How I came to lie to an entire group of peace builders
Sheesh. Last week was a full one for me. I was stretched and shaped and shocked without a bit of time or mental energy to blog.
I spent 2½ days at a violence prevention workshop through an organization called Alternatives to Violence where a motley crew of gringas, Guatemaltecos, and Mayas joined together to find ways to cultivate peace and alternatives to violence in our respective relationships, families, and communities. We shared 20 hours of team building and conflict resolution, complete with improvised socio-dramas, exercises in empathy, and even trust falls ALL IN SPANISH.
Forced bonding with strangers is not particularly high up on my list of hobbies and interests when I’m communicating in my native tongue; small talking in Spanish is a different beast entirely. I’ve found that I’ve acquired the aggravating level of Spanish where I can understand most of what is spoken to me, but I just so happen to forget everything I’ve ever learned whenever I am asked a question, only to remember exactly how I should have worded my response two minutes after the person I was speaking with has left the room.
So on Tuesday when we were asked to break into small groups for a conflict resolution activity, I was already feeling a bit tongue-tied and insecure. Then came the kicker: I was put on the spot to share a personal story of how I’ve diffused a potentially violent situation in my own life in Spanish.
So what did I do?
I panicked.
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and verb charts flashed before my eyes in an onslaught of subjunctives as I racked my brain for stories of potential violence from my inopportunely peaceful life.
I told the group I didn’t really have a violent story to share and thought I was going to be let off the hook. But then they started prodding me, have you ever had a problem with your family? Have you had a problem at work? they asked.
Yes, yes, I’ve had a misunderstanding at work, I schemed, I mean thought. I could tell them about a misunderstanding with my boss. Only I didn’t know how to say misunderstanding. I could say conflict though—close enough.
So I started telling a woefully uneventful story about a conflict with my boss. I wanted to say that there was a miscommunication and that I felt unappreciated. What came out of my mouth in Spanish was a different story entirely.
After I fumbled through saying that my boss and I met with human resources, I tried to think of a good way to end my tale. In real life the story ended quite peaceably. We talked it out. The problem was resolved. No hard feelings.
Only the problem of recounting the story in Spanish to my eager groupmates remained.
During the slight hesitation in which I was internally conjugating resolve into the past perfect tense, a group member helpfully offered up an alternate ending to my classic tale of exploited worker vs. vindictive boss:
“Él fue despedido?” “He was fired?” he asked in such perfectly conjugated and impeccably pronounced Spanish that I found myself nodding my head emphatically in agreement. My compañeros beamed at me, obviously impressed with my gumption, and I basked in the accomplishment of a story well told for an entire two seconds before I realized that my story was in no way true. I have never had a boss fired nor have I ever wanted that to happen.
But it was too late. One group member began writing my fantastic story on a big piece of paper to share with the rest of the groups. My lie was going to be the example!
I watched in an awkward blend of pride and horror as my groupmate recounted my story to everyone in the room. I thanked God that only the friend I came with would see through my fabricated fable. She gave me a quizzical, confused look; I just smiled and shrugged as they moved on to the next group’s harrowing tale.
So that is how I came to lie to an entire group of peace builders. However, the point of the story isn’t that I lied or that I am learning to lie. The point of the story is that I’m learning to communicate, and it’s hard work in any language. Second language acquisition isn’t just an academic endeavor; it’s a daily surrender to grace, humility, and sometimes even a smidge of humiliation. Some days my Spanish takes one step forward and two steps toward two-faced, but, more importantly, I’m learning to fumble through. To keep going. To keep trying. To force some pitiful syllables out of my mouth when it would be much easier to stay silent. To disengage.
Throughout the 2½ day workshop, I was shown such grace by my fellow participants. They were patient with me, teaching me to be patient with myself. They were loving with me, reinforcing that my self worth is not measured in the smart things I can say. That there are other ways to connect and bond and engage. To show empathy. To share in excitement. To build friendship.
Except for the one little lying incident, the workshop showed me that people from all different socio-economic backgrounds, who speak different languages, claim different faith traditions and varying ethnicities can still work together. We can use our actions and what little words we have to build greater peace and understanding. And that is not a lie.
A Case of the Hope-days
Wow. I don't know if you've noticed, but the blogosphere has been blowing up with one word lately: hope. Last week I had the amazing privilege of joining in the Hope 2012 Blog Relay by sharing my thoughts on how I've recently seen hope and hope to see hope (meta, yeah?) in Guatemala.
Today Melanie Crutchfield, mastermind behind the Hope relay, concluded the event with a mesmerizing sampling of posts from the last few weeks.
