vaya con Dios.

La vida es buena

2010-03-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

I want you to imagine that someone anonymously paid to send you on an exotic vacation to Latin America. You do not know where you were going … you simply have to be a willing participant.

After the airplane lands you are immediately whisked away in a limo for a 2 hour drive into the country, finally arriving at the hacienda. The Latino family welcomes you and shows you to your room, and the balcony of your bedroom overlooks vineyards that are ringed by mountains. Ahhhhh.

There is a quaint village nearby where there is a daily farmers market, and there are several Native American Indian and Latino artists selling their handmade wares. And oh, your anonymous donor also left $1,000 in your room to spend however you want … and the craftswomen and craftsmen in the village love to haggle over price! In fact, it would be culturally insensitive NOT to haggle with them over price.

Not only that, but the villagers enjoy it when you buy stuff with cash from one vendor, and then use those goods to barter with other vendors for their goods. In that way, the whole village gets to share in what everyone has brought to the market – goods, services, cash, produce, crafts, goodwill, etc.

No one at the hacienda or market, or even in the entire village, speaks English. Nadie. No one. Nary a soul.

Oh well, no worries (no te preocupes) … you’ve studied a little Spanish, and you do your best to buy, barter, and bargain, and you have the time of your life. And this little Latino village now has a new friend.

Sounds nice, eh?

I also want you to imagine that Tuesday nights at Mestizo Coffeehouse is that little, faraway, village in Latin America. We are not at Mestizo to exchange goods and services, but to experience culture. And no one in our group called Sólo en Español speaks English. Nadie. No one. Nary a soul.

No te preocupes – just enjoy the experience while tuning your ear to hear Spanish, and speak a bit of Spanish as you are able.

La vida es Buena.

Out-of-Body Spanish

2010-02-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

I had 2 revelations last night during our Spanish conversation gathering at Mestizo Coffeehouse in Salt Lake City.

Revelation #1 – Detach

We are all at different levels of experience with learning the Spanish language, and we all learn in different ways. Some of us know very little Spanish, others are intermediate through many years of study and practice, and still others are native Spanish speakers. We will never be able to manufacture a scenario whereby we all learn in the same way AND all have the same Spanish language proficiency. So, don’t worry about it! No te preocupes.

Don’t compare yourself with anyone else, and don’t worry about where you are right now in your language learning. Just enjoy the group, and learn what you will.

Y’all probably already knew that, and if you were not so kind you might be thinking something like “Thank you Captain Obvious.” Okay then, let’s move on to the next revelation.

Revelation #2 – That Out-of-Body Feeling

Last night I almost felt like I was having an out-of-body experience (notice I said “almost”). As I sat there listening to the conversation in Spanish, I understood most of what was being said, and even though I was participating, I felt more like an observer of the whole scene while thinking, “Is this really me?” and, “Is this really happening?” Then I said to myself, “Yes this is me, yes this is really happening, yes I am enjoying it, and yes I am going to stay right here in this flow.”

Scary, eh?

In all seriousness – and I will say this in the first person so that I don’t come across as speaking to (or for) anyone else – it is wise to accept what the Universe gives me, and equally wise to position myself in the slipstream of the Universe while yielding to where the Universe wants to take me.

(Universe with a capital “U” is God as I know God, but I use the term Universe out of respect for my friends and readers who may not share my perspective).

I am always amazed at each of the serendipitous moments in life (or maybe the serendipity in all of life) made manifest in the smallest chance, amazed at how a tiny chance can become reality and impact my life (1) in that moment only, or (2) for the rest of my life. And several of those serendipitous moments conspired together to spawn our group Sólo en Español.

So anyway, I don’t quite know what to make of this little “grupo” we got going on Tuesday nights at Mestizo, but I’m having fun with it and going with the flow.

Tell your friends! Also, I created a Facebook group for us this morning, and you can find it at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=327544392162, or by searching Facebook for “Sólo en Español - Salt Lake City.” We are ready for the big time now that we have a Facebook group, especially since some of us (well, one of us) is apparently having out-of-body experiences.

We had 3 native Spanish speakers there last night, and there were 4 of us learners. That’s at least twice as many people as we had last week! We are growing at an incredible rate! Who knows, at the rate we are growing we could start a New World Order, and a benevolent one at that! ¡Guau!

Mi nombre es Chris, y yo soy un hablante de español

2010-02-17T08:11:00.001-07:00

Chris is a full-time professional who has been studying Spanish in his spare time for less than 6 months. He borrows Spanish language learning tapes from the public library, and last week when he came to Spanish conversation class for the first time he was a tad be intimidated by our “Spanish only policy,” but that did not discourage him from returning to the group this week.

Not only that, he is an OLDER man – my God, I think he may even be in his 50’s! Isn’t he too old to learn a new language? Shouldn’t someone be putting him out to pasture soon?

But miracle of miracles (or maybe it is the ginkgo biloba), he is learning Spanish … and quickly. To illustrate the point, I would like to share with you some of the things we learned about Chris last night, the things he told us speaking only in Spanish.

Chris has been married for 27 years to his lovely wife, and his wife has been a Special Education Teacher for over 30 years. They have one son and one daughter ... Chris told us where the kids live, how old they are, and what they do for a living. We also know what Chris does for a living.

Chris told us about his family that lives in Australia, shared with us that his mother passed away last October, and that his father also seems to be nearing the end of a long life. We know that Chris is the oldest of 5 children, and we know the names and birth order of all Chris’ siblings.

Chris is admittedly less artistic than his immediate family, especially less than his wife who is making plans for a second career in Interior Design.

Chris likes to cook, but he is so busy that he has little time for cooking. Part of the problem (or so he claims) is that he spends so much time perfecting his squash game. But when questioned (in Spanish) about the lack of time he claims to have for cooking at home, he also admitted to having an affinity for eating out at fine restaurants.

There’s more that I could share, but in order to protect the innocent, I’ll not mention everything we learned about Chris last night during our linguistic adventure.

One hour group … busy people … novice language learners … some “older” folks … all in Spanish.

Mi nombre es Keith y yo también soy un hablante de español.

Spanish Escapades

2010-02-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

You can turn anything that happens to you into a positive.

I became unemployed in January, and it is my daily intention to feel blessed during this season of my life. Fortunately, my wife is gainfully employed (which is a blessing), otherwise it may be harder to feel blessed during this period of unemployment … and I expect to receive an unemployment check sometime soon (which would be another blessing), otherwise I might have to work harder at feeling blessed during this time. (That last sentence was probably a run-on sentence, but I actually like to throw those in there now and then … the Apostle Paul is credited with some serious run-on sentences in the New Testament, one of his statements in Greek might translate to multiple paragraphs in English).

