Adoption Possibilities

Goal #105 Adopt a Child

Yesterday, I visited with the social worker at the Cobán Regional Hospital. My inquiry was related to the possibility of adoption of an abandoned baby. She said that as long as we are residents of Guatemala, get approved as foster parents and are willing to pay the legal fees, it shouldn't be difficult at all.

Everytime I visit the hospital with a team, there is a baby or two (or three or four or five) that has been abandoned by his mother. Everytime, I experience a sharp pang of fatherhood.

So, in a year or so, we will likely pursue this opportunity to make our family greater...

...and I'll be able to cross #105 off.

Home

With short-term teams coming and going so often here (25 so far since I've been here), I'm often asked where I am from. FOr me that is a difficult question and I have a hard time answering it quickly.

I've been living in this house in Tactic for 13 months now (after more than 5 months in the guest house). That's pretty average really. I feel as though I should be moving to a new house or town or province or country right about now.

Before I turned 30, I had lived in 29 different houses in 19 different towns in 5 provinces and 3 different countries.



The longest stretch I lived anywhere was in this house, where I was born (though I lived in 6 other houses before the 4 1/2 years I lived here in the early 80's). My father built this house in 1975 and then built an addition in the 80's. The house burned down in December, 1983. This event spurred a long string of moves accross the country and then the world. I often wonder what my life would have been like if it had not have burned down; if I had finished growing up in the woods of New Brunswick.

The second longest stretch was 4 years in College Heights (now incorporated into Lacombe, AB) while I finished my BEd and BA. In total I lived 8 years in College Heights, though in 3 different houses for 3 different spells.

It is interesting that the three places where I spent the most time (18.5 years in total) - West Branch, NB, College Heights, AB, and Grand Sault, NB - are not places that I would call home. When I visit them, I feel like a ghost and the memories of these places don't seem true, they are simply facts.

Oddly though, places where I lived only a few months or a couple years do feel like home (4.5 years total) - Cormier Village, NB, Red Deer, AB, Edmonton, AB, Montreal, QC. The difference is that family lives there.

Where I come from is quite difficult to define. Home is actually pretty easy to define. Now, it's wherever Amber is cooking.

Q/kWh

I feel as though our electric bill is very expensive and I've been meaning to ask what it costs everywhere else. Here's how my bill breaks down:

Fixed monthly fee

Q10.79 = CDN$1.67 = US$1.41

Monthly public lighting fee

Q34.70 = CDN$5.38 = US$4.53

The first 100 kWh costs

Q0.779/kWh = CDN$0.121/kWh = US$0.102/kWh

Every subsequent kWh costs

Q1.662/kWh = CDN$0.257/kWh = US$0.217

We use about 250kWh per month for a total of

Q400 = CDN$62 = US$52

We used to pay up to Q600-Q700 each month until we put in fluorescent bulbs in.

Note also what is drawing power each month: refridgerator, microwave, toaster, showerhead*, computer and peripherals, TV/DVD player, washing machine, 4 incandescent light bulbs, 8 fluorescent bulbs, and little stuff like phone chargers and spice grinder. More importantly, note what is not drawing power: clothes dryer (we don't have one), stove (we use a gas stove), and house heaters (we stay cold).

I guess I'm wondering if the price per kWh is high or if our usage is high or both. To give me an idea, what does it cost to power your house?

*a heating element that heats the water as it passes through

Shackles

I'd really like to share what's going through my mind / heart / life right now, but social convention really does limit my ability to share openly. If I were to express frankly and without restraint, what would people think? How would it affect my ministry, career, and most importantly my family?

Where did the convention of secrecy and closed door meetings come from? (I figure it was the Devil)

Jesus said we are to let the light shine in the darkness. We seem to think that when someone speaks honestly, he is in danger of incriminating himself (and others I suppose) and losing credibility. In reality, wouldn't he/she just be removing a man-made mask? Wouldn't he/she be more free if honesty prevailed?

