Wednesday, July 21, 2010

´´Adrianne, I think we just got saved.¨

Adrianne and I came into town to buy a cake for our friend´s birthday tomorrow, and I just HAD to write about this:

Before I begin, I would like to say that I am in no way trying to make fun of these people, but merely trying to explain what happened and how I felt. I´ll first explain the events that happened, and then I´ll follow up on my personal thoughts.

Adrianne and I were walking back from Santa Rosa to El Encino after our group meeting, and we passed an evangelical church that was under construction. I haven´t met anyone in these 4 ranchos that wasn´t Catholic, except one Jehovah´s Witness family, but I have heard the plan was for the evangelicals to build this church and then build it up with members later. As we were walking by, we saw a group of people roasting elotes over a fire next to the building. Just then, a boy yelled at us in English, ¨Hey! You guys want corn?¨ It´s pretty rare to hear English, especially in the ranchos, especially full sentences that are grammatically correct, and especially from kids. We said sure and went over to join them. They offered us some elotes with lemon and salt, and we started chatting. I talked to a man who was from Chiapas and had just moved here after 12 years in the States. His wife was from the area, and they had 2 kids who were born in the States, too, and spoke perfect English. Their kids had a weird mix of Cuban-Puerto Rican-Mexican accents, but I thought it was really cool. They had lived in Florida for a long time. It started raining and we retreated inside the building. There was no floor yet or electricity. Actually, there wasn´t anything but walls and a roof. They said construction takes a bit longer here, because it takes longer to raise the money to complete it.

The boy that spoke English walked up to his mom and showed her his hand. He had just eaten his first tuna, a fruit that grows on cacti and is covered in tiny, thin, clear spikes. He didn´t know, because he´d only been in Mexico for 5 days. I pulled out my tweezers and told him to come over (yeah, it was pretty random that I actually had those with me). I work on each hand about 15 minutes and got about 3/4 of them out. Little did I know, that this was their cue.

I wasn´t really paying attention to what Adrianne and the women were talking about, because I was craning my neck over the kid´s hands for about half an hour and talking to him about Florida and how he liked Mexico, but when they brought chewing gum for the boy to use to get the remaining thorns out, I looked up and realized what was happening. The women were holding up a Bible and telling Adrianne about a man we probably hadn´t heard of named Jesus. We needed him in our lives. We told them that we were Christians, too, and that we went to church. They asked what church and we told them we were Mormons. When they asked what that was, we told them we believed in the Bible but also in the Book of Mormon which is a story of Christians in the Americas. Then one of the women turned to the others and asked, ¨what are they talking about?¨ Another woman answered her and said, ¨oh, they believe in a different gospel.¨ And then, we didn´t get a chance to talk or explain the rest of the time we were there. Then they told us that no religion will save us, that only Jesus. They read some of the scriptures that say there is only one gospel. They told us we needed to confess that Jesus is our personal savior and he will take all of our sins away. The started quoting a lot of New Testament scriptures. It didn´t seem to matter to them that we already knew the scriptures or that we already believed in Christ. They told us that we needed to read the Bible and pray every day so that we could grow and go to church. We told them that we did read the Bible every day and pray every day and go to church every Sunday and they just stared at us, before continuing. Then Adrianne and I just decided to go along with it.

All the men and women came over and said we needed to pray. We were going to get saved. During the prayer if we had any feelings or anything we wanted to shout out to cry out. If we wanted to cry, then cry. We were supposed to repeat after the one leading the prayer and by the end Jesus and the Holy Spirit would come into our hearts and we would be happy. We said alright and let the praying begin. We stood in a circle with our eyes closed and a man began crying out a prayer that we repeated, asking for forgiveness from sins and the companionship of the Holy Spirit. Women were coming up and touching my head and shoulders. I heard people crying and yelling out hallelujahs and other exclamations. Then everyone stopped and came up and hugged us. Then they sang some songs in the loudest voices possible.

Another man proceeded to share his own spiritual insights. After about 20 minutes of him talking, I realized this was a full-out sermon, and took a seat. He asked us if we knew about the 3 kinds of love. I said, ¨yeah, there´s agape, it´s the highest.¨ Nobody said anything for a while, they just stared at me. Then after a pause he said, ¨that´s right,¨ and then he proceeded to teach us about filial, eros, and agape. He told us that eros was only between spouses. He really stessed this point. Then he told us that God loves us more than we can imagine. ¨That´s right! More than your boyfriend, whether you believe it or not!¨ He also told us that America is a sinful place and that more missionaries are being sent there than any other place. That the rich man in America can´t receive Christ. ¨Men go to the bars and bring their women! Isn´t that so?¨ We told him that that does happen but not everywhere and we don´t do that. Another pause while staring at us, and he continued on his America rant. We sang a few more songs, then one of the women came up to me and said, ¨when I saw you pulling the espinas out of his hand, I knew, I knew it was time. The Holy Spirit whispered to me, urged me, go, teach her! Now is the time!¨ That was really nice.