Regardless of what challenge you may be experiencing at this very moment, you can view it as a positive, you can find a way to believe that it is the best thing that could have happened to you. Turn that bitter lemon into sweet lemonade.

I feel particularly blessed at this time to have opportunities to learn Spanish that I would not now have with my prior work schedule. In fact, I am filling my calendar up with as many Spanish learning opportunities that I can.

On Tuesday night starting at 6:30 PM, I participate in a Spanish conversation club that is entirely in Spanish. Sólo en español. We say things like, “I go to store Saturday, last, buy apples, I drive my car, store …” The Spanish is not too impressive, but hey – it’s a start.

Thursdays from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM, I am an English tutor to Spanish immigrants at a school called Ingles Para Latinos. Since my two students (soon to be three) actually speak less English than I speak Spanish, this is a great opportunity to work on developing my Spanish conversational skills. And I have to do a lot of improvising in order to communicate. For example, today my students asked me what I do for work. Hmmm, I didn’t know how to explain in Spanish how I suddenly became unemployed … so I thought for a moment, and then said in Spanish, “One day I was an employee, but the next day I was not an employee … now I am looking for work.” They understood, and in fact replied saying that several of their Latino friends are also looking for work.

On Fridays I meet with Camilo from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM, he is from Columbia and he tutors me in Spanish. How I met Camilo is a great story, and I’m happy to tell you about it. My wife and I are connected to “Potluck around the Planet,” which is a monthly meal organized by our friend Valerie that brings together international students who are in school at the University of Utah. Go Utes! One day Valerie sent an email out to everyone saying that a new student from Columbia needs a bed and various other household items. Well it just so happens that I had for sale on eBay at that very moment a futon bed that we were selling to make room for an office in our second bedroom. So I emailed Valerie and asked her to ask the new student from Columbia if he would be willing to trade Spanish lessons for a bed. Bingo! Camilo is a very bright guy, he just began his PhD program, and he is an excellent tutor. For what it cost for a good language tutor, he probably has already paid for the bed, but we have become friends and he is happy to continue helping me.

Saturdays I meet with Jorge from 8:00 AM to 10:30 AM, and how I met Jorge is another great story. I had been using the Rosetta Stone program, but I felt I needed a tutor to get to the next level in Spanish. However, when you are not working, it is wise to watch your spending … and language tutors can be expensive. So, I posted an ad on Craigslist.com saying something like, “I will teach you English if you will teach me Spanish.” Jorge saw my ad and replied. Jorge and his wife are from Mexico, and for the last 3 years his wife has been teaching in the “Spanish Immersion” program at one of the elementary schools in Utah. Jorge wanted to improve his English, so we meet on Saturdays so that he has the opportunity to speak and listen to a native English speaker … and Jorge is also a very bright guy, very knowledgeable about the Spanish language, and he is an excellent tutor to me. As an added benefit, me and my wife have become good friends with Jorge and his wife, we meet whenever we can to enjoy a meal together, and I have also played squash a few times with Jorge – and a skiing/snowboarding adventure is next!

Occasionally I will go to a Spanish Mass on Sundays, and at other times during the week I am working through Rosetta Stone, studying verbs, and doing whatever I can to keep moving in the direction of fluency in Spanish. Language learning is a great way to keep the mind active as you grow older, I highly recommend it.

So these are some of my Spanish Escapades, please let me know if you can think of anything else I might try.

One last thing … it seems that I am busier than I have ever been in spite of the fact that I am unemployed, I am not sure how that happens. And at this very moment I am blogging way past my bedtime, so I must say “hasta luego” and “Dios te bendiga.”

Sólo en Español

2010-02-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had our first Spanish conversation class at Mestizo Coffeehouse, a funky little multicultural gathering place just west of downtown Salt Lake City. At http://www.mestizocoffeehouse.com/ you’ll catch a glimpse of the vision for Mestizo, including the following statement:

Mestizo was created by artists, activists, community builders and private investors for the purpose of bringing a community center and gathering space to Salt Lake’s Westside. In addition to bringing great food and quality free-trade organic coffee and teas, we share space with our sister organization Mestizo Institute of Culture and Art (MICA), a non-profit arts and cultural institution. Together, we invest in community and youth. We believe in people! We believe in youth! We believe in community!

The conversation tonight was fabulous! Our teacher (“maestro”) is Carlos, a native of Guatemala who has been in the U.S. (I think) about 20 years. His wife and daughter are with him here in Salt Lake City, however his son’s family (including the grandchildren) still lives in Guatemala. I met Carlos through work, and after I told him that I was learning Spanish, he voluntarily worked with me every time he saw me to teach me a little more Spanish.

For this weekly meeting, I requested just one thing – force us to rely only on Spanish. Sólo en español. And Carlos is glad to oblige. For one hour he spoke only in Spanish (with the exception of 2-3 short statements to get us unstuck), and he required us to speak only in Spanish. Yes it was difficult, yes it was frustrating, but yes it is exactly what we novitiates need.

How many Latino immigrants show up in the United States every year not knowing a lick of English, and yet figure out a way to learn English and become assimilated in the culture? They are examples of fortitude, perseverance, and hard work to all us Gringos.

Carlos is an excellent teacher … he speaks slowly in simple Spanish, and patiently repeats himself over and over again if necessary. He’ll give you plenty of opportunities to participate, or leave you be if you just want to listen and observe for awhile. Though the focus in this gathering is on listening and speaking, he also brings handouts to help facilitate exercises and learning.

So if you are in Salt Lake City and want to stumble and bumble and fail over and over, and yet get back up over and over again in order to learn Spanish, come meet us at Café Mestizo (631 West N. Temple) at 6:30 PM on Tuesday nights.

Just remember, leave your English at the door because we are sólo en español.

Pat Robertson’s Racist and Foolish Comments

2010-01-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

I am appalled at Pat Robertson’s recent comments on Haiti.

Two hundred years ago the country now known as Haiti was a French Colony where Africans were enslaved and brutally treated. However, the slaves revolted and overthrew French rule and gained independence.

Robertson claims that the Haitians “swore a pact to the devil” to win their freedom from the French, this pact with the devil was supposedly made at the voodoo “Bois Caiman Ceremony” in the year 1791. Robertson also said that Haitians have been cursed ever since, and that the recent earthquake in Haiti is further evidence of a curse upon Haiti.