Then why do I feel so trapped?

Long Hours

So my days lately have involved working 7 am through until 9 or 10 pm. Hence the lack of blog posts the past 2 weeks. Rigth now there are two teams here at the same time: Living Waters Christian Academy with 20 people (14 of them are former students of mine) and Bearspaw Christian School (blog)of Calgary with 31 people (including a doctor). I dropped off a Kamloops Christian School team on Monday morning at the Aurora International Airport after spending the week working with them.

This past month I've been taking teams on home visits to sponsored children, tracking expenses (and standing in bank queues), driving teams to morning devotionals, moving dirt at a worksite, handing out medication at a 3-day medical clinic, setting up the medicine at the medical clinic, guiding teams through the Cobán General Hospital so they can pray for sick children and give gifts to new mothers, showing teams the caves of Rey Marcos, showing teams the cultural experience of making tayuyos in a Guatemalan home, leading evening devotionals, tracking new children in the sponsorship database and producing new packages, taking photographs at Purulhá, organizing a demonstration of special stoves for school families, emailing, ordering food for teams in restaurants, taking a team on an 8 km hike to the waterfalls of Chilascó, picking up and dropping off teams at the airport, deworming a school, and running around Guatemala City with Erick looking for Kia clutch parts. I can't remember everything, but that gives you an idea.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Tikal and Fray Bartolomé de las Casas for 3 days with the Living Waters team.

Backyardigans

Our house stands in a swamp essentially. We don't have mosquitos though; this is a pleasant surprise. The man who owns the greenhouses that face our home also bring cattle, usually 2 or 3, to graze on the wetland grass. Recently we were also the home to a flock of these white birds.



Any ideas as to what species these birds are?

A little puzzle for you

I feel like this sometimes:



What does it mean?

Baby's Name

Amber and I are still up in the air for a boy's first name. I hope we land soon. We have 18 days (+/-) left to decide. The middle name is picked.

A girl's name is easy because we still have the one's we had picked out for our first born if he were a she.

I'm wondering what they will put on this new child's birth certificate. In Guatemala, the child gets the father's first last name and the mother's first last name. If the father does not acknowledge the child, then the child only receives the mother's first last name and has to explain each time he/she is asked for the rest of his life that they have ony one last name. If they don't explain, it is assumed that they were either born out of wedlock or a result of an adulterous affair.

I really don't want the last name to be Robichaud Robichaud as that implies incest. But will I have to disown my daughter or son just so she or he doesn't have to get named twice?

I found the Alberta list of boy names for 2005 (the year Blaise was born). There were 4 newborn Blaises named in Alberta that year. Ethan was the top name that year (243) and it's been the top name in Alberta since 2001.

Effects

We are cooperating with Helps International to provide special stoves to families that need them. The stoves were purchased through a variety of gifts from Canada. Two men came out to do a demo of the stove for interested families from our school and church. They put the stove together in front of us in about 15 minutes and then lit the stove and had some of the women make tortillas to show that it worked. They know what they are doing when they get the women to make the tortillas because the crowd was murmuring negatively about the stoves until they saw that it actually worked really well. The stoves use 70% less wood, keep smoke out of homes and keep fires off the floor (preventing burns to children).

I was in the market picking something up early yesterday morning. As I stood waiting for my change, a woman was swinging an axe over a big piece of meat on the top of a wooden stump in a booth to my left. The meat cut really well and a large piece of it fell on the floor. That's the cut she wrapped for the customer. Nice.

I visited 9 homes in San Antonio yesterday afternoon. I took photos of 15 children and gathered information on the children and their families. Some sad stuff, but first:

Zaak (31): What do you like to do?
Bryan (4): Poop.

Bryan's papa got a kick out of that. Bryan and his sister both have sores on their body. They look like badly infected boils with massive scabs.

Carmen (12) was abandoned by her mom 3 months ago. She lives with her aunt and 5 cousins. She has one set of clothing so her cousin shares her clothes with her. Carmen enjoys playing with field mice in her spare time. Carmen's aunt's husband died recently.

