I just attended in a different part of our continent.
I guess I missed the football poll in Vinton.
I'd apologize to my team, but the truth is my scores are so low they never miss me. Much.
It was a leap of faith to arrange this visit ahead of time, long distance and in my halting Spanish, through the gracious, loquacious and dynamic Lions District Governor, Blanca Luz Wug.
And I talked Sue into going with me, possibly at her peril.
We stood on the corner of 5th Avenida Sur, outside Antigua Bicylce Co-op and Old Town Outfitters,
holding Salina's projector and my bag with the cracked ipad (with gifts for our hosts: Lions pins from Iowa, braille bookmarks featuring Mary Ingalls and a panoramic of downtown Vinton) wondering if we looked mug-able, waiting for two women in a vehicle. Trying not to panic as the minutes ticked by.
Surely I had the time and place right.
Surely they would find us and we would recognize each other.
And hopefully the slide show I had painstakingly prepared - in Spanish - introducing us and Vinton Lions, would actually work on the borrowed projector powered by my cracked i-pad.
Sure enough, an hour later (welcome to Guatemala, Brian would say) there they were, having fought their way through some untimely bad traffic from Guatemala City to Antigua: the lively, silver-haired Asian/Ladino (meaning Spanish descent) septuagenarian named Blanca and her neice, the gracious, intrepid and capable driver (and translator!! more good fortune!!), Irene.
They would take us to Chimaltenango to meet the Lions there, a half-hour drive from Antigua
.
And we'd be back at the appointed time to meet the ever-accomodating Brian, who would drive us back up the steep and narrow 7KM path in the dark, so we could hike, in the dark, down the 300+ yard descent to our beds at Earth Lodge.
We jumped in the back seat and congratulated ourselves on our good fortune to be acquainted with these two interesting, educated, articulate business women and to learn more about their lives and country.
Irene is a dual U.S. citizen, having recently returned to Guatemala City to assist her aging mother (and her aunt) after living and working many years in the U.S. She had just been back to the States to vote in the election. Irene retired from Delta Airlines. Her mother worked for the U.N. for 50 years.
Blanca, as it turned out, is a widow and owns a (rural, obviously) rubber plantation some distance from her apartments in Guatemala City. She goes there a couple of times a month to manage the finances. She too is intrepid, traveling broadly in her volunteer role with Lions and keeping an active social life with family and friends.
We were really enjoying the conversation with both women, but eventually it occurred to Sue and me, there in the back seat, that half an hour had stretched into an hour. and fifteen minutes.
Surely we were well past our destination. Where were we and where were we going??
Welcome to Guatemala, where time stands still, no one is ever too late,
life starts at dusk, and agendas are flexible.
Absorbing the scenery and towns we passed through in the gathering darkness, we traveled on.
For another hour.
With Irene's intercession, we learned were headed to see some wonderfully painted wall murals in a village farther up into the mountains.
In a smallish town we caught glimpses of the work of skilled painters, and finally we seemed to be stopping at the curb.
This was San Juan Comolapa, and Blanca, with a masters degree in art restoration, was sharing a national treasure with us.
Evidently the local women specialize in weaving and the men in painting. Local artists have household galleries. The town gained its reputation by the work of Andres Curchich who rose to international fame for paintings depicting local village life, but the largest and most notable artwork was painted by a collaboration of local artists. Incredibly rich murals line the cemetary wall depicting the history of Guatemala, from the Mayan creation story to the Spanish conquest and, more recently, Guatemala's 30-year civil war.
Below, photos I found on line, just a sliver of what there is to see in Comolapa in the daytime:
Blanca hopped out of the car and disappeared into a hotel.
We learned she was checking out its suitability for a group of Mormon adolescents from Utah whose parents were sending them to "work from dawn to dusk" building a wall and painting a mural on it, with Blanca making the arrangements.
Okay!
Back down the mountain we went, ending our now four-hour car trip in the mid-sized city/town Chimlatenango where we searched for the Lions' meeting place in the same directionally-challenged round-about manner I use here at home.
We arrived at a little after 8:00 but we weren't the last to arrive for the 7 pm. meeting.
Welcome to Guatemala.
Our hosts were 20-some members of a new club (three years old), the president a local doctor with a wonderfully warm smile. The members were mostly professionals, I think, and both male and female. My language teacher (the week before) advised me that the term for actual female lions, leonas, is not appropriate for club members. Evidently it is slang for ladies of the evening.
So their female club members are called Damas de Leones.
I felt right at home.
Ages were from late 20s to retired. Some were married couples, but not all. One couple helped a great deal with translation, he said they live half the year in Arizona and half in Chimaltenango.
They welcomed us warmly and presented me with a Leones de Chimaltenango pin, a swan, the emblem of their city.
Evidently some of the pins they ordered went missing in the postal service,
but I will treasure this one.
Their club is justifiably proud of their accomplishments in three short years. Among other things, they have hosted successful social fundraisers, built a much needed school bathroom, helped provide fortified rice and vitamins to 30 families in Santa Cruz Balanya and recently helped a man with hospital expenses and medicine for his cancer surgery. During the meeting the President spoke with the man's grateful son by cell phone, putting him on speaker as he described his father's progress and thanked the club.
And they served us fresh homemade traditional Guatemalan treats, a tamale and a delicious small fried pocket (pastry? bread?) filled with, I think, half plantain and half chocolate.
My nervousness over the passage of time prompted me to launch quickly into the slide show. They had a screen at the ready and, miracle of miracle, everything worked.
Along with the visuals, my Spanish was evidently adequate to tell them about Sue and myself, about my reasons for coming to Antigua (new grandbaby for starters) and in some detail about Iowa, our Lions club, its 80+ year history, fundraisers and service projects, right up to and including the focus of Lions on vision issues and the history of the Iowa Braille School in Vinton.
They recognized the name Ingalls on the bookmarks, from the television series "Life on the Prairie."
I imagine it is our Little House series with subtitles or dubbed Spanish. Small world.
We took photos, including some that mirrored my club (above) saying "hola" and "hello" in the slide show. They got a kick out of that.
The woman with the red top and black jacket
spoke English and helped translate,
and that is
Blanca Luz Wug,
the Lions District Governor (our primary hostess) in the pink and blue.
I was touched by their hospitality and by their sincere desire and efforts to serve their community. They truly care. With privilege comes responsibility.
Their meeting continued, probably followed by further socializing, as we hurried off into the night
bound by my North American sense of time.
When Blanca and Irene dropped us off in Antigua's Parque Central to meet Brian, we could see the two women discussing their next stops, probably the social visits to Antigua friends predicted by Irene. They still had a considerable drive back home to Guatemala city and they live in opposite ends there. It was going to be a long night for them. It was a wonderful journey for us.