First of all, there is some question as to whether the Bois Caiman Ceremony is fact or myth. The only historical evidence for such a ceremony is the verbal testimony of 3 people 23 years later in the year 1814, and we all know how oral tradition changes over time.

But even if there was a Bois Caiman Ceremony, and even if it did involve voodoo rituals, and even if it did help galvanize the Haitian Revolution, God can use anything – even evil – for the greater good. The cross of Christ is just one example.

Before the Haitian Revolution, African men, women, and children were brutalized through the French-enacted Code Noir (Black Code). Here are just a few of the 60 articles:

Masters may chain and beat slaves but may not torture nor mutilate them (art. 42)
Fugitive slaves absent for a month shall have their ears cut off and be branded. For another month their hamstring will be cut and they will be branded again. A third time they will be executed (art. 38)

When the African slaves became free Haitians, were they better off or worse? And as free Haitians, were they more aligned with God’s will for humankind, or less?

Pat Robertson’s comments on Haiti during a time of great suffering in that country say nothing about God’s sovereignty over the earth. Instead, they reveal that Robertson can be both racist and foolish.

You can watch Pat Robertson’s infamous comments yourself at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPyyXQN8cG0&feature=related

Here are a few links to news reports about Robertson’s comments:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html?iref=allsearch

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/haitians-made-a-pact-with-the-devil-pat-robertson/story-e6frg6so-1225819420988

STUPID SHIT

2010-01-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

I just want to state the obvious by saying that there are very few agents of genuine love and encouragement on the face of the earth. These are the wise men and women who genuinely have your best interests at heart, they love you unconditionally, and always seem to be able to encourage you in just the right way … whether it be through a hug, through the look in their eye, or through words of encouragement. These people are ALL love ALL the time, or at least it seems that way.

Most of the rest of the people in your life will occasionally do and say stupid shit to you … and some people even intentionally try to harm you with regularity. Even friends and family that you know love you will occasionally say and do stupid shit to you.

You don’t have to let stupid shit in, you don’t have to believe it, you don’t have to let it bother you, and you don’t have to feel like a victim. You can be bound and in prison, beaten daily, starved and molested, but in spite of all that, you can still know that God is within you, you can still feel whole and well within, and believe it or not you can feel love toward those that harm you.

You don’t have to let stupid shit into your being, for you have the power to decide what you let in. Stay strong.

Also, when you find someone who is ALL love ALL the time, spend as much time as you possibly can around that person. Soak in their encouragement and love and wisdom. The better you feel about yourself, the better you will be equipped to love and encourage and support others.

Learn from the wise women and men who know how to love unconditionally, who know how to encourage and support others, who live in wisdom and grace and truth. Learn from them, and make it your goal to become more and more like them for the rest of your life. Unless of course you would prefer to keep doing and saying stupid shit to others – in that case, you will become more and more like what you say and do to others … but please know that you are still loved, someone somewhere still loves you, even if God is the last remaining lover of your soul.

Knowing that you are still loved, perhaps you would consider doing and saying less stupid shit.

My Buddy

2010-01-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

Your origins in Africa,
wise man of many years;
from Europe I descended,
still one wet ‘hind the ears,
‘hind the ears.

We sat out on the porch,
or strolled down to the store;
seems morning, noon, and night,
us two would laugh some more,
laugh some more.

But when life took a turn,
thought I should leave a friend;
not once in two full years,
a letter did I send,
did I send.

At last I came to know,
true friends are hard to find;
I traveled through to see you,
but … only in my mind,
in my mind.

Sadness, grief, anxiety,
one such as you had flown;
my sorrow only overcome,
to think of fun we’d sown,
fun we’d sown.

Your life, a precious gift,
Sir Sammy, yeah! – so funny;
with God forever dwelling,
you’ll always be my buddy,
my buddy.

HOMOSEXUALS

2009-11-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

I love … heterosexuals too.

Whites, blacks, reds, yellows, blues, browns, beiges … no matter the color or the shape, I love.

Male, female … young, old … rich, poor … friend, foe … believe like me, believe NOT like me – I love.

And if it ain’t real, I fool no one … especially not you, God.

God, help us love like you love.

THE YANKEES’ EMPTY VICTORY

2009-11-08T06:45:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Some of the statements below may contain hyperbolic overtones.

The absence of a salary cap in Major League Baseball (MLB) is the most asinine thing in all of sports.

A salary cap would put a limit on how much each team could spend to obtain talent, and thus it would create parity in the league. However, the playing field is not level in MLB because currently the Yankees spend twice as much on payroll as 20 of the other teams. In fact, they spent about 5 times more on payroll in 2009 than the Florida Marlins.

$201 million – New York Yankees 2009 opening day payroll
$37 million – Florida Marlins 2009 opening day payroll

So when the Yankees played the Marlins in 2009, was it a fair fight?

Any fool can figure out that the Yankees enjoy a competitive advantage because they are allowed to spend so much more on talent than other teams. The only thing that MLB has done to try to make amends, which is both half-hearted and half-assed, is institute a “luxury tax” that require the Yankees (and a few other teams) to give a little money to the low-budget teams.

Wikipedia, everyone’s favorite source of knowledge on the internet, defines luxury tax this way:

A luxury tax in professional sports is a surcharge put on the aggregate payroll of a team to the extent to which it exceeds a predetermined guideline level set by the league. The ostensible purpose of this "tax" is to prevent teams in major markets with high incomes from signing almost all of the more talented players and hence destroying the competitive balance necessary for a sport to maintain fan interest. The money derived from the "tax" is then divided among the teams that play in the smaller markets, presumably to allow them to have more revenue to devote toward the contracts of high-quality players.

The MLB luxury tax is a joke. And so is the recent parade in NY to celebrate the Yankees’ empty victory – they act like they accomplished something. The money spent on the parade should have been given to the poor, and what’s worse is that those who live on the streets of NY now have to live with all the garbage created by the parade.

I played a lot of baseball as a child, and I always enjoyed it. But if I were a parent right now, I would think seriously about steering my child away from baseball into other sports. But if I did let my child play organized baseball, it would be the perfect opportunity to teach that child to promote fair play in spite of the fact that may not always be treated fairly by others.

The Yankees will win the World Series again in 2010, and it will further underscore the stupidity of how MLB is organized.

I started this article with a warning about statements that may contain hyperbolic overtones – I hope that is of some comfort to you Yankees fans.