Aracely (4) and Adalberto (6) were abandoned by their papa leaving mama to care for them. He has another woman and other children in Tactic. The mama receives $30 a month from the papa. The mama used to raise a few chickens to sell, but they died of disease a few months ago. They have no bathroom because there is nowhere to hook up drainage.

The previous mama's sister is the other woman and has 3 kids with a man who is still with his first woman. The kids don't know their father.



This is Angel Ariel. He's 7 in grade 2. He has a scab on his left hand where he was bit by a dog. His father died 4 years ago and his mom works in another town serving food at a work camp where she earns $124 a month. She returns home once a week for one night. The six children (5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14) live alone otherwise. Angel had a bad stomach ache last week so his siblings took him to the Health Centre in Tactic (8 kms away). There was no medicine available for him. He helps out at home by washing his own clothes and then hanging them on the neighbour's barbed wire fence. He wants to be a teacher and his brothers want to be a doctor and an accountant.

31

I magically transformed into a 31-year-old man yesterday. It was a refreshing experience and I highly recommend it for all you 40+ year-old men (and the curious among the women). I was asked if I felt older, and the answer is yes. The distance from my teens and twenties is greater now and it takes a long time to remember some memories that I thought would be so important to me.

My birthday was made special by several people. I received cards in the post, a phone call, ecards in email, comments on my previous blog post, messages on MySpace, money, a Guatemalan soccer jersey, 2 DVDs, a couple packages I haven't gotten yet, a birthday supper, and a getaway. I feel very loved.*



The birthday supper and getaway were loving given to me by my dear sweet lifemate (ha ha - lifemate, that's a funny word). She prepared a lovely pumpkin soup, chicken quesodillas, and a vicious mango-strawberry-chocolate trifle. Then after our guests left, she whisked me off to the Hotel del Bosque where she surprised me with a quiet night together away from the highway and away from Blaise (who managed the house with a little help from Mariah).

BIG THANKS to Amber, Mom, Papa, Saison & Dean, Salomé, Grandma, Mémere, April, Mariah, Ruth & Walter, Lorne, Chels, Kevin, and Blaise (who kissed me goodbye last night before I left and helped blow out my candles).

4 Days in March

14th: Einstein's birthday.

He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. Albert Einstein

15th: The Ides of March

44 BC - Julius Caesar of the Roman Republic was stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March. Wikipedia

16th: Zaak's birthday

Zaak successfully avoids sharing a noted day in history.

17th: St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick writes in Confessio after escaping captivity in Ireland and returning to Roman Britain and becoming a bishop:

I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: "The Voice of the Irish". As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: "We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us. Wikipedia

Images: Al, Jules, Pat

Tactic Resident

In Guatemala, each adult is issued an ID document from the municipality where they live. I'm not sure if they have to get a new one when they move (this doesn't happen too frequently). So, because we are now residents of Guatemala, part of the process is getting a Cédula de Vecindad. The information contained therein is

photo of serious b/w me

me right thumb print

me autograph

me wife's name

me ma's name

me pa's name

me skin, hair, eye colours

whether me hair is straight or curly

me height

me date of birth

me birthplace

capabilities of being able to read and write

me military history

They spelled Amber's mom's name wrong on hers.

I was very pleased with the efficiency of the Tactic Municipal bureaucracy. We got our cedula's issued in one day (after a week of getting our residency certificates done up (extensive 4 page legal document for each of us). I asked the woman who does them up how many she made today. Three. I guess they aren't too busy.

Arcade Fire strikes again

Early 2005, my friend Kris introduced me to Arcade Fire's Funeral and loved the natural energy and acoustic layers they brought to the album. It became one of the biggest independent artist sales of the year. They opened for U2 in Montreal that fall (I was already in Guatemala, so there was no way I could make it :(). I picked up there first self-titled LP too and actually like it better than Funeral.



