A month has passed since I first moved to Chiapas, Mexico. Although my days are still filled with a lot of new experiences, I am starting to find a routine that makes this new place seem familiar. Here are some shots of what “familiar” looks like to me these days.

Usually I eat eggs or quesadillas or veggies for breakfast with coffee that we make in a pot on the stove. (It’s good – almost too good.) If I’m really lucky we have sweet bread too. My host family also sometimes has sweet bead and tea at the end of the day before bed time.

My host family’s home is decorated with many potted plants that make me feel like I live in a garden. We also have two little kittens that I think pretty smart, trilingual even. You can say “It’s time to eat!” in Tzotzil, Spanish, or English, and they will always come running.

These high school students in Huixtan, Chiapas are discussing what they like about their community and what they’d like to change. I travel to communities about two days a week to give workshops to young people like these guys.

After a day of traveling, giving workshops, and meetings in the office, I enjoy my long walk home. Those walks are made even better when I stop for a 10-peso fruit bar. This tamarind flavored one is my favorite.

 

Several titles could have been appropriate for this blog post. At least two weeks have gone by since I last wrote and I’ve experienced a lot of transitions in that time. As a friend pointed out to me: I’m living with a new family, in a new house, in a new country, with a new job, in a new organization. I guess when you put it like that, maybe an appropriate title for this blog post would be, “Ahhh! Everything is New!!” However, I wouldn’t want anyone to believe that I’m drowning in all of these transitions. I would say that I’m mostly floating, maybe even swimming a little bit. Everything I have learned has made these first few weeks quite exciting. With new learning in mind, perhaps appropriate titles could be, “Words Ending In -A, -E, or -O for $500” or “Fuzzy Friend or Poisonous Caterpillar?” or “Where to Start When There are Five Lines at the Paper Store” or “San Cris Is Not Good For Ending My Coffee Addiction”. Any of those titles could start a blog post that tells a short story about my life since moving to San Cristobal. However, no single story tells it all. That’s something I’ve learned since being here. So, in celebration of the many stories that make up our lives, here are several titles that summarize just a little bit about mine:

How Do You Say Nice View in Tzotzil?

 

I live with a host mother and father, a host sister that works with a fellow MCCer, and another host sister and her husband. At home my host family speaks Tzotzil, a language spoken by an ethnic group of Mayan descendants. Also, we have a great view of the green mountains of Chiapas.

 

Critical Reflection with Crayolas

At least once or twice a week, I travel to rural communities in the mountains. I’m working on a project with my coworkers to provide workshops to children and youth in these communities about their right to access public information. We usually ask them to draw pictures of their communities that include things they like and things they hope will change. Then, we explain how they can access public information that might help them make those changes some day.

 

I’d Give That One an 8.1

I woke up when my bed started shaking around midnight on Friday morning, September 8. “My first earthquake experience!” I thought. I felt like I was on a ship tossing on rough waves. As a guy from the flat plains of Indiana, I didn’t realize that earthquakes aren’t usually that strong. Shortly after the tremor ended, MCC colleagues and coworkers started sending texts asking if everyone was okay. The 8.1 earthquake left damage to large, old churches in San Cristobal, and scared those of us living here. I feel lucky to say that I’m safe and that my home is okay.

 

If I Had a “Typical Day,” It Might Look Like This

6:30 – wake up and listen to a few songs in bed

7:00 – walk to the kitchen to warm up water for a shower and eat quesadillas

8:00 – leave the house and walk to the cathedral

8:30 – meet coworkers at cathedral and walk to work

9:00 – arrive at work, pour myself some coffee

9:15 – discuss with my team what we will be doing for the day

11:30 – drink coffee and share snacks with coworkers

2:00 – share lunch with coworkers or go somewhere to eat together

5:00 – pack things up at work and start walking home

6:00 – arrive home, eat a snack, read a little (currently, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini)

8:00 – drink tea and eat sweet bread with my host family

9:30 – get ready for bed and fall asleep under two large blankets

 

Some Pictures Are Worth More Than 1,000 Words

I woke up to this view one morning after spending the night in a rural community. This one has to be worth more than 1,000 words, I’m convinced.

I arrived in Mexico City a few nights ago and woke up the next morning in the MCC office guest rooms where I am still staying. Andrew, another SALTer in Mexico, and I are doing some in-country orientation for a few days before I take off to Chiapas to settle into my new life for the next year. I arrived in Mexico feeling supported and excited after spending a week in Akron, Pennsylvania at MCC’s Welcoming Place, or headquarters, for another orientation. That week was filled with information, reflection, and discussion, but what I’ll most likely remember besides my new friends is a basket of umbrellas. I’ll get to that, but let me back up for a second.

Mennonite Central Committee started as an idea in a basement Bible study in the early 1900s when a group of Mennonites in Elkhart, Indiana received correspondence that kindred Mennonites in Europe were starving. The group organized and delivered needed supplies, traversing miles and seas, to relieve a famine. Years later, after that project had become a memory and paperwork in storage files, the same Mennonites reinvented the “Mennonite Central Committee” with the goal of uniting Mennonites around the world with the common goal of providing assistance for all kinds of needs. That Bible study outreach project has since grown into a multinational organization that will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2020. Today, MCC works around the world in the areas of relief, development, and peacebuilding, serving people of all nations and faiths.

As time has passed, some things about MCC have changed. When J. Ron Byler, the executive director of MCC US talked to us about MCC’s history and work during orientation, he described MCC’s work today as being relationship rich and program poor. For example, my work with MCC will be to support a local organization in southern Mexico that works with migration. Instead of creating its own program in southern Mexico, MCC formed a local relationship and supports work already being done by people who are experts in the context because it’s their home. This relational thing seems to be big for MCC.

Here’s where the umbrellas come in. At the door of every building on the Welcoming Place campus is a basket filled with umbrellas. Next to each basket is a sign that says something like, ‘if you need an umbrella to get to another building, borrow one of these and leave it in the basket at the door of where you are going.’ It seemed to me such a simple way of encouraging people to trust each other. If I used one of those umbrellas, I felt responsible for not losing it or misplacing it because I knew that other people at the Welcoming Place might also need it. In the same way, I could trust that I didn’t need to bring an umbrella with me everywhere because the whole campus had a shared set. I thought that this simple umbrella-sharing system seemed to hint at something larger.

Living in community and building relationships requires one to take risks. I could have easily lost one of those umbrellas, and hypothetically MCC could one day be without any umbrellas at all if that continued to happen. However, the sense of community and trust that a shared umbrella system creates is clearly more valuable to MCC than the risk of needing to occasionally purchase new umbrellas when folks lose them. If MCC is willing to take a risk to build community, I wondered what I am willing to take risks for. I imagine that this year will be full of risks for me, and that is an idea that I am getting used to. However, I know that some risks are worth taking because the journey I will walk this year has been walked before. The first MCCers, who took a risk to feed their starving brethren, found confidence by reading stories in their Bible study of someone who took a risk centuries before to “bring good news to the poor… proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, [and] to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18) Some risks are worth it. I can’t predict what this year will hold for me, but I hope that when given the chance to take a risk in order to see this “good news” I will take it.

I am thrilled to serve with Mennonite Central Committee in Chiapas, Mexico with the SALT (Serving and Learning Together) program starting in August 2017. As a migration program assistant, I will support an MCC partner in San Cristobal de las Casas that promotes the organization and expression of indigenous migrants. After spending three years living just north of the US-Mexico border, I am excited to experience life on the other side.

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