LIFE IS GOOD

2009-10-31T10:23:00.000-06:00

I’m sitting in a river, resting against a large smooth rock that slants away from the water. It’s as if I am sitting in nature’s recliner.

This morning I took a bus from Puerto Vallarta to Boca de Tomatlan, and then took a water taxi to a small isolated village named Quimixto. There are no roads that lead here.

The water taxi is like a small fishing boat that ferries people and supplies back and forth, three of us plus the driver were on this voyage.

After walking down a small cobblestone path through the village, the path ended at the river. I guess you could call it a river, maybe stream would be a better description. The stream is about 40 yards wide and about 2 feet deep at it’s deepest. You can easily wade through the stream from one bank to the other.

Plush green trees reach out from the banks across the water, the kind of trees that you would find in the jungles of Mexico. Indeed, panthers, boars, and other wild animals live in these parts. Mountains rise on both sides of the stream, evidently this stream was more like a river at some point and cut a path through the mountains.

Birds sit high in the trees, and then swoop down from their perch to land in the stream and snag fish and whatever else they eat for breakfast. They also burrow their beaks into the sand to find snacks.

Donkeys and horses also share this stream, wandering into it occasionally for a drink.

About 20 yards in front of me are 2 small pigs that are held in a makeshift pen made of plastic netting. Behind the pigs is a large rock wall, and the pen is completed shaded. A little while ago I was startled by splashing water over my shoulder, the owner of the pigs was wading across the stream to give them some breakfast.

I can hear a symphony of sounds, pigs snorting, horse whinnies, a donkey’s heaonky, all sorts of bird sounds such as squawking, chirping, hooting, and singing. And the sound of the water, there`s nothing quite like the sound of water flowing gently downstream cascading over rocks.

It`s about 9:00 A.M. and the sun is shining brightly overhead and warmly on my back. The temperature is pleasant now, but will rise to above 90 degrees today.

My butt is in the stream, I’m leaning back against the rock, I have a rolled-up shirt for a pillow, a pad in my lap, and a pen in my hand.

Life is good.

I wish that I could pass away right here, and then be ushered into the loving presence of God forever. Is there something wrong with that wish?

Of course, when they got the news my wife would be sad, my family and friends would be sad, there would funeral arrangements to be made, a settling of my estate (“Do you want some of Keith`s tools? I will not need them.”), and maybe a big yard sale to liquidate the rest (I hope that there are bargains galore). But before too long, everyone would go on with their lives.

God alone knows the time and manner of our passing. So while we are alive, let’s leave something good behind.

A smile, a meal, a handshake, wise counsel, safety, shelter, a hug, financial assistance, expertise, companionship, instruction, a kiss, laughter, health, clean water, shade, words of encouragement, and whatever else we feel inspired by God to be and do.

SAINTS OR CHARLATANS

2009-10-30T20:51:00.000-06:00

How can you know which charities are the best? Many are trustworthy and provide a valuable service, but many others intentionally coerce you to give abundantly so that they can line their own pockets while providing indifferent services to the needy.

In America I use Charity Navigator (www.charitynavigator.org) to gauge the veracity of specific charities, it is an independent organization that evaluates 5,400 of America's largest charities. A 4-star rating means that the charity is considered “exceptional,” whereas a 1-star rating reflects an overall evaluation of “poor.”

I supported an international charity for many years that provides support to needy children. I signed up and was assigned a specific child to sponsor, I received a picture of the child and some information (age, gender, family status, country, hobbies, etc), and then started sending monthly contributions. I received periodic updates about the services provided to my child (clothes, toys, medical care, etc.), and about once or twice a year I exchanged letters with the child.

Though it has been many years since I stopped supporting that charity, I still remember the name of my sponsored child: Maria Murmu, who lived in India.

I regularly wrote letters to Maria telling her a little about my life (within the guidelines specified by the charity), I acknowledged information she had shared with me in her letter, and I would ask her specific questions about her school, family, activities, etc. (again, all within the guidelines specified by the charity).

However, I always had this nagging feeling that she never received any of the letters I sent her. Her letters to me never referenced anything in my letters, and her letters were always written in a specific format, something like, “Hello Sponsor, I hope that this letter finds you well. School has been challenging this term, and here are some of the other things I have been doing: Playing with friends, obeying my mother, and helping out around the house. Thank you, Sponsor, for our generous support. Your loving child, Maria.”

Granted, that is an oversimplification, but not by much. The best thing about her letters was the crayon drawings she did in the margins, but even those did not vary much from year to year.

I sponsored Maria from the time she was 7 years old until she was well past 18. I received a new picture of her once each year, and I could at least see how her face matured over the years.

Then one day I received an unceremonious letter from the charity saying something like, “Sorry, but your sponsored child has now graduated from the program, and we have no further information about her. Would you like another child to sponsor?” It was not a warm and fuzzy feeling.

So I decided to investigate the charity to learn more about it, and I went online and found a few different charity evaluators. The result is that I discovered that the CEO`s annual salary was about $375,000, and if he had any perks his total compensation was undoubtedly north of $400K.

Now I’m not against making money, and I sincerely hope that God will entrust me with vast pools of resources, but I felt that the salary of that CEO was excessive …. And I stopped sponsoring children through that charity.

Maria Murmu is almost old enough to be a grandmother by now, and if you are out there Maria and see this blog article, please write and tell me about the last 18 years of your life. Meanwhile, I’d like to talk a little more about charities.

I met a volunteer here in Puerto Vallarta who is visiting a different orphanage than the one I am. He called my orphanage “For-profit” and his “Non-profit.” Based on his additional comments, I should consider transferring any additional time and money to his preferred orphanage.

I met a second volunteer who told me that she used to teach English to kids supported by an agency in town, but they kicked her out because they became jealous of her proficiency in English and resented the progress she made teaching the kids English. So she landed at my “For-profit” orphanage, and feels better about serving there.

At the end of my last visit, the business manager at my “For-profit” orphanage pulled out a laptop and showed me both a PowerPoint presentation and a flash demo which depicts their vision for the orphanage, but that they will need additional funding to achieve their vision.

A third volunteer told me that my “For-profit” orphanage is not really a true orphanage because few of the kids actually live there, it is more of a shelter for abused kids. But the term “orphanage” is used because it enhances fundraising. He also told me that he used to volunteer at a second charity I have been assisting this week, let’s just call it The School, but that he quit over ethical differences with The School.

I met the founder of The School, and he seemed like a real nice chap. I have no reason not to trust him, but he did make an interesting comment about the name of the charity. They intentionally gave the charity a name that includes a derogatory term because it “evokes” an emotional response.