Please, please, please check out the "collective chronicles of hope, written elegantly, poignantly, hilariously, irreverently, and devoutly by you crazy-amazing hordes of writers" by clicking
Here
And thank you to Adrian Waller for not dropping the baton that I hastily shoved into his bloggy hands. He contributed a fabulous post at Life Before the Bucket.
What are you waiting for? Get reading and catch a case of the hope-days.
Guatemala: A Hope Offering
This post is part of the Hope 2012 Blog Relay started by the indomitable Melanie Crutchfield and the not-so-subtle nudge from my wonderful mentor and friend, Melissa Tucker. The basic premise, you guessed it, is to write about hope.
So hope, the enemy of self-respecting cynics the world over. What could a sarcastic-around-the-edges gringa possibly have to say about hope from the city of La Antigua, Guatemala?
Thus far my life here has been idyllic. Each morning I've attended one-on-one language classes where every stunted phrase I've uttered in Spanish has been reinforced with a friendly nod and a "Buen trabajo" from my encouraging teacher. I've spent my afternoons meandering the cobblestone streets while sliding slippery mangos from plastic bags onto my tastebuds rapt with anticipation. I pass women in colorful woven skirts and tops pressing their palms together in the pat-pat-pat of tortilla making. The city of Antigua, where poverty is smoothed over by smiles and tourists just like the renovated facades of its 16th century architecture, makes a postcard perfect backdrop for the next year of my life.
In Antigua, the souvenirs, the coffee, and the bars are easy to find. It's the tumultuous history and subsequent signs of hope and reconciliation you have to go looking for.
I don't know how much you know about Guatemalan history, but for over 30 years, from 1960 to 1996, Guatemala was entrenched in brutal civil war. When I visited Guatemala during my semester abroad, we visited an organization committed to helping people who had lost friends and relatives in the civil war. Not an organization so much as a support group, un apoyo mutuo. Hundreds of portraits lined the walls. There were young men, old men, fat men, some merely boys. All were missing. Gone.
Desaparecidos. Disappeared.
As the leader, an indigenous woman wearing a crumpled grey skirt as crinkled as her wrinkled, weary eyes, described the group’s brave and somber purpose, I snuck back to the bathroom. I returned during the question and answer segment. I had just slid into my cold, metal chair when one of my classmates asked the question we’d all wanted to know.
“How many men have you found?” “Cuantos han encontrado?” The group was devoted to searching for the missing family members, los desaparecidos. Surely, some must have been reunited with their loved ones.
“Cero,” the woman stated matter-of-factly. “Zero.”
After the war, the Historical Clarification Commission estimated that “more than 200,000 people were killed — the vast majority ofwhom were civilian indigenous people.”
Six years later, the eyes that used to haunt me from these posters, the faces I used to call forth to justify my anger, the stories I used to tell to bash ignorant Americans, now implore me to look for a different reality. To look for hope in the scenery around me, in the life around me in Guatemala. If I allow myself to look deeper, to not be seduced by cheap tours, cheap drinks, and cheap Spanish classes, I think I will find this place I now call home to be a country of great hope. Hope against all odds. Reconciliation and healing and redemption against all odds.
If I look closely and sensitively enough, I will see that the woman wearing traje (the typical indigenous dress unique to each village and people group) isn’t just the source of my lunchtime tortillas (a gift in itself), but she is also a sign of hope.
I will see that the parade I witnessed this morning wasn't just a festive reason to yell and shout and dance, but was a symbol of the survival of a culture despite great adversity and discrimination in celebration called, Dia de los Mayas (Day of the Maya).
I will glimpse the magnitude of healing that has taken place as people who used to kill each other now walk down the same streets, shop in the same stores, and send their kids to the same schools in peace.
I will hear the Kaqchikel words a mother whispers to her wide eyed child in the dentist office not just with linguistic amusement, but with awe and gratitude that the syllables will be passed to the next generation. While driving through Guatemala City, I will see the Mayan flag waving from the palace as not just a splash of color in the cityscape, but as a sign of inclusion, a step toward reconciliation.
This year I have the chance not only to learn Spanish and eat mangos and dance salsa, but also to share meals with some very brave, very inspiring people, to hear stories of unbelievable horror and unbelievable healing, and to learn from a country that is, poco a poco, choosing hope.
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Fabulous blogger friends of mine... you interested? If you want to join the Hope Relay, let me know!
Adrian Waller: Life Before The Bucket
Caleb Wilde: Confessions of a Funeral Director