I've been anxiously waiting for another realease and on Tuesday I saw it advertised on iTunes: Neon Bible. I'm really enjoying it, especially the church organ "Intervention" and the title track groove. In this album the band explores the dark side of religion:

Working for the church while
your life falls apart.
Singin’ hallelujah with the fear in your heart.
Every spark of friendship and love
will die without a home.
Hear the soldier groan, “We’ll go at it alone.”

Switzerland invades Liechtenstein

This is Far out!

One Laptop Per Child

One Laptop Per Child is a project that has been in the making for 40 years. The concept involves a sophisticated, economical, durable laptop that can be placed in the hands of every child on earth.
The current laptop prototype:

• costs $100
• 366 Mhz processor
• built-in video camera/mic/speaker
• 1 megapixel swivel screen
• flash hard drive (no moving parts)
• game controllers
• wireless networking
• LED lights for the keyboard
• 3 USB 2.0 ports
• various language keyboard layouts
• when shut, it's impervious to rain and dust

The philosophy behind it is that this will be a tool to allow creativity among the world's underprivileged children (90% of all children) and provide an inexpensive and reliable education tool.

My feelings are mixed. Of course I think the technology and partnerships involved are stellar. The possibility of creating video, music, art and limitless access to literature and news is awesome. Computers are wonderful tools - I spend a good portion of my day in front of one. What concerns me is the innate learning that happens when we touch, write, taste, and work. It's the same question as to whether we should give children calculators to learn math. Could we turning the rest of the world into N.America's generation Y?

Got this from the Québecois eMagazine Le Studio 1.

Pee in the Potty

That's right folks! Blaise has peed in his potty. Twice.

Yesterday it happened. He let us know by saying "pee? pee?" so we stuck him on the potty and presto!

The trouble though is the potty itself. It has a horn thing in the front and the pot part of it isn't long enough for him to sit and pee, so he has to really tuck his peeing part down. Not sure who engineers these things. I'm sure it will be at least 6 weeks before he's fully trained, but it's great to be starting. I hope he's trained before the next on is born in April.

If the coughing fits...

don't stop, I'm gonna FREAK OUT! Or get tested for TB! A dry cough started on Wednesday night last week, nothing major, could have been dust. By Saturday night I was convulsing. The past three nights I have slept on a foam in the office so as not to keep Amber awake with my coughing. Last night was the worst. I was too tired to even watch a movie or play iPod games. I just lay in bed at 8 pm coughing for an hour. Finally I fell asleep.

The worst thing is that it's a dry cough. No phlegm (isn't that a great word!!!). My head starts to pulse with a sinus headache and nothing really comes out when I blow my nose.

A doctor that was here told me that cough syrups are a sham. I concur. I've polished off 3 bottles (there were only a couple table spoons in each) and I can't really say I've noticed a difference.

Jeepers!

Growing Young Boy

Blaise has been a joy to watch grow. His great sense of humour wards off much discipline. His latest deal is asking a question waiting for a response then after a generous pause, he begins barking.



This shot was taken when the photo we took for immigration was rejected because there was some blurry thing behind his ear and "hair was in his face" (??). Pretty precious.



Blaise's next door neighbour, Samuel, turned four last week and threw a big party. Blaise brought a gift.



Blaise got a shot at the piñata. Rather than hitting like the other children, he chose the spearing method. I think this will work better when he gets a bit more meat on his arms.

Interweb Woes

So, a week after ordering a bunch of obscure U2 songs from iTunes, I managed to have all of them downloaded - the last 14 of them in the last 14 minutes! Oh baby! Internet's back!

As I've probably mentioned before, my internet connection is of the satellite variety, beamed to my house with an antenna, then connected to my compy via ethernet. A week ago, Cesar took down my industrial size antenna and gave me a midget antenna to put in my window. Since then I've been getting internet for 15 minutes at a time about twice a day/night.

