You think games in the US and you think of sitting around a table or relaxing on some couches. Taboo. Scrabble. Cranium. Nice games. Nice, impersonal games.
Not here. Not at a twenty-somethings Bible study at Vida Nueva.
"Whom do you like?"
"Where do you want to get married?"
"Who's the best person in church?" (Ruben, of course)
Yeah, I tried to laugh it off too, but you had to answer. Outloud. If not, you took the risk of being asked a more ridiculous question. Politics, religion, relationship problems -- nothing was banned. It was kind of like what a Presidential debate should be. No predetermined material, no time to talk about the war in Iraq, just enough time and pressure to force you to give the exact answer for exactly the question that you were asked. (It blew my mind too.)
Another interesting game is what I'd like to call "Highschool Yearbook."
We were all given an envelope with a piece of blank paper inside. The directions: Write your name on the envelope and the paper and pass it around the room. When you get someone else's paper, write your opinion of them. At the end of the allotted time, you'll get your paper back and get to see what other people think of you.
You can imagine my apprehension to play this game with a group of people I'd never met before, but then again, I figured that it might be better to play with them before they know me rather than afterward.
Being sucked into playing, I took as long as I could to write in each one so I don't have to write in as many. I mean, how much could I say about person whom I'd never met, and for crying out loud, don't even fully know the language that he speaks? Hablas ingles bien or hablas bien ingles? No se.
My favorite "opinion" given was one of Amber's. An arrow pointing to the reply someone else wrote, and "el mismo" written below. Short, sweet, and very American. No personal responsibility if the message was offensive, and a default person to pass the blame on to.
Anyway, Moises informed us that these games were quite mild in comparison to some other ones that the GPS group play, and from what I gather, he's not exaggerating.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Mariposa
Orbitz left: 2 ½ packs
Sunburn level: Scratch and Peel
Encounters with death in the last 22 hours: 2
Survival rate: 100%
My past would have me believe that truly thrilling experiences should be found in contained locations. Go on a roller coaster to experience a rush of adrenaline. Mind you, be sure to buckle in tight, google the reputation of the theme park, and make sure that the person in front of you didn’t chuck his or her cotton candy just before getting on the ride. Then ride for 3 minutes and feel like you’re stretching yourself to the limit.
Today I was introduced to an adrenaline rush that wasn’t held in place by metal bars and millions of dollars of advertisement.
There’s something about uncontrollable running that makes me nervous. There’s something about uncontrollable running down an undefined mountain path that makes me nervous. There’s something about uncontrollable running down said path holding someone’s hand that makes me nervous.
Just nervous enough to try it.
We reached Mariposa’s summit after about an hour and a half of mostly uphill hiking. There’s something to understand about mountains here. They’re not made out of rock. Most steps result in a puff of what we hope is dirt, dirt that if swallowed, doesn’t taste like dirt. There are no trees, and vegetation is nonexistent, excepting the two small cacti we discovered on Mariposa’s top.
That being said, the steeper the climb up, the faster the going down. Hence, the exhilaration. There comes a point when you pick up so much speed that you simply cannot stop. All you can do is hope that the ground you pound on doesn’t give out. It’s kind of like a free for all, and you don’t know if you’re going to make it. The wind smacks against your face, the horizon disappears in the dust of the people that you’re following, and you never know when the path you’ve chosen to run down is just going to drop. That’s why Mark went first. Kidding, of course. The first people have the pleasure of seeing the latter people run down the hill, a price which seems to be worth the risk.
We did have one wipe out, which kind of ruined the fun, but God’s hand definitely protected us from a “Princess Bride”-as-you-wish scene. For one, there was no Wesley, no skirt, and nobody who said “as you wish,” but as all falls are, Amber’s wasn’t at the best location. Daniel and Mark initially thought that they might have had to slide down after her, and Heather and I, temporarily oblivious to what happened, were quite glad that nothing of the sort happened.
The wounded was the one who name the second mountain we conquered. (La Primera was the first. Original, eh?) Mariposa. Butterfly. And odd name for a mountain in Peru, especially since I hadn’t seen a butterfly here until our walk home today – after Amber named the mountain. Daniel pointed out a crushed butterfly that was being plastered to one of the paved streets by the blistering sun. Morbid, I know. A few steps farther down the road, though, we were entertained by two sunshine yellow butterflies that playfully flitted through the air.
Mariposa.
I’ve never noticed butterflies in amusement parks.
Monday, February 13, 2006
"Life is going to be an awfully big adventure." Peter Pan
2/4
You’ve probably heard it before. Maybe a professor said it to a student. (Or, less likely, but perhaps more appropriately, maybe a student said it to a professor.) Of course, the place you heard it most often was at the dinner table when your mother placed that dish you hated right down in front of you. Cauliflower. Sixteen bean soup. Spinach souffle. You choose. It was the meal that made meatloaf look good. A meal, that, were you given an option of a last meal, you would choose because death was a suitable follower. Naturally, every reasoning power in your little frame attempted to show her the injustices of such a disastrous dish, and naturally she responded with something like, “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go to a poorer nation and see what it’s like?”
We all know that we’re not suppose to actually go to a different nation and try it out – we're just supposed to eat our food and be quiet – but I’m getting the chance to live the opportunity every American child has heard about. Right now I’m sitting in the court yard of a house that is happily situated in the middle of six or seven mountains. (Picture Mordor’s coloring and you’ve got it about right.) I’m told, though, that the mountains aren’t mountains at all, they’re hills. Big hills.
I’ve made it to Lima and have found that I’ll be by no means “roughing it.” My room is beautiful, the people seem nice, and I can now verify that the world is bigger than North America. That being said, electricity and water supposedly aren’t reliable, taxi and bus drivers are crazy and infatuated with their horns (and green cards), and I’m not sure what I can say for their school system if I’m going to be a teacher. Fortunately, I'm loaded with Dead Poet’s Society.
Carpe Diem.
You’ve probably heard it before. Maybe a professor said it to a student. (Or, less likely, but perhaps more appropriately, maybe a student said it to a professor.) Of course, the place you heard it most often was at the dinner table when your mother placed that dish you hated right down in front of you. Cauliflower. Sixteen bean soup. Spinach souffle. You choose. It was the meal that made meatloaf look good. A meal, that, were you given an option of a last meal, you would choose because death was a suitable follower. Naturally, every reasoning power in your little frame attempted to show her the injustices of such a disastrous dish, and naturally she responded with something like, “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go to a poorer nation and see what it’s like?”
We all know that we’re not suppose to actually go to a different nation and try it out – we're just supposed to eat our food and be quiet – but I’m getting the chance to live the opportunity every American child has heard about. Right now I’m sitting in the court yard of a house that is happily situated in the middle of six or seven mountains. (Picture Mordor’s coloring and you’ve got it about right.) I’m told, though, that the mountains aren’t mountains at all, they’re hills. Big hills.
I’ve made it to Lima and have found that I’ll be by no means “roughing it.” My room is beautiful, the people seem nice, and I can now verify that the world is bigger than North America. That being said, electricity and water supposedly aren’t reliable, taxi and bus drivers are crazy and infatuated with their horns (and green cards), and I’m not sure what I can say for their school system if I’m going to be a teacher. Fortunately, I'm loaded with Dead Poet’s Society.
Carpe Diem.
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