Una Boda y un Funeral

Leaving the house to run one morning, I saw these two (1.) caballos perched right outside our door. It´s just not something you see every day!

¡Saludos! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was about as good as could be expected for celebrating it in a foreign country with a bunch of Mexicans who don´t understand anything about it and don´t like any of our food : ) Not wanting to be alone that day, I invited some people from la iglesia to celebrate with me. Seven came. I explained to them a little about the origins of the holiday and our customs, we ate, and they left. Nothing special. It turned out all right, but the worst part is that we had no turkey, nor stuffing, nor pumpkin pie! So I can´t wait to eat those foods as soon as I get home! I had also planned to make (attempt) a pumpkin pie for my clase de inglés, but so many of the ingredients we take for granted are very hard to come by here--pumpkins and pie crust included. (2.) ¡Ni modos!

Funerals, like so many things, are muy diferente aquí. The first Mexican funeral I experienced was actually for a man I never knew (that´s a long story). But nevertheless, it served as a learning process for me. First, we arrived at the house of some of his family members, where they had closed off the street to cars and where several people were already seated outside on the driveway. Yes, the coffin was at a house and not a funeral home. Remember when I said that they have a worship service for everything here? Well, funerals and weddings are no different. So, just like in a typical Sunday morning service, we had a prayer, three songs, the sermon, three more songs, and another prayer. Cesar, the preacher in Cintalapa, is still very young and had only preached for one other funeral before this one, but I thought he did an excellent job. He had the privilege to baptize the man just a few weeks before his death. But something that really struck me was that he did not mention anything about the man´s (3.) vida or accomplishments or what kind of person he was, only about the need to prepare ourselves to go to (4.) el cielo, etc. I asked mi novio about it, who at first acted like it was one of the silliest things he had ever heard. He said they never say any of those things because, ¨What if the person wasn´t a good person?¨

What was (5.) raro about this particular funeral is that after our service, the Baptists also had a (5b.) culto. Normally there is only one sermon, but evidently the family consisted of both baptists and christians who could not agree on which preacher to ask so decided to ask both of them. Then we continued singing for about another hora. Finally, as I was falling asleep at 1:30 a.m., José Luis and I left, but the others remained for several more horas. Another custom is for the (6.) vistantes to stay with la familia singing and praying all night. Some of the Baptist men even brought playing cards and beer to help them pass the tiempo. Then, around 7 or 8 in la mañana, everyone walks together from la casa (or wherever the coffin is) to the burial site. They then have another worship service before talking with the family one last time and heading home. I also asked José Luis if they walk because so many people don´t have carros, and he responded that no, they just do that as a sign of (7.) respeto.

The following semana we witnessed the wedding of two young cristianos, Sofi y Jorge. Jorge is one of the preaching students at the school here in San Cristobal, and Sofi is the computer teacher (and (8.) la hermana of Cesar). Everyone at church felt so honored and excited to attend because good christian couples are so hard to come by here in Mexico. Most couples choose to get married in a recreation hall here rather than a church becuase, by law, they must have a civil wedding with a judge and four witnesses. But the civil wedding cannot take place in una iglesia, so they often decide to kill two birds with one stone rather than have two separate ceremonies. Everyone stands outside the building and waits for the bride and groom to enter together, but it is really anticlimactic compared to our traditions. They do not cheer anything and there is no (9.) música, (although in this particular (10.) boda the guests sang (11.) un himno as they entered.) Then (12.) los novios sit at a table in the front of the room, (13.) el juez comes and reads the long, boring court document, and los novios and all the witnesses sign every page. Next comes the worship service and the final prayer, then the guests eat and go home. Just as (14.) los predicadores do not say anything about the deceased during a funeral, they also do not say anything about los novios during a boda--just talk about the importance of loving one another (14b.) siempre and helping each other through difficult times, etc.--for about una hora. The copules do not read vowels or poems, and very few of them give rings. But, at least they serve a full meal instead of our measly hordourves! By the way, it´s also not customary for los padres de (15.) la novia to pay for everything. Instead, the couple asks friends and family members they know well to serve as ¨padrinos¨by paying for certain parts. (I.E. one persona is padrino del salón and pays to rent the salón, another is padrino of the video, another of the cake, etc.) And they do not have bridemaids and groomsmen, nor rehearsal dinners! They feel like there is no need for them (16.) practicar because every (17.) ceremonia is always exactly the same (with the church service taking up most of el tiempo and los novios saying very little.)