So, how in the hell are you supposed to know who to support?

Here`s an idea, send your charitable dollars to me … I`ve given away more money than was given me to give away on this trip, and there have been absolutely no administrative expenses whatsoever. But then again, that`s a sorry way to operate a charity … when I get back to Utah, I am not going to have any staff, equipment, infrastructure, or endowment.

It’s all good.

CHILD PARENTS

2009-10-29T21:53:00.001-06:00

The Bible teaches us not to give in order to be seen by others, that giving is best done in secret. For if you give to be seen by others, you have received your reward already … that is, your return is the adulation and reputation that others assign to you. However, God is all-knowing and everywhere-present, and when you give in secret, God is the one who will reward you.

On my bus ride to the orphanage today we stopped to allow a young couple with their baby to board. The mom started to sit next to me in the second row, but then a lady in the front row moved over so that the mom could sit next to her. The dad sat next to me, and fiddled with a baby bottle.

I was stunned at how young they were. I looked at the mom, then looked at the dad, glanced back at the mom, then glanced back at the dad. I did not want to stare, but I had never seen anything like it, and I was trying to get a read on their ages.

I would be surprised if they are teenagers yet.

12 years old! Parents! I can hardly believe it. Of course, I have no way of knowing their actual ages, but I am convinced that neither of them was 14, and when I considered 13 I thought to myself, “I really don`t think that they are even 13 years old.” I had no idea you could even spawn offspring at that age.

I still had money that my friends had given me to give away, and I had to act quickly because my exit was coming up. Mostly I had been giving away 10 peso coins, but I thought I should give this young couple one of the 20 peso bills in my wallet. And then I felt a pang in my heart, 20 pesos was not enough. So I pulled a second 20 peso bill out of my pocket, and thought that 40 pesos would be a nice surprise for them … yep, 40 pesos, that will be plenty … hmmm. My exit was in sight, and we were about to stop, but my heart was still panging. It became clear to me, 3 bills for 3 people – dad, mom, and baby – and I grabbed the third 20 peso bill I was carrying and tried to hand it to the dad who had stood up to let me out. At first he refused, but I insisted and he reluctantly accepted. I bounded off the bus and was gone.

Boy did that feel good!

But alas, 60 pesos is only about $5 measly U.S. dollars. I’m not sure why I was hesitating. If there is any consolation, 60 pesos is probably a fair amount to a 12 year old Mexican.

The Bible also talks about giving G-E-N-E-R-O-U-S-L-Y, and that is not an easy thing to do. But if we can become generous givers, the Bible indicates that the return grows at least proportionately. To paraphrase, “Give, and it shall be given to you, pressed down, shaken together, it will spill into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” Who knows what that return might look like, but the return is a promise from God.

VALLARTA

2009-10-28T19:51:00.000-06:00

Airplanes, backpacks, bars, beer, bicycles, birds, black hair, blue, blue sky, breezes, bricks, brown skin, busses, cameras, cars, Catholics, cats, cell phones, cement, chairs, cheese, children, chocolate, cigars, clouds, cobblestone, Coca-Cola, coffee, computers, condos, construction, Corona, Costco, crosses, debris, dogs, drivers, exhaust fumes, fish, flowers, food, for rent signs, fruit, garbage, God, green, hats, honking, horns, ice cream, Jesus, jewelry, luggage, magazines, massages, motorcycles, mustaches, newspapers, Nissan, noises, odors, old, orange, orphans, palm trees, people, pesos, police, poor, purple, rain, rainbow, red, rental cars, restaurants, rich, rocks, rust, sand, sandals, shade, signs, shorts, skin, smoothies, snacks, Spanish, stone, stores, students, sun, sunglasses, sweat, swimsuits, tacos, talking, tans, taxis, tequila, tires, tools, tourists, Toyota, traffic, trash, trucks, t-shirts, turns, vendors, Virgin Mary, volunteers, waiting, walkers, water, waves, wind, yellow, young, zapatos.

SENSATIONALISM

2009-10-28T11:54:00.000-06:00

Please don’t let the sensationalism in the American media color your picture of the entire country of Mexico.

Here in Puerto Vallarta I have walked the dark streets alone after 11:00 P.M. and before 7:00 A.M. I’ve ridden public transportation into the poor burrows surrounding the town, and got off the bus and walked alone down dusty streets … the only gringo in sight. I’ve stopped many times to ask local folks for directions, and they usually do their best to understand my limited Spanish – and if they cannot understand me, they often call to others for assistance.

I’ve carried money and a digital camera in my pocket, and no one has stuck a gun in my face, or kidnapped me, or beat me up, or tried to rob me. I have not felt fear since I have been here.

There are a thousand acts of kindness for every one act of unkindness in the world, but the media likes to sensationalize the occasional act of unkindness. Sensationalism sells newspapers, brings in magazine subscribers, fills the airwaves, and draws web traffic.

Don’t ignore the news, but read the news with an eye toward empathizing with the harmed or marginalized … such as victims of a tsunami, exploited children, or those hurt or killed by a suicide bomber.

Avoid being tantalized by weird, wacky, wild, and woeful stories … but instead give your attention to the way-out, whimsical, wicked, and wonderful things God is doing in and through people. ("Wicked" in the contemporary vernacular, you old fart).

Could something bad happen to me here? Of course, the world is filled with sinners. But consider that I could leave my house in a nice neighborhood of Salt Lake City, and walk for about 10 minutes and be in neighborhoods that put me at as much risk as the neighborhoods here in Puerto Vallarta. I could also leave my house in Salt Lake City, and drive for 10 minutes and be in neighborhoods that would put me at as much risk as virtually any neighborhood in Puerto Vallarta.

Would I wander through any neighborhood in the border towns of Tijuana, Laredo, or Juarez? Probably not, but the purpose of this article is to undermine some of the hysteria … and maybe color your picture of Mexico in a new light.

P.S. The H1N1 world map at http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/ will show you that this flu is not limited to Mexico, and in fact the cases in Mexico make up a tiny percentage of the cases worldwide.

Peace.

Dalia

2009-10-27T21:45:00.000-06:00

Dalia is a sweet child who is nine years old, and recently came to live at the orphanage.

Her language Teacher explained to me that she is far behind in her language studies, and asked me to help her with some simple exercises. Basically, I was asked to put 2 letters together and have Dalia pronounce the sound.

La. Ca. Ma.

Su. Tu.

