I don't have any fancy stories to tell you this month. I'm just happy and lucky to be alive!
Christmas Eve, as I was turning into Oasis San Juan for the Noche Buena Mass, I turned on my turn signals to go left. Suddenly the car behind me, decided to go around me on the left too. Screech!!! Fortunately we didn't hit. He missed me by about two inches. Everyone was surprised that I wasn't shook.
I guess 20 years in Mexico prepares one for just about everything.
But come New Year’s Eve I was being particularly careful not only about turning into Oasis San Juan, but also just watching out for whatever might happen.
New Years Eve is the night Yucatecans like to burn old people! They put an old man on a chair out in front of the house and dress him all up, usually with a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other. (Sometimes the muñeca seems awfully like yours truly.) Just about midnight, they light the poor guy on fire. Frequently firecrackers are hidden inside and everyone celebrates the end of the Old Year and the beginning of the new. Sometimes, someone dresses up as a baby in diapers and they show up too. The New Year never looks like me!
Right before Christmas we had a special party for the students who are scholarship students or are students in our English School. There are more than a hundred now, so it was a big party and our way of saying thanks to them for studying and working hard to get through school. Some of our young people are finishing careers in accounting, engineering, nursing, psychology, computer science, etc. The job market is tight here but hopefully they will get jobs and be able to help others in the future. I am proud of them, but also very grateful to you for making this possible. If you would like to sponsor a student, please check out our web site (mayamissions.com) or send me a note (wgauth@juno.com).
Last Saturday we had a party for the adults in each of our villages who have been attending our programs this last year. I was expecting 50 or so, but they kept coming and we ended up with more than 200 people! Thank god the women who had made the tamales had enough. We kept dividing the spaghetti into smaller portions and ran to the store for more soda! Our students provided the entertainment with Christmas songs in English by the English Students and skits and entertainment by the other students.
We spent most of last year trying to develop small groups in each of the pueblos we serve (Komchen, Sierra Papacal, Noc-ac, Dzytia, Cosgaya and Suytunchen). Sometimes only a few show up. But everyone likes a fiesta. Now, our team here (Jim and Sheila Christiansen, Patricia Tamayo, and myself ) will try to figure out how we can translate the enthusiasm of the fiesta into leadership for each village. That is a real task for all of us isn't it? Enjoying the feast and then trying to make it real in our lives!
I hope to be up north the last two weeks of January. The Oblates have a yearly fiesta to celebrate St. Francis De Sales. I have a meeting with the Maya Indian Missions board of directors, and a couple of doctor appointments as well… .the old body needs a check up every once and a while.
I've heard about how much snow and cold weather you have all been enjoying, so I want to experience it too. I'm sure a few days of sub freezing temperatures will be enough . Then its back to the Yucatan and our sunny warm weather !!!