This past (18.) fin de semana three Americans came to visit. One of the men helps support David, and he also gave money for the church in ¨Larainzar¨to construct a new edificio. (I do not remember his apellido, so we will call him ¨Dr. John.¨) If you remember from past blogs, students come from Larainzar for the Saturday school here. I teach them English for two hours, and Chantel prepares their lunch. Larainzar is a small indiginous community about 30 miles from here. Many of the residents (including some of my students) do not speak any Spanish, only their indiginous language. They are very exculded from the rest of the world, but I think that´s how they prefer it. For example, even though they live so close to us, they do not observe daylight savings time like we do, they eat many different foods (sometimes only tortillas and beans), and they don´t have a clue what´s going on in the rest of the world. They also don´t greet each other with the customary kiss on the cheek like most other mexicans. Not knowing that, I leaned in to kiss one of my especially shy girl students on Saturday, and she instantly backed away in fright while the men around her laughed. The women all wear white, stitched blouses and black, wool skirts, while some of the men wear a white ¨shorts¨suit. So it´s practically a miracle that Dr. John ever discovered la congregación there--a congregation that was previously desperately in need of support due to all their poverty.

Here are pictures of some of my students from Larainzar working hard in our clase de inglés: (By the way, the little girl is not one of my students. She just comes with (19.) los demas.)

Anyway, the reason Dr. John and his esposa and amigo came from Mississippi was to see the new edificio. La congregación held a special worship service on Saturday to celebrate el nuevo edificio, with Dr. John as the guest speaker. Although he speaks pretty good Spanish, uno de los hombres had to translate the sermon into xochil (or whatever the name of their idioma is!) It was the first time for me to hear a Spanish sermon translated into a language other than English. Many of the members from San Cristobal were able to attend, as well as some from other congregations. One characteristic that has really impressed me about los cristianos aquí is their willingness to work with and support sister congregations (certainly more than we could say about most congregaciones in the U.S.!) Despite the distance, I really think about 60% of our congregation attended. The building is very cool and spacious and now lacks only (20.) las ventanas y (21.) la puerta. Dr. John also has big plans to add a medical clinic above the church building. (I will show fotos of the building the next time, as I have not uploaded them to (22.) la computadora yet.) For Larainzar to be such a small pueblo, the congregation there is really quite large (especially for Mexico), with about 100 miembros and 50 niños. (Yes, 50 niños! Hats off to the one lady who volunteers to teach all 50 of them in the same class for two hours!) But, like other Latin American congregations as well, las mujeres outnumber los homres about 4 to 1.

I want to give a special shout out to all my fellow 20-somethings for the notes of encouragement. (I finished reading them a while ago but am just now remembering to mention it : ) I took your advice of reading only one note at a time on the days when I felt the most discouraged, and luckily I didn´t have too many of those days so it actually took me longer to read all of them than I thought it would. Also to Emilie Shannon and friends for the letters! I haven´t actually gotten them yet, but the folks at Global Missions are supposed to be enclosing them when they send another package. So hopefully they will come any day now!

Random Comments:

I bought tortillas from the tortilleria today--yet another ¨rite of passage¨that made me feel like a bonified Mexican!

Two people in two days have asked if Chantel is my sister (even though we look nothing alike!) It´s like they can´t understand why two Americans would be living together down here if they´re not related!

¡Hasta luego!

1. horses 2. Oh well 3. life 4. heaven 5. rare 5b. worship service 6. visitors 7. respect 8. the sister 9. music 10. wedding 11. a hymn 12. the boyfriend and girlfriend/the fianceés 13. the judge 14. the preachers 14b. always 15. the girlfriend 16. to practice 17. ceremony 18. weekend 19. the others 20. the windows 21. the door 22. the computer

Algunas Profesiones:

1. arquitécto (architect)

2. mecánico (mechanic)

3. recepcionista (receptionist)

4. abogado (lawyer)

5. enfermera (nurse)

6. médico/doctor (doctor)

7. actor (acter)

8. actriz (actress)

9. trabajador de construcción (construction worker)

10. pintor (painter)

11. escritor (writer)

12. periodísta (journalist)

13. peluquera (hairdresser/barber)

14. bailarina (dancer)

15. conserje (janitor)