Vo. Lo. Co.

We did fairly well with 2 letters, although when she regressed I went back to one letter before I could resume stacking the second letter onto the first. Over and over again.

I noticed that she would often read the sound backwards, especially when I added a 3rd letter.

Los became “Sol.”

As I leafed through the book looking for simple words to use, I found a page with the words uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez, …

And then Dalia took off in flight.

With rapid fire succession, she whipped through the numbers faster than I have ever heard anyone count … Blowing through 100 and beyond … unwilling to stop. She knew this was her strength, and she just kept going.

I let her go for sometime, however at some point I felt that I should call her back to the lesson. Language is her weakness, and I finally got her back on task.

Very interesting … so week in language, yet so strong with numbers.

Dyslexia came to my mind almost immediately, but her Teacher said that they don’t believe she has that condition since she does not mix her numbers. In fact, she is always the first one with the correct answer in Math class. In any case, they have asked the State to do some testing on her, and hopefully she´ll get the prognosis she needs.

Up to this point they have been focused on making sure that her emotional needs are satisfied, and once that process is well established they will develop an educational plan just for her.

She may have had a rough start, but she has landed in a good place, and is now surrounded by very capable people who can help her heal and learn.

Muchos gracias to those of you who asked me to carry a donation to the orphanage, I gave them a check before I left today. They were most grateful, and I am sure the money will be put to good use.

Public Transportation in Mexico

2009-10-26T14:11:00.000-06:00

I thought old town Puerto Vallarta woke up earlier in the morning, but when I headed out today at 6:45 A.M. the streets were still dark and not many people were out. I walked about 3 blocks until I found a street where 3 busses sat idling, and then approached the bus drivers standing on the corner. I uttered the magic word “Wal-Mart,” and one of the drivers pointed to his bus and said “Un momento” (one minute).

When you enter the bus you hand your pesos to the driver, there is no fancy coin machine that processes your bus fare. The driver stacks your coins neatly in the wooden box to their right.

The seats are hard plastic, which you really feel bouncing across the cobblestone streets of old town. And if you happen to hit a pothole while sitting in the back of the bus, it’s almost enough to knock a tooth filling out.

This bus is like most of the others in town, it is quite old and does not have any air conditioning. It comes to a screeching halt every time it stops, however I could tell by the sound of the engine, and by the way the driver moved smoothly through the gears, that this bus was well maintained.

I had assumed that this was one of the busses that would take a direct route from old town to Wal-Mart, but when he took off he drove through the tunnel and headed out into the burrows that surround the town. When I had boarded the bus there were 2 of us, but gradually we started picking up more passengers, so I moved over to the window seat. We kept stopping so that more and more people could get on. Then the driver asked those standing in the aisle to scrunch to the back of the bus, and more people got on. We were packed in there like sardines, the aisle was completely full all the way down to the last step with the door open. Then he stopped again and let still more people on ... and I was the only gringo. When we finally got to the Wal-Mart I expected the bus to empty, but only a few people got off and then the bus started filling up again. I had to squeeze past my seat-mate, then squeeze down the aisle, and finally squeeze down the steps sideways until I popped out.

So here I was at the Wal-Mart, but I still did not know how to get to the orphanage. Bus maps are hard to read in Spanish, plus I am not at all familiar with this end of town. So I decided that the prudent thing to do was approach the taxi sitting there at the bus stop. I showed the driver the address of my destination, and asked “Cuanto cuesta?” (How much?). He said “50 pesos,” and I jumped in. I thought that was a pretty good deal, for about $4 he took me the rest of the way and dropped me off at the gate of the orphanage.

I arrived at the orphanage around 8:15 A.M., and walked up to the door, where I found a man standing and waiting to get in. I asked him, “Usted trabaja aqui? (Do you work here?). He said “Si,” and then said a bunch more that I did not understand. But he motioned to a door on the other side of the building and said something about “diez horas,” which I understood to mean that I should return at 10:00 A.M.

There is a wide alley, probably about 30 yards wide by 100 yards long, which leads from the street to the orphanage compound. And within that alley there is a makeshift “restaurant” (there are lots of those in PV), with a plastic canopy overhead and plastic chairs at card tables. I sat down and the chef immediately wiped off my table, and then placed several plastic bowls on the table before covering them with a towel. There’s no menu, but I figured out that we were having meat tacos for breakfast. A few other patrons showed up, and we waited together for the “carne” (meat) to cook. When she brought my meat taco to the table, she removed the towel that was covering the plastic bowls … each bowl had something different in it, pico de gallo, spicy carrots, marinated cucumbers, hot sauce, etc. All that for a mere 9 pesos (about 75 cents), so after I ate I gave her a 20 peso bill and said “gracias” before walking down the street to find something to do for the next hour and a half.

When I returned at 10:00 AM the door I expected to be open was still closed, and all the other doors were closed as well. I was a little surprised by that since many people in PV leave both their doors and windows open … you can be walking down the sidewalk in old town and practically be in the living room of some of the residents who are sitting just inside. I finally found a doorbell, and was greeted by a Spanish-speaking member of the kitchen staff. I could not pull any Spanish out of me that made sense to her, so I showed her a copy of the email I received from a specific person on staff. She recognized the name, and walked me through the kitchen and led me to Aurora.

When I entered the room, Aurora was surrounded by about 5 kids standing next to her looking over her shoulder. Another 5 were sitting at the table watching what she was writing on the pad, and about 10 more kids were sitting at tables working on their lessons. She said “Hola,” but did not remember that I had (1) corresponded with her, or (2) planned to be there that day. She asked me to wait for a bit (the second time that day I heard “un momento”), and so I just kind of milled around the room for awhile. Then the kitchen staff person brought me a phone and said something about “Hablas Ingles” (speak English), and I felt relieved to be able to explain why I was there. I spoke with a very nice lady who asked if I could return tomorrow at 10:00 A.M. and spend at least 2 hours visiting. I told her I would be happy to return.

Then I started the long journey back to old town, this time all the way by bus. When I finally got back to my room around Noon, I felt like I had been beat up. It was good for me to experience firsthand what many of the working class in PV experience on a daily basis, the daily commute on public transportation to support the tourism industry.

Cien Pesos

2009-10-25T17:00:00.000-06:00

Before starting this journey, I mentioned that I would like to walk around PV and give as many 10 peso coins out as possible … and I invited anyone who was interested to participate by sending me money to give away. Thanks to each of you who donated, and I’d like to tell you about some of the people you blessed today.

