Ignorance was bliss

I have long considered that there are four levels of competence.

At the bottom is unconscious incompetence. This could be described as "ignorance is bliss". When you are at this level of competence, you can walk around with a stupid smile on your face and feel good.

The next level up from the bottom is conscious incompetence. At this level of competence you can be painfully aware of your level of incompetence. It can be a very uncomfortable place to be and the natural response is to strive to get to the next level of competence.

The next level of competence is conscious competence. With conscious effort of some level, you are able to master what you are attempting. That conscious effort might require terrific focus or it might just require being attentive and alert. But you have reached competence.

The highest level of competence is unconscious competence, and this level of competence is rarely reached. To be unconsciously competent means you are in the zone, what you are attempting is natural and reflexive. In fact the word attempting would be incorrect. You do not attempt, you just do.

So I needed to illustrate the four levels of competence to convey where I am in my studies. Last Monday I walked into the language school with my blissful ignorant smile on my face; the lowest level of competence. After my first day of class, the bliss had disappeared and I had been ripped into stage two competence: conscious incompetence. Now after a week of school, with three more weeks in front of me, I think I can see stage three in the distance. I have a few hundred vocabulary words, and I often even use them correctly. I have about forty verbs but I can only conjugate in the present tense. I can say "went", "was" and "did", so I can tell a little bit about what I did. And I can use the verb "go" ("ir" in Spanish) with another verb to speak in the future tense. Example would be in English, "I am going to eat", or in Spanish, "voy a comer". But of course it takes a long time for me to roll this around in my head.

Before I started class, whenever I would communicate in Spanish, it was clear I did not speak Spanish, but I knew enough vocabulary and verbs that were terribly conjugated and all parties would struggle through the discussion and everyone had fun. Now I say enough correctly that the other party will babble a stream of Spanish in response, assuming comprehension, and my response is often the universally understood, "Duh!"

But I am holding on to the fact that competent competence is in sight. I think that is a light at the end of the tunnel and not an oncoming locomotive. And I am only one week into a four week session.

More than I can adsorb, but still too slow

I have completed my first week of my Spanish studies and sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed, yet it still seems to be going too slow. I wish I was further along. My teacher is effectively pedantic. She makes me repeat everything orally that we are learning, and she is a real stickler for pronunciation. I had been told in the past that my pronunciation in Spanish was very good, but my teacher now has me convinced otherwise. She can make me repeat the same sentence four times until I get it correct to her satisfaction. On Wednesday, she asked me if I ever learned French, and I responded, "Oui je parle un peu francaise, pourquoi?" Apparently my limited familiarity of French has affected my pronunciation of some of my Spanish, especially the word 'en', which is a word one uses most frequently in Spanish. In French this word 'en' would sound like 'on', but in Spanish it sounds closer to 'ane', where the 'e' sounds more like a long 'a'. If I am not concentrating or I am bit tired, every time I see, read and say that word, I say 'on' and my instructor immediately stops me and makes me start over. You would think I would learn.

The school itself, the Christian Spanish Academy, is very good. I think there are probably at least two dozen students and most are from the United States. And a number are from Korea, some from Japan, a few from Europe and probably one from China somewhere. Today a student from Korea came to live at the host house where I am living at, so now we have set up a schedule to use the shower in the morning. I thought I was making a big commitment to study for a month, but I am finding many students are here for three month programs, including the Korean that just started living with the de Navas, my host family. He is going by the name Esteban, and he is six weeks into his three month program. I have been a bit frustrated with the speed of my progress, but I am going light speed compared to poor Esteban. Spanish is a foreign language to me, but it is totally foreign to the Koreans, Japanese and Chinese. Many times I can just add an 'a', or 'Ito' or 'oso' to an English word and I have changed it to a Spanish word. The poor Asian students, if they did not attend an English language school, need to learn a new alphabet in addition to new words.

I told my teacher that since I would not being going to school on Saturday and Sunday, that she needed to give me more homework. She took me very serious and now I have seventeen pages of homework to complete before Monday morning. Early tomorrow morning, I plan on going to Finca Filadelfia, a local coffee plantation, and have breakfast with a view of the three local volcanoes and get a start on that homework.

Publishing photos using an iPad is turning out to be much more difficult than I expected. Here are a few photos of Antgua. In their order: the Saturday indigenas market; the cultural center de españa; the ruins of cathedral San Agustin; the central parque in the evening; the Arco de Antigua at night; Motos, a very popular transportation; the view just out the door of the family I am staying with, my language school is the orange building on the left.

What was I thinking!?

