It Takes More Than One Wing To Fly Straight

Over the past few months we have met hundreds of people here in the Ulpan Valley.  Not surprisingly, the ones we have gotten to know the best generally fall into two groups:

1. People who live near us, and
2. People we work with frequently

And a few people fall into both categories.  This post is about three of them - Juan, Ignacio, and Arturo, and how similar they are to people and groups we know in the United States.

To describe anyone in just a few sentences is doing them (as well as the describer) a disservice because you wind up stereotyping or gossiping or overgeneralizing.  But over the past few weeks, as I have gotten to know these men and worked alongside them, I have become fascinated with their different talents and different approaches to life.  It makes we wonder if the lasting effect of our time here will be mixing people together who ordinarily wouldn't be interacting very much.

Juan is very motivated and seizes opportunities to make things better for him and his family.  In fact, he sold us the land the Project Ulpan facilities are located on so that he could benefit from a long-term relationship.  When the initial water system was constructed in Benitzul, he made sure that the line ran to his house and there was a good supply there, and when opportunities to serve on things like solar panel committees, water committees, etc., present themselves, you can rest assured that he or his wife will be a part of that.  He is respected in the community, but not completely well-liked because of his assertiveness.  It's almost an elbow-you-outta-my-way sort of assertiveness, but this community would be less than it is without him in it. 

Ignacio, on the other hand, is very quiet and meek - so much so that it's often difficult to even hear him speak.  I think that he is like the majority of the people here in that way.  He works and never complains, but works at a slower pace than others, and they notice that.  A couple of weeks ago, he came to visit and you could tell that he was very timid about what was on his mind.  He was asking if we could help him with a water situation near his house and it took him close to a half hour of "I hate to bother you" to get to that point.  Incidentally, the water situation he wanted help with was a location in a cave where many people crawl down 100 feet of mud to get water (including an 80-year old woman - everyday).  A few weeks ago, a rock fell and killed a woman doing her laundry.  The end result of this is that we will be installing a solar powered pump here and actually using it to augment the water system, including the portion near Juan's house.  I hope to post pictures of an 80-year old woman getting water at her house for the first time ever in the next few weeks.  Ignacio has helped us with some other situations here and is a true friend, but if everyone were like him in the Valley, I fear not much would ever get done, even though it would be a very peaceful place.

Arturo is one of the few people in the Valley who everyone refers to as "Don", which in a very Godfather sort of way is a term of respect.  Even other communities know and respect him.  I do too.  He is illiterate and barely speaks Spanish, but he is the local resource from everything ranging from horticulture to knot-tying to construction.  If there is something that needs to be done in the community, he will be the first one there and the last one to leave.  He shares his food and his very limited goods with, as best I can tell, everyone.  He serves on virtually every committee in the community, but it comes across more as "service" than "what do I have to gain by doing this?"

At this point in the post, it is tempting to create some analogy like: God doesn't want us to be like Ignacio because he wants us to tend the field and improve things, but he doesn't want us to use our success for our own benefit like Juan - he wants us to share and be like Arturo.  Some or all of that may be true, but maybe the lesson here isn't necessarily that Person A needs to be more like Person B, or that Person C is better than A and B because he is a blend of their gifts.  Maybe the lesson is that Person A needs to be put in situations where they can learn from Person B, or Person B needs to be put in situations where his talents complement those of Person C.  I think we get too hung up on trying to change people into something they aren't, or trying to change ourselves into something we are not.  Instead, we could simply just accept that God put different people here for different reasons, and the end result can be beautiful.  It can also be chaos.



All this to say - from 1000 miles away the whole "Occupy" thing seems strangely reminiscent of what we are trying to end here - where people mistakenly believe that they don't need other people, regardless of what "percent" you find yourself.  After watching an infant be buried yesterday and two others in small communities die in the past week, I feel like inviting a team of Wall Street bankers and occupy-ers to come to the Ulpan Valley for a week and pour some concrete and fit some waterlines together and work with men like Ignacio, Juan and Arturo.  In each their own way, I think the three of them would be able to teach such a team quite a bit.

Here is Ignacio showing me the cave that will be a new water source for the west end of Benitzul and the east end of Esquipulas.  We're 100 feet below the walking path here, and the next rock that falls here I want to hit a concrete box with a pump inside and not a human being.

This was sunrise out our front door a few days ago.  Not really pertinent to this post, but I just kinda thought it was pretty.