But before I do that, let me just say that it is easy to get overwhelmed by it all, to get overwhelmed by how many people are in need. Bill Gates could liquidate his entire estate and give it all away in small increments … and barely touch the world. So today I tried not to feel overwhelmed, and I just gave to the people who I encountered that seemed to be needier than others.

One young man appeared intoxicated, but in spite of that I dropped a 10 peso coin into the Styrofoam cup he held to his chest.

As I walked along the boardwalk next to the beach, an older man with a walker in front of him was sitting down but he had fallen asleep with his head in his chest. I placed 10 pesos beside his pack of cigarettes, unbeknownst to him.

While walking down the sidewalk I came across an older woman in a simple dress walking very slowly. I reached in my pocket to give her 10 pesos, and she immediately launched into an animated display in Spanish while gesturing with her finger over my shoulder. I shook my head to indicate that I did not understand what she was saying, but I sensed that she was referring to other people she knew and was asking for more money. So I reached into my pocket and gave her another 10 peso coin, but she continued to gesture and ask for more. The one thing I picked up was “cien pesos” (100 pesos), which she repeated several times. Then I cowered out and lied to her by saying, “No le entendi,” which means “I don’t understand.” I may not have understood most of what she was saying, but I did understand that she was asking for 100 pesos. So then I reached in my pocket and gave her another 10 peso coin, and told her “Vaya con Dio” (Go with God) and walked away. To her that may have sounded like the empty blessing mentioned by Jesus, the thing he told his disciples not to do; Jesus cautioned his disciples not to refuse help to the poor while telling them “Go and be well fed.”

In my defense, I did think about spreading the 10 peso gifts around, that I did not want to give too much to any one person. However, as I walked along I felt increasingly guilty, and just as my self-flagellation grew more intense I came up behind an older man, hunched over, walking with a cane. His feet seemed swollen and he could barely walk. I reached in my pocket to give him a 20 peso bill, and he raised his head up slightly and with brightened eyes said “gracias.” I also said to him “Vaya con Dio,” but the knowing look he gave me revealed that he knew more about going with God than I will ever know … and that maybe God put him in my path at that moment to be a salve for my soul.

PROVIDENCE

2009-10-25T11:06:00.000-06:00

Since I am on a low budget adventure, I decided to forego a taxi ride from the airport to old town Puerto Vallarta, and instead walked out of the airport in search of the nearest bus route. It’s actually fairly easy to get around PV on the bus, and cheap too – only 5 pesos (about 30 cents) for a ride across town.

As I walked down the sidewalk away from the airport, I must have had at least 20 taxi drivers offer to give me a ride. While I appreciated their offer of help, I just kept saying “no gracias” and kept walking. I finally found a bus stop about 5 blocks from the airport.

When we were here in January we learned that the Wal-Mart was midway between the airport and old town, and it is the main transfer point for catching a bus one way or the other. As we approached Wal-Mart, I expected the bus driver to turn into the bus transfer area … but he kept driving past. Immediately I thought about getting up and requesting to get off at the next stop so that I could walk back to the Wal-Mart, but something told me to just go with the flow. I rode along for awhile, and then asked the kids next to me “Hablas Ingles?” (Do you speak Spanish?). They shook their head “No.” Then I walked to the front of the bus and discovered that the bus driver also did not speak English. But as I made my way back to my seat in the back of the bus, a young lady spoke to me in English and asked if I needed help. As divine luck would have it, I just happened to have boarded one of the cross-town busses, and the young lady explained that if I just stayed on this bus it would take me all the way to old town.

She and her husband got of the bus at the next stop, but on queue a gentleman got on and sat in one of the only available seats … at the back of the bus next to me. He spoke to me in English and asked where I was going, and I told him old town and mentioned the name of the street. He said that he was going to work at a hotel, and that I should get off the bus with him because the stop he gets off is near my destination. When we got off he pointed me in the direction I should go, and then said “Adios” and walked away.

I walked about 3 blocks but still did not see my street, so I stopped to pull out a map. Just as I was about to open a map, a man stopped by with his 8 year-old son and asked, “May I help you?” He explained that he likes to walk around old town with his son to help people find their way. I gave him the street address, and I was escorted to my destination by Abel Sr. and Abel Jr. The younger Abel got to keep the tip.

The property management associate was waiting for me, and he gave me a thorough introduction to the property. However, one thing he forgot to show me was the safe, and when I found it I inadvertently turned the lever that locked it. Then I found the “Condo Manual” that explained I should set a passcode before locking the safe. So I called the property management company to explain my predicament, and they said the office was now closed and I would have to wait until Monday. About 30 minutes later I got a call from them saying that someone would be there tomorrow instead. About 30 minutes after that I got a knock on the door, it was the owner of the unit who just happened to be in town from Canada, and he was staying in the unit next to me. He said that he had received an email about my predicament, and promptly opened the safe and gave me a passcode to use.

I love that feeling of wandering along and seeing God in all the people who show up in your life to help you at just the right time. Nonetheless, it’s easy to see God showing up in your life when things seem to be going your way. Faith is the assurance of things un-seen, it’s believing that God has a purpose for your life even when things don’t seem to be going so well … when the row gets tough to hoe.

One last thing for now: Before you get too impressed by my Spanish, last night I went to the supermercado (grocery store) and could not find any associate that spoke English. The bagger knew at least one word, however, for when he was done bagging my groceries, he asked “Taxi?” I said, “No gracias, yo cocino.” He smiled, and I walked away thinking that I was able to communicate one more time in Spanish. However, a few blocks later I realized that I had told him, “No thank you, I am cooking.” No doubt “camino” (walking) would have been a better choice.

AFFIRMATION

2009-10-24T21:43:00.000-06:00

People who find God under every rock can be annoying to me. They like to tell you, “God told me to do this … God told me to do that … God showed me this … God showed me that … God told me to say this … God told me to say that …” Sometimes I think that kind of talk is more a show of self-righteousness or insecurity than it is God’s guiding hand.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that God is everywhere present, I do believe that God is sovereign, and I do believe that everything that happens in this world God either causes or allows. I also believe that we can sense God’s presence, and be guided by God’s Spirit. I just feel that we need to be very careful about telling others what we think God is doing, and that most of the time we should use that form of sharing to encourage and support others. For example, we can build someone up by pointing out virtues that we see in their life, and follow that up by saying something like “God really shines through you in that way.”

So I am always hesitant to mention where I think I see God showing up in my life, but I will make an exception today.