My Instruction in Spanish has begun. I am becoming aware that it has been a very long time since I have been in a class room, although I am not actually in a class room. I am in a large open area with many small tables and each table has one instructor and one student (estudiante). So there is no escaping or sitting in the back row. Every seat is a front row seat. Our program options were 4 hours a day, 5 hours a day, 6 hours a day, 7 hours a day, or 8 hours a day. I chose the 6 hour a day option. After the choice was made and the money paid, I was advised by others smarter than myself, that I really should consider the 4 hour a day option and rest and practice during the afternoon. Too late, I went for the big 6.

Whew! After six hours into my first session, I was convinced I knew Less Spanish at the end of hour 6 then than I knew at the beginning of hour one. It was exhausting and my old brain had not worked this hard in a long time. And I had not set down in one place for six hours for more than two years. At the end of the session my instructor asked me if I would like homework. Of course, I said, "yes". She asked, "facil or dificil?" (easy or hard), and of course, I want my moneys worth, so I responded, "dificil". So she gave me what I thought was 5 pages of exercises. This morning I found out she gave me six pages and I missed a page. Oh well, they have my money and they are not going to kick me out of school.

But enough about school, and a bit about Antigua. It is a very pretty and charming place with numerous old ruins. People from all over Central America come here for vacation. I hope I am successful with posting some photographs that I was able to shoot this week end. I am "roughing" it from a technical perspective. I am carrying a small point and shoot and I do not have my usual editing software. Roughing it, like I said. Between my classes, my meals and my homework, I spend my time walking around Antigua. It is not a large city at all. My walks usually end up at the central plaza where I find an empty bench and sit down and people watch. I already told the story of my visionary friend that wanted my money on Saturday. Sunday was a little more enjoyable. A young girl that was learning English was in the park with her parents. I must have looked trustworthy because her mother told her, "If you are trying to learn English go talk to that man." She was very nervous about rejection, but she finally came over to me and said, "Can I speak with you?" I put a big smile on my face and said, "No". After her face fell, I said I was only teasing and I helped her with her English for about two hours. She talked about her school and I showed her pictures of Dennie and the family, and told her about my mission and why I was in Antigua. It was a good deed, and her English was pretty good, 100 times better than my Spanish.

Then yesterday, Monday, I was blessed by a visit from one of my San Miguel Chicaj friends, Hector Hernandez. It was a very pleasant and unexpected surprise. We had a cup of coffee at Café Contessa and did some visiting and planning for our upcoming mission in San Miguel and the surrounding villages. It was just superb to spend time with him, really, really blessed.

First day in Antigua

Primera vez en Antigua

After some weather delays, my plane landed around 10PM in Guatemala City, and after I cleared immigration, got my luggage and cleared customs, it was about 11pm when I found Edi, my driver waiting for me outside the airport. Actually, it did not look like the picture of Edi that was emailed to me but he was holding a sign that said 'Marvin Gibson'. The 'does not look like Edi' said, "Uno momento, señor", and the real Edi appeared in a moment. It seems my plane had delayed long enough such that the call of nature was stronger than the call of duty to hold my 'Marvin Gibson' sign. After a few, "Buenas noches", "Buenas noches","Mi nombre es Edi","Mi nombre es Marvin", et cetera salutations were exchanged, Edi ran out of English and Marvin ran out of Spanish and we quietly drove to Antigua.

About midnight, we arrived in Antigua and I do not remember a rougher cobble stone road. I do not think it would be possible to speed in Antigua without throwing all your hub caps, your hood, your trunk and possibly a few doors. Señora Jeanette de Navas, the better half of my host couple, was waiting up for me. After a few more introductions and salutations, I ventured a "Yo tengo poco hambre", which I hoped translated to "I am a little bit hungry". It must have been understandable because in minutes she brought me some mango and bread, very nice.

Then it was almost off to bed, but first I was compelled to unpack and see how much I forgot. I would be embarrassed to list all that came out of my pack, my camera bag and my bolsa, but it appears I had not forgotten anything, and I probably had more than I needed. I have much difficulty attempting to be a minimalist. Then it was off to sleep, which was really welcome ... until about 2AM when some party in the next house to us cranked their 120 amp speakers up full blast playing music that was not meant to put you to sleep. Apparently there are no noise laws in Guatemala because this continued for over two more hours. But, as I said earlier, I am not a minimalist, so I dug around my stuff and found my ear plugs and soon I had every thing, other than the booming base, silenced. Next morning Señora de Navas was very chagrined to ask, "Did you hear the music?" I made her feel better when I told her I had ear plugs.

