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Sheri & Keith Adventure

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 1st 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 3rd in 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://fotopala.com/blog/, and we will also send you periodic updates on our Guatemalan adventure.

Paz (Peace)!

Sheri & Keith

Rich and Poor

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?

Laughter

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!!!

Spanish Conversation Group

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

Pablo Neruda is arguably the most famous Latin poet of the 20th 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.

The 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.