One of the things I had planned to do in Puerto Vallarta was watch how people respond to beggars. In old town PV beggars often are young mothers who simply sit on the sidewalk with a plastic cup in front of them. My plan was to watch from afar for a half hour or so and record how many people walk by a beggar without giving anything, and record how many actually drop some money in the cup.

It just so happens that today, the day I left for Puerto Vallarta, there was a feature article in the Salt Lake Tribune entitled, “Can Believers Really Pass by the Beggar?” A Tribune Writer and Photographer spent 30 minutes documenting how people responded to a beggar in downtown Salt Lake City. The man sat there with a plastic cup in front of him, and during the next 30 minutes 34 people walked by him without giving anything, and 2 people dropped some money in the cup.

Now the fact that that article appeared in the newspaper could just be a meaningless coincidence with my plan to participate in the same social experiment here, or it could be an affirmation of my intention for this trip. In fact, I’d just like to accept that as an affirmation from God, and thank God for emboldening me through that coincidence.

God is near you, God is with you, God is for you, and God is in you.

MY LOVELY WIFE

2009-10-22T06:12:00.000-06:00

Sheri and I have been together since Earth Day, April 22, 1998.

We met through a dating service, which at the time was called At The Gate, but which is now called Green Singles. This was before the age of widespread Internet usage, and the dating service would place little ads in the back of certain magazines. For $29 you could become a member and receive the master listing of all available singles, and then spend a $1 for each letter that you sent to someone through the anonymous PO Box. I read her profile and was interested (SWF, likes to camp, etc.), she lived in the same area of the country, and so I sent a letter to her through the system.

We met at the Au Bon Pain (“Oh Good Bread”) in L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, DC. We sat at a table and drank sodas until the restaurant closed, and then went outside to sit and continue the conversation. It was a brief visit because I had to hurry and catch the last commuter train to the small town where I lived.

4 weeks later we were talking marriage, which was pretty extraordinary since both of us were 37 years old, never married, and at that point thinking that marriage was probably not in the picture … and then bam!

When I speak to her, I usually call her Sweetie. But when I talk about her, I often call her My Lovely Wife. I also like to introduce her as My Lovely Wife, and she appreciates that.

Lovely

Charmingly or exquisitely beautiful: a lovely flower.
Having a beauty that appeals to the heart or mind as well as to the eye, as a person or a face.
Of great moral or spiritual beauty: a lovely character.

Here we are a few years ago:

HOW TO BECOME RICH -- VERSION 1

2009-10-21T20:35:00.000-06:00

She was a good athlete, but not good enough to earn a scholarship. Her parents could not afford to send her to college, so she enrolled in the local community college and signed up for one course (which is all she could afford).

Then she spent several days applying for jobs all over town, and got rejected time after time. Often she was not even offered an application, but eagerly filled out each one that was offered. She took her time and filled in all the necessary information, and always presented the completed application with a smile.

Two days before her class was to begin, she got a call from a fast-food restaurant. They needed someone to work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night from 6:00 PM until Midnight. She eagerly accepted the job, and though the shift hours did not appeal to her at first because she would not be able to spend time with family and friends at those times, she reasoned that this would be good because it would not conflict with her community college class schedule.

After the first quarter she had saved enough money to take 2 classes in the winter. Spring quarter she took 3 classes. After 3 years she had enough credits to transfer to the University. By now she was working 32 hours a week, but she had become a shift manager at the fast-food restaurant, and so she no longer had to work every weekend night, and she could arrange her work schedule around her class schedule. Though she budgeted and saved carefully, she habitually gave money to local shelters and other charities, and she always seemed to have money available to give to those who needed help. She also volunteered regularly.

She graduated with honors 6-1/2 years after she started. All during her last year in college she worked as an intern part-time for an industrial supply company. Since she was so reliable and helpful as an intern, the company created a position for her upon graduation. They were not really hiring at the time, and they could not offer her much of a starting salary, but she gratefully accepted the position.

Interestingly, one of the company’s primary clients was the restaurant chain where she had worked while in school, and her familiarity with their equipment and supplies proved to be a valuable asset to her new employer.

She worked her way up in the organization over many years, and became a division Director. She was widely known for being a trustworthy, efficient, and fair member of management. She retired from the company after she had worked there 30 years.

Along the way she had married, raised a family, and then became a doting grandmother. Her husband was a mechanic, but after 35 years of doing that his body could take it no longer. She finally convinced him to retire as well.

She spent her twilight years living in the same house she had bought with her husband early in their marriage. It was a simple but well-kept home in the blue-collar section of town. Everyone was welcome in their home.

She grew wiser and more loving every day for the rest of her life, and died peacefully in her sleep.

TITULAR HEAD

2009-10-20T22:04:00.000-06:00

I’ve always been intrigued by church splits.

It seems that church bodies can think of just about any reason to split, and splitting is usually not something to be proud of. Some researchers estimate that there are nearly 35,000 separate Christian denominations, and that does not even include all of the independent congregations in the world.

Where’s the love, People?

The Restoration Movement split when one group decided to start using a piano in worship, while the other group was adamant about maintaining acapella singing.

Lutherans split over whether to ordain gay and lesbian to the clergy.

Mormons split when one group decided to follow the line through Joseph Smith, while the other group decided to follow Brigham Young … and split again when some clung to polygamy.

You’ve got Southern Baptists, and American Baptists, and Fundamental Baptists, and Independent Baptists, and Freewill Baptists … and groups I’d never heard of, like the Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists.

Finally, the Roman Catholic Church split when King Henry VIII could not get an annulment from the Pope. By golly, he wanted a woman who could produce for him a male heir, so he broke from the Catholic Church, and ultimately the Church of England was born … which is the forerunner of the Anglican Communion.

So you may be wondering why “Titular Head” is the name of this blog article. Well, let me just tell you now.

The British monarch is the titular head of the Anglican Church, and the present monarch is Elizabeth II who has reigned since February 6, 1952. She’s that older gal that runs around London with the big hats, otherwise known as Her Majesty The Queen.

In any case, a titular head is defined as a person in an official position of leadership who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Hmmm, that sounds important, but not really.

And Elizabeth is probably even MORE titular … or LESS titular … in light of the fact that her uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne to marry twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson – scandalous! – And thus Elizabeth’s dad became King, and she ascended to the throne upon her dad’s death. I bet Edward’s descendants are still pissed about that!

And that brings me to the end of this article where I will attempt to tie everything together with one not-so-profound statement: When the church splits, you can get a titular head.