Email: Whitney Palmer

Dear Family and Friends,

I have been in Guatemala for almost two months. I spent my first four weeks in a language school outside of Antigua.  Learning a new language is a difficult, frustrating, rewarding, and eye-opening experience. I never realized how much I rely on language in my everyday life. Many people are afraid of silence; we want to fill up “uncomfortable” silences with chatter. We talk and talk, and often we allow that to define us. While I was in language school I read a book by Barbara Brown Taylor called When God is Silent. It is about how God has been silent in the world for a long time, and as humans we have filled that silence with our own words. Sometimes we need to be silent. Sometimes we need to listen to the silence and allow ourselves to be comfortable in that silence to truly understand the silence of God.

I have never been an extrovert, but learning a new language requires you to be silent. Even though I am in a place where I understand a lot of what is being said to me, I am unable to communicate responses and am often silent. I can’t participate in conversations with more than one other person and feel isolated at times. I spend a lot of time being silent and can’t claim to understand the silence of God, but I think the process is important and humbling in many ways.

We rely on language to create community, and even with language, creating community is difficult. Two weeks ago, I arrived in the city of San Marcos, which is my permanent placement. Now I am learning about my work place, Pastoral de la Mujer, and trying to figure out where I will fit into this organization for the next ten months. I have to create community not only with the other women who work in Pastoral de la Mujer, but within the entire Casa Diocesana. Then there is my family. I am living with a woman named Elivia, who works with Pastoral de la Mujer.  Her aunt, Gloria, two cousins, Victor and Leonardo, the wife of Victor, Karla, and their two children, Sophia and Victor, live across the street. Elvia’s sister lives nearby with her husband and son.

My year is described as a year of accompaniment. It is often difficult for people to understand how to accompany people without doing. We are a culture of doing. Yes, I have a placement and will be working with Pastoral de la Mujer of the Catholic diocese. In some sense I will be doing. But really, I won’t be doing anything. I fully understand I will not fix any lives while I am in Guatemala. I will not help people and I will not change the world. I will just be. I will accompany people facing various problems, seeking to understand their lives and their problems. In a few months I will be able to use language to help me in accompaniment, but right now my accompaniment is defined as silently being with people. Right now, I don’t know what I am doing here. I am still confused about how my placement functions and don’t know how I will fit into Pastoral de la Mujer or the Casa Diocesana. But I am here, and hopefully, with patience, I will able to listen to the silence of God.

In Peace,

Whitney