In the morning I got up and had desayuno (breakfast) and Señor Carlos joined us. He is a lawyer. I let them know I wanted to visit the school, change my dollars to quezales and get a SIM card for my phone. We pulled the map out, they suggested where I should go and I was off. The de Navas do not have wifi, but the school did, so I caught up on my email there. After I got a working SIM card for my phone, I was able to text Dennie, Clint (DSC missions pastor back home), Eder in San Miguel Chicaj and Hector. It turns out Hector is traveling, as usual, and will be in Antigua on Monday. So we look forward to getting together then. I also texted a local pastor that Hector was going to introduce me to. So I beat him to it and invited myself to the local pastor's church for Sunday services tomorrow.

I decided to walk around Antigua some, and found an empty park bench in the plaza and did some people watching. Soon a local man sat down next to me, let me know that he was Catholic, wanted to know if I thought he worshipped statues, said that he taught English and said he had one out of body experience and two real vision experiences of Jesus Christ, one of which included Jesus accompanied by two of his disciples. He also told me the story of the rich young ruler who went away sad when Jesus told him to sell all he had. And he told me it was more difficult for a rich man to get into heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. We talked for more than an hour and when I thought it was about to rain, I got up to continue my walk. He let me know then that he was out of work and could not afford his epilepsy medicine and does not drink anymore. I gave him a few dollars and we went our ways.

En route, E6

I am en route. Right now I am sitting at gate E6 in the Houston airport waiting to board for Guatemala City. I am not sure when I will have Wifi again, so I thought I would attempt a quick update.

Yesterday I was stressing because I did not have all my shots, especially the shingles vaccination and the tetanus shot. Dennie was doing some shopping for me and she forgot to get something at Walgreen's, so I quickly dropped by to make the purchase. A big sign on the door said "Get you Shingles shot at Walgreen's", so why not? I decided to check it out.

"Excuse me, how much is the shingles vaccination?"

"$219.00, but if you have insurance, there might be a co-pay"

"219.00! Wow! But here is my insurance card. Can you check it out?"

After a few minutes, "You have good insurance. You don't even have a co-pay. Your insurance will pick it all up."

Whoopee! God is good! And now I don't have to stress about getting shingles in Guatemala.

I also asked about tetanus and found that would cost me $64.00. So, I decided I just better be careful. Actually, while I was on a hot streak, I drove down the road to my primary care provider and convinced them to give me a tetanus shot right then because I was leaving for Guatemala the next day and I would be gone for three months. We are boarding, gotta go.

on His business

In less than 48 hours I am going to on a plane heading to Guatemala once again. I am both excited and a bit anxious. I will not be returning to the USA for three months, so this will be the longest time Dennie and I have been separated. I have left instructions with the sons on maintaining the yard and the pool and I am under no illusions that they will comply with those instructions. Many have asked what they should pray for and praying for Dennie and the house has to be high on the prayer list.

I am used to traveling on Intel business by myself but it was always to a nice hotel to meet colleagues that I was familiar with to perform business that I was competent to perform. This time I am first departing for a month of language school to a location that I have not been to in Guatemala and to reside with a family who I have never met. But this time I am on His business, not Intel business, so I need to step back and have faith that all will work according to plan; maybe not my plan, but His plan. It will be marvelous, of course.

Packing! I have spent the last three days packing and I really am packing light this time (yeah, right). I am NOT bringing my computer with me. Instead, being the geek that I am, I am bringing an iPad, an iPod, two still cameras, one video camera, one of my GPS's, my unlocked phone, a variety of chargers, electric shaver, a few clothes and underwear and vitamins. Yeah, packing light, I did not bring my tripod though or my long lenses, so I did cut a few corners. And on my iPad, I have loaded the Jesus film in three languages so I should be prepared for any situation.

Dennie and I took a trip to Nevada and Arizona just before this trip and now I am finding I do not have enough time to get all of my shots, but I am not too worried. Except too many people have asked me, "Did you get your shingles shot?" I am told that those of us over 60 years old should get a shingles shot. I should not worry about it unless I get stressed ... but I continue to get asked so now I am stressing about it. I hope I am not blogging in the future about shingles in Guatemala, stay tuned.

My first month in Guatemala will be in language school in Antigua, and then I proceed to San Miguel and vicinity for the mission with the young adults. There is still less clarity around that part of the mission than I would like, but that is good. God has always revealed more of His plan when we are in the field, and one of my primary prayers has been for more of the presence of God to be revealed to me. So instead of being anxious because I see myself as a steward of the young adults that have been entrusted to my leadership, instead I should just relax and look forward to what He has in store for us.