Saturday, December 10, 2011

Adventures in Guatemala, Part V: Chicken Bus to Cantel

Saturday morning, December 10, 2011, I went jogging with Linette again, and tried to get some more cash from the ATM to finish paying our rent for the week.  The ATM was closed (again), so I went into the "Hotel Bonifaz", the fanciest hotel in Xela, and the guy at the desk told me where the 24-hour ATM was, so I got what I needed there.

After breakfast, Linette and I took a long walk to where we could catch a "chicken bus" to Cantel, a small town near Xela (Quetzaltenango) where Linette had served on her mission.  (We split up with Neal and Stephanie that morning, and they went off to explore some places where Neal had served right in Xela).

As always, I was delighted by the scenes I saw as we walked along.


Here is one of the wider streets in the town.  They aren't afraid of using bright colors on their buildings.


This lady walked by while we were waiting for our bus.


Finally we boarded one of the infamous "chicken buses".  It was 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning, so it wasn't especially crowded.  We saw a lady and her daughter on the bus and asked her how much the fare was and double checked that we were going to the right place.  Then we had a nice talk with her.  Linette asked her if she could read, which was a question I wouldn't have thought of, but made a lot of sense in retrospect.  Then she explained what the Book of Mormon was and gave her a copy.  Way to go, Linette!  Here is a picture of Linette with the lady (holding the book) and her daughter.


Linette remembered Cantel only having 3 streets, and remembered living by the factory that the bus pulled up next to.  However, as we walked around the side of the factory, nothing looked familiar, and it was clear that Cantel was much bigger than she had remembered.

Here we are lost on a dirt road by a river, with Linette wondering if she had gone insane, because nothing looked familiar.  I was a little nervous about being in this remote area with nobody around.


Here are some ladies we came across at a laundry area.  Water flows in one end and out the other, and there are cement washboards all around.  I wasn't sure if they would want me to take their picture, so when they saw me, I waved, and they smiled and waved back.


We didn't have a lot of time, and we were getting worried we would spend the whole morning being lost.  Finally, we walked back to the bus stop and around the other side of the factory, and then things started looking familiar.  Linette realized that the reason she remembered the town only having 3 roads was that that was all that were in her area.  (The rest of the town had been assigned to the elders at the time).

Here I am pretending to wash Linette's sweater at another laundry pool, called a "pila."  This one is a raised pool with a cover, and was located near where she used to live.


We eventually found the house where Linette used to live.  We weren't sure if the same family would still live there, but when the guy answered the door, Linette recognized that it was the same guy, and just then his wife came walking down the street smiling at us.  Their daughter, who was young when Linette was there, was now grown and had daughters of her own.  We had a wonderful visit with them, and the little granddaughters were adorable.  One of the little girls was learning English, so we practiced with her a little.  I was learning Spanish, too, of course, so at one point I pointed to a frog on the baby blanket and said "¿Como se dice eso?" (what is this called?), wanting to learn the Spanish word.  She responded, in English, "frog!" That was so cute that I let it go at that.

Here is a picture of Linette with her old landlady and her husband, with their daughter and granddaughters in the middle.  The picture on the wall is of the daughter, who was about 17 when Linette knew her before.


We had a few more baby blankets, and Linette asked if there was a hospital in Cantel where mothers with newborns might be found.  Mothers tended to not stay at the hospital, apparently, but the lady said she knew some mothers who had just had babies, so we gave the blankets to her to deliver.

At that point, we set off in search of a couple named Micaela and Roberto, who Linette had prepared for baptism.  I had heard Linette talk about them over the years, and we had even toyed with naming one of our daughters Micaela (at least until Mikayla Kartchner joined us. :)

We walked up a steep road and stopped to watch this soccer game for a few minutes, until one of the teams scored.  The students on the sidelines smiled and seemed to find it a novelty to have us there.


When we saw these ladies in their cool traditional dress doing laundry at yet another pila, I said "Let's go ask them directions," mostly because they looked cool and I wanted to talk to them.  The lady in the bottom-left corner was very nice and had indeed heard of Micaela and Roberto, and told us to go to the top of the hill and ask at the store.


