I Think I Was Infected by the Mushroom

These past few days I have been really sick, but I am feeling much better now. My nose has been running like crazy, I have been coughing up my lungs, and my head has been hurting like a mug. Even with all this going on, I still went to the Infected Mushroom concert with a bunch of Guatemalans that I didn't know. When I got to the concert, there were these guards patting people down before they were able to enter. When they got to me, they said I couldn't bring my camera in that I brought. So I reluctantly took my camera back to one of the guy's cars who drove me there. The concert was held at this big field. There were two stages with two different DJ's going at it at once. The sound was wonderfully crafted, as when you were at one stage, you were unable to hear the sound coming from the other stage. The concert was to last from 8PM until 8AM the next day, but I wasn't about to stay that long. Infected Mushroom didn't even begin playing until 1:30AM, but it was worth waiting for them; they were awesome!

The strange thing about this concert was what a lot of the people were doing when I got there. Of course there were people smoking and drinking like there would be in the states, but here in Guatemala, there was another... "activity" taking place. I noticed that some people's "cigarettes" looked a little strange and smelled kind of funny. After watching this one guy go up and talk to another guy in Spanish, he pulls out this bag from underneath his coat, and I knew immediately what it was -- like 5 lbs. of marijuana.

Despite the "shenanigans and goings on" around me, dancing all night to the mad trace music did not stop for me. The night was crisp and cold as I looked up at the clear night sky that revealed so many of the worlds that God created. I couldn't help but think if God used Infected Mushroom as his theme music while He created everything.

I think going to the concert made me sicker -- if that's a word. But despite my being sicker, I had plans for the weekend as well that would not be hindered by some microscopic germs that brought discomfort into my life. I had planed on going to Antigua to pick up some of my buddies and bring them back to the city and show them around. We had originally planed for them to come down on Saturday and I was going to take them to "Fusion" which is the church's college group, but things got messed up somehow, and they ended up coming on Sunday. I prayed that God would send the people He wanted to send and have us do the things He wanted us to do.

When I got to Antigua at 8AM on Sunday morning, there were two of my buddies there, Floor and Anameak, ready to come to the city. We got back in record timing so we stopped by Mark and Andrea's house for some biskets and gravy (something these girls from Holland had never had before.) After breakfast, we were just in time for church that morning. A few entries back I described a very bad church experience (4th paragraph down) that my buddies in Antigua had with me, so I wanted to show them that not all churches are the same when it comes to crazy people screaming at them.

God worked everything out perfectly with them. After the service, both of them had a much better view of church. As we were standing around in the parking lot waiting for a few people to hang out with that day, God laid it on my hart to ask pastor Alvaro (who just happened to be standing in front of me,) to share with Floor and Anameak about how Shalom got started. God used Alvaro so much as he shared his testimony and the gospel. As Mark, Ivan and I stood to the side listening to what Alvaro was saying, it was clear to me that both of their hearts were softened even more to the Truth. After Alvaro had to leave, Mark stepped in a shared some more Truth. God has revealed himself many, many times through many people to both of these "Hollanders." Keep praying for both of these girls, as God keeps showing more and more of himself to them. Anameak hasn't really said much in the past, but has kind of soaked everything up, but after talking with Alvaro, Mark and I, she said that she really wants to "look into this stuff."

After church, we got together with a bunch of people from church like, Ivan, Manuel, Juli, Kati and Kati's brother. We went to this mall called "Mira Flores" to watch a movie and hang out. For this whole day I have had to blow my nose every 15 minutes or so (remember, I'm sick.) I had to keep a huge stock-pile of tissues in my pocket to keep up with my nose-blowing habit.

There is this really big hotel next to the mall that we all wanted to go to the top of, so we head over in that direction trying to find out how to get to the top. When we finally get there, we walk into the HUGE lobby in which the ceiling goes to the 14th floor. We see 4 glass elevators that go up to the top directly in front of us, so we head straight to them. Once inside the small elevator, I lean up against the wall of the elevator because not only was I sick, but I was tired as well since I was running around downtown Guatemala while being sick. As I reached into my pocket to blow my nose with the last tissue I had, I looked over and noticed that the door to the elevator still hadn't closed yet. After a few seconds of the door not closing, we hear this little alarm going off inside the elevator. As we try to figure out what's triggering the alarm I move away from the wall and the alarm stops. As I turn around, I noticed that I had leaned up against the control panel for the elevator, and had "pressed" every button to every floor all the way to the top floor.

The whole group was so overcome with laughter, that we could barely breathe as the elevator stopped at every floor on the way up to the top. With every floor, the elevator doors would open to a dazed and confused cleaning lady who had no idea why there was an elevator full of gringos and Guatemalans hunched-over laughing so hard it looked like they were constipated while the doors closed with no one getting off or on at any floor. When we finally reached the top, we dried away the tears of laughter and look over the railing down fourteen stories to the lobby floor below. I was needing to blow my nose again at this point, but since I had no more tissues, I just "sniffed" it up as best I could. After killing a little time in the hotel, we decided it was time to go watch a movie.

As we were waiting in the lobby of the movie theater to get tickets for the movie, I felt a sneeze coming on. As I reached for a tissue in my pocket, I realized that I had no more tissues left. Before I could ask for another tissue, the sneeze overcame me and I cup my mouth while the massive build-up of snot in my nose explodes into my hands. There's nothing like being sick. I kept my hands around my mouth as people started staring at me. After a few seconds of them staring at me, the muffled sound of my voice broke through my hands, "Uh... does anyone have a tissue I can barrow?" After a second delay, everyone realized what just happened and many starting frantically searching for a tissue. Floor came to the rescue as I grabbed the tissue from her with my pinky-fingers while still keeping my hands on my face. As I tried to "covertly" clean up in a crowded movie theatre lobby, I realized that snot was "strung" between every finger and between my face and my hand as I pulled my hands away from my face. In desperate attempts to redeem my integrity, I head for the bathroom to do a more through clean-up.

In the movie, Floor gets into her backpack and pulls out a bottle of water. As she takes a big swig of it, she immediately spits it out in disgust. I was a little confused at this reaction, but after the movie was over, she explained to us that a few months ago she had a sunscreen lotion bottle break in her backpack and she poured the lotion into a water bottle to keep it from leaking everywhere. That bottle she took a big gulp of was the sunscreen.

Yesterday, Andrea was sick so I taught her class for her -- English. It was a whole lot of fun teaching the students how to say the "th" sound like in "Thursday." They keep wanting to say "Tursday," but some of them have really good pronunciation. Oh, I am giving the first computer exams today and tomorrow! Unfortunately, cheating here is "the norm," so I am extremely strict in my classes about cheating. I told them how seriously cheating is taken in the states, and if anyone talks or even looks to the left or the right, I will tear-up their test and they will receive a zero. Most of them were scared out of their mind about looking anywhere except their paper (which is a good discipline for them to learn when taking a test.) But there was one girl who looked over at her neighbor's paper twice, and I took her paper and tore it up in front of the class. I felt so horrible doing such a thing, but I had to enforce what I said or they would never take me seriously.

After class, we took the one girl aside, and asked her the questions of the test directly. After answering most of them correctly, I told her that I believed she knew what she was talking about and would receive credit, but I hope it is a lesson to her and other students that you can't get by in life copying other people's work.

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