-Cesar has come over a couple times to test the signal strength
-I've called AppleCare a coupel times
-I've tested a PC to see if it's my computer that's causing the problemas.

Today I gave up and reinstalled OSX.4 and things seem to be super.

The latest rumour is that TurboNet (DSL) is coming to town at a $60/month price plus monthly home phone line costs (which we don't currently have). We'll see...

Microtrials

INCIDENT 1: It just so happens that here in Guatemala employees are given ZERO authority at their job. So, when I ordered a bagel sandwich at a modern mall in Guatemala City and asked to have the yucky processed cheddar slice replaced with a piece of Swiss cheese, the sandwich artiste had to ask her supervisor (who was not the owner, so it didn't really matter anyhow). The supervisor took great pains to explain to me that the combo I ordered did not come with the Swiss cheese slice, but with the orange one. I'm surprised they were able to omit the cheese altogether in the end when I asked them to.

INCIDENT 2: The same evening, as I was exiting the parkade beneath the mall, I was bewildered to find that the parking cost was double what I anticipated. The parking agent, with tremendous consternation, expounded upon the fact that the evening rates were now in effect. There was no such information on the ticket they gave me. I guess I should have asked.

INCIDENT 3: The Aurora Internation Airport of Guatemala is still under construction. It is the self-proclaimed "most modern airport facility in Central America." The current frustration at the airport is where to put your vehicle. For pick up, you should drive into the drop-off area and park there, if not you can get stuck in a barrage of taxis. As the whole lot is a mess, I didn't think twice about driving in and pulling a U-turn and parking along some dividers facing a van. After locking the car, I was met with a security dude who asked me to look around at the mess of cars. I asked him if there was a problem. He told me to park properly. I asked him what difference it made. He said it didn't make any difference. And then he asked me to park properly, again.

INCIDENT 4: Our power went out last night at 8 pm. So did our neighbour's power. Our neighbour's power came back on at 10:30 PM. Ours did not. This morning, the power was still out, so I called the power company and gave them our visual address (no house numbers in this part of Tactic) and 2 1/2 hours later our fridge came back on. Sweet.

INCIDENT 5: Our landlady brought us our power bill last week. It had gotten wet, so she had to dry it, just barely saving it from incineration. This weakened the perferation so that during the handling, half the bill (the part the bank keeps) fell off before it landed in my hands. My usual bank wouldn't take it. They sent me to the bad bank. The bank that makes me wait a long time and disappoints me a lot (Banrural). So I had to go there this morning.

INCIDENT 6: Our immigration paperwork lady sent us some documents through a courier service from the capital to our home on Friday with ETA of Saturday. They still haven't arrived (it's Tuesday night). I called and after a bit of investigation, the courier place didn't attempt the delivery because a) they had an incorrect phone number for me and b) my address wasn't descriptive enough. Maybe I'll get the papers tomorrow.

INCIDENT 7: One of the only ways I can get new music is to buy it online through iTunes. Sadly, my internet connection stinks. I ordered 18 songs, paid for them and 5 days later only one of them has fully downloaded (after incessant prompting). My ISP says it's iTunes problem and iTunes says it's my ISP's problem. It's both their problem as iTunes quits downloading at any indication of a delay and my ISP is out for hours at a time. RRRG.

-----

INCIDENT 8: I'm trying to contribute to my RRSP before the end of the tax time comes on Feb 28. I've been trying since early February. To accomplish this, I email a pdf to my mom to fax to the agency. Unfortunately, their fax machine is always busy or unavailable. I've emailed it to someone else in Edmonton, but their computer crashed. I've called three people from the agency and no gains. We'll see what the state of this issue is on the eve of March.

Getting a Kia van on a truck

While driving a short-term mission team from Regina to Antigua for their last 2 nights in the country, my van, the Kia, brokedown. We managed to get the team to where we needed to go and left the van at a highway road stop.



Two days later on our way back, we had a 'tow truck' from Tactic meet us so we could get it brought back to Tactic for repairs. The event required putting the van on the back of the truck.



