Manuel, Day 197

One of the temps on Friday didn’t speak much English. I asked if he was there to build furniture and he sort of just smiled and showed me a piece of paper with my name written on it. I got him started on some simpler pieces. He assembled the little stuff quickly and I moved him onto some things a bit more difficult. Those took him quite a bit longer. I couldn’t tell how much English he knew because every time I talked to him he’d either simply reply with, “yes,” or “ok.” But he never looked like he fully understood what I was saying. I heard him speaking on his cell phone at one point and he was not talking Spanish.


After the little stuff was all gone I set him to work on a pretty complicated TV stand. I thought I heard it fall apart several different times but I hoped I was wrong and that he’d figure it out just like he’d done with everything else he’d assembled thus far. When I went to check on him I noticed that he was on step 12 in the instruction manual but NONE of the prior steps had been completed. He had pieces quite randomly drilled together with all the wrong screws. It was scary. I took everything apart and started to explain to him which screws were which, which pieces were which, and how to follow the instructions. I built the entire piece with him, and surprisingly he didn’t seem embarrassed or belittled only eager to learn.

Judging by his name, appearance, height and after I heard him talking on the phone I had a sneaking suspicion that he was from Guatemala. Pryingly I asked if he was living in Muskegon (where we were) or Grand Rapids. He said Grand Rapids. After he said he lived in Grand Rapids I asked where he was from. He was from Guatemala. I told him that I’d been there 4 times. I don’t think he believed me until I told him that I’d been to Chichicastenango, that I’d seen lake Atitlan, and that I knew where Guatemala city and Chimaltenango were. Then he was thoroughly impressed. He told me that he didn’t know if I could understand him but that he had learned English at a school 20 minutes from Chichi. I think that he didn’t speak much prior to this conversation because he was insecure. I told him that I understood him perfectly well and that his English was good. Then he told me that he’d only been in the US for 5 days. We talked about Guatemala while we quickly built the TV stand.

He told me that he had built furniture with another team until 10pm the night before. I ended up working 16 hours that day and he was there for 14 of those hours. He didn’t even seem tired, whereas I was slightly out of my mind after 12 hours.

The experience was so weird. This guy had been in the US for 5 days and he’d put in almost a week’s worth of work in two days. He didn’t seem tired. He did everything I asked him to do diligently. He asked if I would be back tomorrow (which to me indicated that he was fully ready and hoping to be working again the next day (Saturday)). He was working for a temp agency. He’d driven all the way to North Muskegon from Grand Rapids just to work and he was embarrassed to speak English. I’m not going to lie, I felt bad for the guy. There is no way I would ever want to be in his shoes. And then it dawned on me that he must be one of the wealthier Guatemalans. He had to pay to go to school to learn English. Full grown men in Guatemala don’t have money or time to go to school. They have to work every minute of every day. On top of that he had to afford the trip to America somehow. Basically this guy who in my eyes was in a very unfortunate position was in fact most likely thee most fortunate person in his circle of friends.

I’ve gone to Guatemala 4 times because of the beautiful people there. For 5 years I’ve been trying to overcome pride and barriers that separate me from others in my mind. I desire adamantly to be able to look at the people of Guatemala exactly the same way I would look at my neighbors. We are all God’s children. In an instant it’s dawned on me that the floor cleaners at Meijer, the “illegal’s” who work in the factories and for temp agencies, the dishwashers in the kitchens of many of our favorite restaurants; they’re all the most fortunate Guatemalans, Mexican’s, Hondurans*. We feel bad for them. I do anyway. I hate that they have to do jobs like that; that seemingly they have no other choice. But for them, they’re the lucky ones. They’re the ones who had enough money to learn English and come to the US. They’re the ones who are living in places with actual flooring (not dirt). They’re the ones who’ve refrigerators, running water, electricity. They’re the ones who can afford food, clothing, and leisure activities.

This world we live in, despite welfare, governmental health care, social security, you name it we live in a land of luxury, this world is a world of separation and barriers. The people on top are eating million dollar meals and the people on the bottom aren’t eating or drinking anything. Everyone in the middle are as different from each other as fish are from elephants. It’s one of those corny lines that shouldn’t even be said but let’s stop judging and just start loving. Really people we are all God’s children. I can’t think of one good reason for someone to have to go without food or water. And equally so I can’t think of one good reason for someone to dine upon a million dollar meal. Wouldn’t love remedy the inequality?

• I say most fortunate in terms of stuff, money, and a traditional materialistic world view. I don’t consider any person unfortunate as long as they’re living the way they desire and have access to clean water and food. Even if they desire to live in a small home with dirt floors.