About 2 hours after we had arrived and the rain had stopped, it was getting dark, and they offered to drive us back to El Encino. We happily agreed. Some of them said they were from San Nicolás and I asked them if they knew someone, because he is in our ward and goes there every Sunday after church to visit family. They didn´t say anything at first, just looked at me, then said they know someone with that last name but not very well. They listened to Christian banda and norteño music as they drove us back and told us we were princesses of God now. We thanked them for their kindness when we arrived and waved goodbye. I turned to Adrianne and said, ¨Adrianne, I think we just got saved.¨

Ok, here´s how I felt. I felt a combination of things. On the one hand, I was very annoyed. It was hard not to laugh (WHICH I DIDN´T DO!) at times. Adrianne and I never looked at each other. I don´t think I would have been able to contain myself if we did. It seemed very stereotypical and one-sided to me at times. I felt like I knew what they were doing and that I could predict what they were going to say next. Any time I would quote a scripture with them and they would ignore me I got annoyed. I´m a convert, and as a child in my old church, I had to memorize ALL of the scriptures they read to me. I already knew these things. It was annoying when I would tell them we go to church, we pray, we read the Bible, we know who Christ is, I know what the 3 kinds of love are, they didn´t seem to like it. I felt like they just wanted to save us and not listen to us. It was annoying to feel like someone thought I knew nothing about Jesus, when He is the very reason I have any hope in this life! It was annoying when they told me no religion would save me (as if I thought this) but then told me I should come to THEIR church. It was especially hard to keep my cool when I listened to the man telling us that Americans are sinful when the things he was accusing them of are things that Latter-day Saints and many Christians, other religious people, and other good people abstain from. On the other hand, I knew that they were sincere in their efforts. I knew they were only trying to give me the greatest gift possible. I knew that they had a lot of faith and were good people. That is what kept me from grabbing Adrianne and saying let´s go. It is what helped me keep my patience. Also, I realized that I had never had an evangelical experience before and that I could really learn from this. For these reasons, I was able to actually enjoy my time with my brothers and sisters of another faith. No, I do not plan on joining the Assemblies of God any time soon, but I respect them for their faith and their desire for others to share in their happiness, and I salute them.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

"This is why we have consent documents."

I FINALLY DID SOME INTERVIEWS! 28 in fact... in 4 hours. I was so drained, but at the same time, incredible relieved, pleased, and ready to analyze some data like the nerd I am.

So, Thursday, I walked to the secondary school from El Encino to Santa Rosa. It had rained all the day before, all night, and all morning, so instead of crossing a basin of rocks, I was actually crossing a quite large and running stream. It took some planning to decide which rocks I was going to jump on to get across. I arrived with a thick layer of mud on my sneakers, but relatively clean and dry, otherwise. I was feeling pretty antsy, so instead of going straight to school, I went over to the boys' host family's kitchen and ate some gorditas with a very spicy green salsa. Deciding I had no more time to waste, the 4 gringos headed up the hill to the school.

The other 3 came for a basketball rematch. Last time we played the middle schoolers in a pre-scheduled game, Mexico beat the US by a pretty good lead, so this time we had hopes of playing a bit more equally. Well, I actually had no intention of playing, and I didn't. I retreated to an empty classroom (since all the students were outside watching the game), and set up camp. After not too long though, it started raining, and the kids all retreated to different classrooms. I was worried the rain would come back and I'd have to deal with them being noisy, so I brought movies. I put in the 5th Harry Potter movie in one room and Mulan in the other. In Spanish of course. That kept them occupied and quiet. The teacher I had been working with most began sending over 3rd year students one at a time for me to interview. I went through the technical necessities before interviewing each student and then asked if it was ok to record the interview. Half said yes :) and half said no :/ It took some skill to get the hang of taking notes about what they were saying while still facilitating conversation, but I had it down pretty quickly. I think it's a really good skill to have if I want to do more research in the futuro.

I had some great interviews. I also had some rather mediocre ones, but I still got information and I think I'm going to be satisfied with what I have to work with in the post-field writing class. In case you're interested, here's the questions that I usually asked:

1. What are you going to do after graduation (usually work, or go to la prepa)?
2. Where will you work? With whom?
3. Why do you want to go to la prepa? What do you want to study? Do you want to go to college? Why or why not?
4. Do you think you'll study more English? Where? Why?
5. Do you think you'll use English in your future? How?
6. Do you know anyone who has gone to the U.S.? Who? How long? What did they do?
7. Do you want to go to an English-speaking country, or would you rather stay here? Why or why not?
8. Do you think it's important to learn English? Why?

During one interview, I got to question 6, and some trouble started a-brewin'. The student told me their father when to the States. When I asked for how long, they started to answer and then began crying. AHH! Yikes! I stopped the interview and apologized profusely. Then I asked if she wanted a sucker, and she laughed. We talked about some mindless things for a while, and then asked if she'd like to finish or go ahead and leave. She was a trooper and finished. This is why we have consent documents for them to sign beforehand.

Only 2 students told me they didn't have anyone in their family who has gone to the States, and all of the boys told me they planned on going just like their fathers, uncles, and brothers. A couple times, they told me this after I asked them the first question. A lot of the students who weren't going on to the prepa next year (which was most of them), said the prepa is expensive and they would just work with their families in the fields or at home or find a job in the city. For these ranchero youths, migration is a very real expectation.

I was talking to a 3rd-year teacher in the secondary school about what children do when they graduate. He said that of the 38 students about to graduate, only 8-10 will go on to the prepa. men will switch between working in the States and working in the fields here. Most girls will stay at home. A lot of times the students migrate or stay home because the family can't afford to send their child to high school. They want another set of hands to sow and harvest or wash and cook. He told me he's had conversations with fathers who told him that "the profession is not the woman's place," then he went on to explain that the girls are expected to get married and do housework. They don't need to go to school. He said the rest of the students will go on to get jobs in the city. A lot of them will earn their keep illegally in the city as pick pockets. A lot of girls will dance on tables. I can't say how much truth there is to all his words. It all sounded pretty fatalistic to me to be honest, but I did see some truth to it. I think the expectations and financial situations of families deeply influence, if not govern, these kids' futures. I suppose you could make the same argument for any culture, but I had never given it much thought until I came to these ranchos.