The store was closed, but we went down a new side road into an area that Linette thought looked familiar.  She said "This is where I used to serve!" so I took a picture of her in her old stomping grounds.  We didn't know yet that the house we were looking for was the one you can see on the right.


We saw a lady standing outside a farm house on the left, so we went over to ask if she knew the couple we were looking for.  She said "Wait! Where are you from?" We told her we were from the United States, and she asked Linette if she had been a missionary.  When we told her that she had, the lady said "I'm a member, too!" and gave Linette a big hug! The lady said that she had children who were practicing right then in Xela for the cultural celebration that we would be going to that night.  Holy cow, we were just asking directions, and ended up getting a hug and making a new friend.

The lady pointed out the house where Micaela lived, and we bid our new friend farewell.  I also liked that she had a chicken walking around.


At the house we were directed to, we knocked at the gate, and when a couple of kids came to the gate, we asked if Micaela was there.  They said she was and ran and got her.

When Micaela came out and saw Linette, she put her hand on her heart and said several times, "Is this a dream?" (sueƱo).  She and Linette were so excited to see each other, and I felt privileged to just be part of the experience.  We sat down and had a long talk with her.  She told of the struggles that she and her husband had been going through to take care of four grandchildren, including one who is deaf.  They lived in humble circumstances, and we sat in a bare cement room with a bench and a small Christmas tree (with some straw under it).

At one point, Micaela went into the main part of the house and came back out with a picture frame that had a collage of pictures in it.  Included within the frame was a small picture of Linette as a missionary, and also our wedding announcement! She had had a picture of me and Linette on her wall for the last 20 years, which blew me away.  She told Linette how neat it was to see both of us arrive together, and to know that our marriage was doing well.

Here is a picture of Micaela and Linette, with four of Micaela's grandchildren around them.  Micaela smiled most of the time that she talked with us, so she was a lot happier than this picture might make her look.


We saw the local elders just as we left.  (Note the lady with the jug of water on her head coming down the street).


Having accomplished our mission, we headed back towards the bus stop so we could meet up with Neal and Stephanie for the mission reunion that afternoon and the cultural celebration that night.

Along the way, I saw this old lady working on something...


...and we kept seeing these beautiful purple flowers, which my mom can probably identify.  (I can identify the one in front as "Linette," of course. ;-)


Here's the inside of our chicken bus on the way back to Xela.


And here's the chicken bus we rode on, as it pulled away.


While we had been in Cantel visiting old friends, Neal and Stephanie had been exploring Xela.  Stephanie asked these people if she could try balancing a basket on her head.  (Look at the expression on the gal's face!)


We met up back at the bed and breakfast...

...and then went back to Yamilet's house (Linette's old companion) to go to a mission reunion with Yamilet and her husband Reyes.

(Linette at Yamilet's front door.  The street was so narrow we had to park our car a block from the bottom of the hill).


A view of a nearby volcano from Yamilet's front door.


Linette talking with Yamilet's mom while we waited.  (Feeling tall!) 


There weren't enough seats, so Linette dove into the trunk of the Yukon.


Saturday was Neal's turn to brave the roads.  Most of the streets were ridiculously narrow, having been built before cars were a consideration.


At the mission reunion, Linette got to see both of her mission presidents and a few other missionaries she had known.

 


Neal and two older guys who had served in Quetzaltenango 24, 34 and 44 years ago, respectively.


I was pretty hungry by that point, and knew it would be a while before we got dinner, so while the others continued reminiscing, I ran across the street to the Burger King there and got a little combo meal.  I was proud of how well I was doing ordering in Spanish until the guy started telling me all about the special offer.  I was flustered at first, but somehow the message that the special offer involved me getting free ice cream crossed all linguistic barriers, and I was able to get a free mini-shake with my meal.

Neal came over to tell me that they were all ready to go, so I took the fries with me to pass around the car, and we headed out.

Stay tuned for Episode VI, In Which Two Thousand and Sixty Youth perform in an amazing cultural celebration.

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