I sat in the cab drinking Seven, steering the van and occasionally braking while they unhooked and rehooked the chains...



...while this guy did all the work. When the chain runs out, I brake, they manually unwind the chain, hook it up again and start the pulling again. They had to hook it up 3 times because the chain isn't that long.



45 minutes of winching and voilá!



Fido Dido lives! Is he in Canada anymore? I don't think he's learned to talk yet though.



This is Laura, a resident of Tierra Blanca (White Dirt) and one of the gathered spectators for the show.

*Photos 1 & 2 taken by Ruth

The Forbidden Coachella

So while perusing blogs, I discovered the Coachella Music Festival. Playing there will be some of my favorite bands and artists as well as some classics: The Arcade Fire, Manu Chao, Bjork, Rufus Wainright, Damien Rice, Rage Against the Machine, Interpol, Regina Spektor, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Willie Nelson.

It's in California, but man would it be nice to go. Stinkin! I haven't been to a Music Fest since August, 2005!

The God Who May Be

I listened to a Podcast series of CBC Radio's Ideas in December. It was an interview with philosopher Richard Kearney about his recent book "The God Who May Be." I was intrigued by several of the concepts that Kearney brought up. He proposes that much of the beliefs that people hold about who God is is in reaction to how others present God to be. The movement in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries towards atheism was largely in reaction to how churches presented God - ie. if God is who they say He is, God shouldn't exist and therefore doesn't exist.

I find this quite challenging as many of the ways God is presented in Christianity is quite distasteful to me and so how have I decided to perceive God as a result. Also inasmuch as I present my perception of God to others.

When I look at the current trends in science and sociology I think there is a new reaction towards the hardline atheism that is promoted. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think more and more people are recognizing that claiming God can not exist is more reactive than rational. Kearney doesn't necessarily stick to reason as he bases much of his philosophy on the imagination.

Another idea is that God is the possibility of the impossible. Divinity is faceless, nameless, and unknowable - therefore it requires imagination. Kearney proposes that God exists only to those who allow Him to exist in their imagination. This does not mean that God only exists because someone is imagining Him, but that He exists for that person through their imagination. So if I don't believe God exists, it is difficult for me to actualize Him - it is difficult for God to reveal Himself to me. If I do believe He exists, then He becomes real, powerful, and creative through me and towards me.

I look forward to ordering the book and reading this a little closer. The podcasts I listened to are no longer available in iTunes, but still downloadable here:

Part I
Part II
Part III

... or you can listen to the streaming fast version here:

Part I
Part II
Part III

Do you see a difference?

In October '06, Lorne and his family gave Mariah a tupperware full of chocolate bars for Amber and I. Unfortunately, Mariah didn't have enough room for it among her luggage as she was moving here for a year. Her sister gave us the goodies once we returned to Canada for our Christmas furlough.

In January we split the goodies right down the middle. You can see why....

Bills

I'm picking up a short term mission team in Guatemala City tonight. They arrive late, so we spend the night and then visit a couple sites in the capital then drive the 4 hours to Tactic tomorrow. Les isn't here, so I have to do all the paying for the 19 of us in the group, so I need lots of cash. Rita wrote me a cheque for Q5000 ($750) to cover room and board and diesel.

So, I went to cash the cheque this morning and there was a huge line-up. I asked the guard if this was the line-up for people to cash cheques and he just said "wait a little while blondie, wait right here." He formed a new line in front of the door where five more men lined up behind me over the next 5 minutes. The other line easily had 75 men in it. The door opened and I was at the front of the line. Erick was at the till getting cash too, he told me that they wouldn't give me more than Q3000. My cheque was for Q5000.

At the till, I handed the cheque over and the cashier asked me if Q20 notes were OK. Sure, why not? I had to pause and secure the wad in my pocket before going outside.



This is the stack of bills. 250 $3 bills. Nice.

I hope there was money for everyone.