Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Sadness and Disbelief
It is with great sadness and disbelief that we read about the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine. Thousands of injured, hundreds of dead. I read with new eyes about the deaths of children as I hear Clara playfully sucking on her hands next to me. I try, but fail, to imagine what it must be like to be trapped in one of the most densely populated areas on earth, Gaza, while death and destruction rain from the sky. Surrounded by the wall and unable to run to anywhere safe, starving, without power or water, what would we do? I simply cannot imagine. I would hope that Clara would be too small to know what she is seeing and hearing - but how can we know what war does to the soul of a child? The thought brings tears to my eyes.
We are saddened to know that the USA is in part funding this war. We thank God that our government does not sell Hamas the hundreds of rockets that fly into Southern Israel, but our government does sell or just donate a huge majority of the bombs, weapons, and concrete that are used to kill and imprison Palestinians. One third of all US foreign aid goes to Israel, and the majority of that is in weaponry or wall construction. How can this be? How can we support this?
We cannot believe that despite the innocent dead and injured, the blockade of humanitarian aid, medicine, food, electricity, gas, and even journalists, our elected officials refuse to demand anything of Israel. We have called our senators and congressfolk and president, begging for a response, for humanitarian aid, for anything resembling human decency - but it seems our words fall on blocked ears. Are our voices too small, or perhaps our petitions for food and medicine are too great for a government only able to sell and give the bombs that fall?
Clara now has somehow got her stuffed bear balancing on the top of her head. I thank God that we awoke in a land whose US funded 36 year civil war ended 12 years ago. But thanking God for our own good luck is not enough. Not when we are citizens of a nation whose tax dollars pay for bombs and barriers, not when our privately spent dollars support companies complicit in the oppression of people in Guatemala or Palestine or anywhere. We struggle to know what to do from here, or maybe more importantly, what not to - in the meantime maybe we'll call our senator just one more time.
We are saddened to know that the USA is in part funding this war. We thank God that our government does not sell Hamas the hundreds of rockets that fly into Southern Israel, but our government does sell or just donate a huge majority of the bombs, weapons, and concrete that are used to kill and imprison Palestinians. One third of all US foreign aid goes to Israel, and the majority of that is in weaponry or wall construction. How can this be? How can we support this?
We cannot believe that despite the innocent dead and injured, the blockade of humanitarian aid, medicine, food, electricity, gas, and even journalists, our elected officials refuse to demand anything of Israel. We have called our senators and congressfolk and president, begging for a response, for humanitarian aid, for anything resembling human decency - but it seems our words fall on blocked ears. Are our voices too small, or perhaps our petitions for food and medicine are too great for a government only able to sell and give the bombs that fall?
Clara now has somehow got her stuffed bear balancing on the top of her head. I thank God that we awoke in a land whose US funded 36 year civil war ended 12 years ago. But thanking God for our own good luck is not enough. Not when we are citizens of a nation whose tax dollars pay for bombs and barriers, not when our privately spent dollars support companies complicit in the oppression of people in Guatemala or Palestine or anywhere. We struggle to know what to do from here, or maybe more importantly, what not to - in the meantime maybe we'll call our senator just one more time.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
To Mexico: There and Back Again
We headed out for the Mexican border on Thursday morning at 7am. We were driven by Gino, who has worked for the parish for over 20 years. We took his small 1970's car. Supposedly if a Guatemalan owns their own car, they can get 72 hour passes into Mexico. We planned to head to San Cristobal in Chiapas, Mexico - about 2 hours inside the border.
Road trip!
Clara tests out her carseat.
We made it to the border after about 7 hours of winding roads through the highlands of Western Guatemala. At the highest point of the journey Gino told us that they call that part of the country "Alaska" because its so cold.
At the border we found ourselves in a bustling town called La Mesilla. We came up to the customs building and I headed in with Gino while Lois and Clara waited in the car. It turned out that Gino could cross the border with his car, but only if he stayed in the town on the other side of the border, he wasn't going to be able to travel. I guess we were supposed to pay a bribe at this point too, but we had already decided that we weren't going to do that. So now what? I asked the customs officer how long we had to stay in Mexico before coming back for a renewed visa. He asked why we needed to come back so soon - when I explained that we had a 4 month old in the car, that our driver couldn't continue, and that we were volunteers and preferred not to travel anyway, he said, "Just head over to Mexico, get your stamp, pay your exit tax, and come on back. Thanks for being a volunteer."
So we did just that. Between the two customs areas there was about 2 miles of road, so Gino was able to drive us into Mexico, where we filled out our customs forms, got our stamps, went back to the end of the line, waited, and then paid our "exit" tax, got an exit stamp, and back we went to Guatemala. Our 20 minutes in Mexico.
(A quick aside - the only other time I've been to Mexico was about 5 years ago when I accidently ended up in Mexico City while trying to get to Bolivia - long story. Regardless I flew in from Miami, had some problems in customs and with my seat on my connecting flight, and ended up flying back to Miami after about 8 hours. If the Mexico government ever were to look into my travel history, they might wonder at my reasons for visiting them.)
