Day Five, Part 2: Boat-Dancing and Coffee-Drinking

This is the third blog this evening chronicling our SSTT field trip to Panajachel and the surrounding area.

The last major chunks of the structured field trip to Lago Atitlan included a journey from Santiago Atitlan to San Juan La Laguna, which involved another hour-long boat ride across the lake. The sun was shining and the vistas were gorgeous, and soon spontaneous dancing broke out above deck. The dancing was among the many thrills of the trip with this remarkable group of young people.

San Juan la Laguna is ideal for those wishing to get away from the bustle of the city. The town is filled with Mayan people of the ethnicity Tz’utujil. We walked up the steep slope to La Voz que Clama en el Desierto (“The Voice that Cries in the Wilderness”), a coffee coop that has about three hundred members. Local farmers started the coop about six years ago to practice coffee production at the ultimate end of environmental correctness: coffee is grown among dense, bird-sheltering native trees and plants. We had lunch at the co-op’s cafe and then — though it was pouring rain — about half the group went on a tour through the coffee plantation. Since it was still pouring late in the afternoon, we took tuk-tuks back to the artisan markets on the slope before re-boarding the boat for a moist trip back to Panajachel. The group was exhausted, and stayed close to our hotel Friday evening.

This morning (Saturday) we had another excellent breakfast at the same hotel as Friday morning, then had free time before heading back to Guatemala City. We stopped along the way for an amazing grilled dinner at a restaurant before arriving back at SEMILLA around 5 p.m. After dinner we had worship led by Cade, Diana, Zoe and Nicolas. The group did several interactive exercises from camp experiences before Nicolas did a delightful interpretive dance routine to “Jesus Loves Me.” The worship leading group extended the spectrum exercises we had done for our orientation back on Goshen College’s campus,  as we talked about where we had seen God during these days of travel, and whether we thought God planned the various disparities we had witnessed.

We ended the formal part of the day with a discussion led by Gloria and Peter about gender, both in Guatemalan and U.S. culture, and analyzing pyramids that lead to healthy relationships and positive dynamics among genders. Now, in late evening, we’re relaxing while preparing for worship tomorrow morning with Casa Horeb, a local Mennonite congregation.