Welcome back, and thanks for reading. This whole idea of writing a blog is great (Thanks Hess btw). All week I write down little notes or funny things that happened during the day in order to compile them weekly into something entertaining for me to do and hopefully interesting for you all to read.
Today I would like to share some lessons and insight in religion which I have learned in the past 2 weeks in San Andres. In an effort to meet new people and integrate into the community I have decided to attend all the churches in town. My first experience being Cult, held in my home 2x a week as my host family is Evangelical. Yes, they call it Cult as well. It consists of about 30 people entering our house and singing, chanting, speaking in tongues, and crying for about 2 hours. It`s short, in comparison, but by far the most intense. At one point the Pastor grabbed my face and in a fury of spit and tears said some sort of sermon or prayer or whatever they call it. If anything it scared me away from their religion and did not work as a method to convert me. I will try and find other things to do during the hours of 6-8pm every Tuesday and Thursday, or just make funny faces at the kids when they peek from their "prayer".
Next I attended Catholic Church, by far my favorite, short and sweet with lots of singing and lots of kids... This weekend is Easter and I have been invited to participate in Semana Santa. School shuts down and people celebrate Thursday through Sunday. On Friday, I will hike to a place called Alanje, it is about a 9 hour hike from my town, we will start at 4am and arrive in time for the evening activities, I am not sure what they are, but I imagine they consist of food, singing and crowds.
Last Saturday I attended 7th day Adventist church, also with a lot of singing and kids, but not as short and sweet. In fact it is an all day affair, 8:30am-noon, a break from noon to 3 and then back at it until 6pm. Talk about devotion. Also Adventistas don`t listen to music or drink coffee and I supposed are banned from other vices on Saturday, which I only learned the hard way. In preparation for the long day of religion I prepared myself a nalgene of coffee with all the fixings to make sure I didn`t doze off. After a while of people staring at my bottle a woman in charge made sure to gently inform me and ask me to take it out of the church, oops! I also made the mistake of joking that I didn`t know if I would be able to give up music for a whole day every Saturday, which was very seriously replied with "but Jesus gave up his life for you, it`s the least you can do". Trial by error right?
All I have left now is Jehovah`s Witness, but I think I will hold off for a little to decompress from my last very, religious week.
People understand and are nice to me when I mess up, they get it that I am far from home and this is very different for me. They use it as a way to teach me, and I use it as a way to learn more about their culture and make new friends. Every church always introduces me at the beginning of the service (yes in front of sometimes 200 people), thanks me for attending, and thanks God for me being with their religion and in their town; I feel loved. Little do they know how multi-religious I really am.
Other than that, life is good. With mango and avocado season approaching the town has lots to talk about. We get lovely afternoon rains to cool down the temperature. We talk about the weather and the harvests a lot and I am excited to start working on organic gardening.
I`m learning a lot and missing home a lot like usual.
Me and the neighbors baby goat:
Indigenous Nobe kids at school
Thanks for reading! Hasta luego!
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