We made it!
By the time we got everything arranged and stamped and paid, it was about 3:30pm - so we drove back as far as Huehuetenango, spent the night in a hotel, and eventually made it to San Lucas at about noon yesterday with another 90 days of legal immigration.
Road trip!
Clara tests out her carseat.
We made it to the border after about 7 hours of winding roads through the highlands of Western Guatemala. At the highest point of the journey Gino told us that they call that part of the country "Alaska" because its so cold.
At the border we found ourselves in a bustling town called La Mesilla. We came up to the customs building and I headed in with Gino while Lois and Clara waited in the car. It turned out that Gino could cross the border with his car, but only if he stayed in the town on the other side of the border, he wasn't going to be able to travel. I guess we were supposed to pay a bribe at this point too, but we had already decided that we weren't going to do that. So now what? I asked the customs officer how long we had to stay in Mexico before coming back for a renewed visa. He asked why we needed to come back so soon - when I explained that we had a 4 month old in the car, that our driver couldn't continue, and that we were volunteers and preferred not to travel anyway, he said, "Just head over to Mexico, get your stamp, pay your exit tax, and come on back. Thanks for being a volunteer."
So we did just that. Between the two customs areas there was about 2 miles of road, so Gino was able to drive us into Mexico, where we filled out our customs forms, got our stamps, went back to the end of the line, waited, and then paid our "exit" tax, got an exit stamp, and back we went to Guatemala. Our 20 minutes in Mexico.
(A quick aside - the only other time I've been to Mexico was about 5 years ago when I accidently ended up in Mexico City while trying to get to Bolivia - long story. Regardless I flew in from Miami, had some problems in customs and with my seat on my connecting flight, and ended up flying back to Miami after about 8 hours. If the Mexico government ever were to look into my travel history, they might wonder at my reasons for visiting them.)
We made it!
By the time we got everything arranged and stamped and paid, it was about 3:30pm - so we drove back as far as Huehuetenango, spent the night in a hotel, and eventually made it to San Lucas at about noon yesterday with another 90 days of legal immigration.
The Good and Bad of Guatemala City
On Monday I headed into Guatemala City with two goals. The first and most important was to pick up Clara's passport. Back in mid-December we brought Clara to the US embassy to register her for citizenship and get her documents. That was actually our second attempt to register her. The first time we made it about an hour down the road, only to be stopped by roadblocks and protests at our intersection with the interstate - absolutely no way through. So we had to reschedule. Regardless we finally made it to the embassy, only to be locked out for another hour due to more protests at the embassy. People were protesting what they see as the US taking advantage of their economy via "free trade". So we finally made it in, and after being made to feel like criminals in our own embassy, Clara's registration was accepted - then we had to wait at least 2 weeks to pick up her passport and birth certificate.
So, on Monday we went to pick it up. And, Success! It was much less of a hassle this time with no protests and no needing to prove that Clara is actually our daughter and a US citizen. Her passport picture is very cute and kind of funny to see with all the offical US embosments, etc. It is good for 5 years. We are imagining traveling when she is 4 years old and showing them a passport with a 3 month old picture on it!
Yay! I got my passport!
The bad news is that we went to Guatemalan migration to see if we could get an extension on our visa. The Guatemalan travelors visa is only good 3 months, so we either had to renew or leave the country. We renewed back in September after our first three months, and we had heard you could only renew one time. But because Clara is still pretty small and because we are volunteers and because the bishop of our diocese down here wrote a very kindly worded letter, we thought we might be able to renew again. But, Denied! They wouldn't do it. Some people told us that we should have handed them an unmarked envelope with money in it for a bribe and it would have gone fine. But other people have told us that the Colom government hired all new officials in migration to cut back on corruption. Rather than risk time in prison or encourage a system of bribary we accepted our fate and began planning a quick trip to Mexico.
Yay! My first trip!
So, on Monday we went to pick it up. And, Success! It was much less of a hassle this time with no protests and no needing to prove that Clara is actually our daughter and a US citizen. Her passport picture is very cute and kind of funny to see with all the offical US embosments, etc. It is good for 5 years. We are imagining traveling when she is 4 years old and showing them a passport with a 3 month old picture on it!
Yay! I got my passport!
The bad news is that we went to Guatemalan migration to see if we could get an extension on our visa. The Guatemalan travelors visa is only good 3 months, so we either had to renew or leave the country. We renewed back in September after our first three months, and we had heard you could only renew one time. But because Clara is still pretty small and because we are volunteers and because the bishop of our diocese down here wrote a very kindly worded letter, we thought we might be able to renew again. But, Denied! They wouldn't do it. Some people told us that we should have handed them an unmarked envelope with money in it for a bribe and it would have gone fine. But other people have told us that the Colom government hired all new officials in migration to cut back on corruption. Rather than risk time in prison or encourage a system of bribary we accepted our fate and began planning a quick trip to Mexico.
Yay! My first trip!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
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