Jol Tulija Part 5 – El Tumbo

El Tumbo: Not sure how far away this is...but is takes 4 hours to walk to Diamante from here and Jol Tulija is 1 hr driving from Diamante. There is one baptized brother and his family living in El Tumbo and yes, they walk 4 hrs to the meeting in Diamante where there is a primitive Kingdom Hall and group. This day we decided to give convention invitations in El Tumbo so that we could begin by visiting this brother and encouraging him and his family. He and two of his daughter who are publishers joined us this day and were so happy to see us, 14 of us, half from Jol Tulija and half from Diamante group.
We drove the beast again, Grants huge truck that has the crazy wrap on it. Well, the night before I was wondering what one would do should one’s vehicle break down? There are no tow trucks, the only mechanics are in the larger cities hours away...what to do? Little did we know we would find out the very next day.
As Grant arrived in Jol Tulija to pick us up that morning he commented on the battery light coming on, Hmmmm?
Seven of us pile into the truck, we drive to Diamante, pick up 7 more passengers into the bed of the truck, drive to El Tumbo...now 2 hrs later. We walk up a tall hill and are told that the brother lives at the bottom of the other side, down a very wet, muddy path. The first 3 photos are of us on the hill and paths. Another rubber boot day!
As mentioned the family was so happy to see us, the teenage girls immediately got dressed to join us and one of them went to get Dad from the fields. In no time he too had joined us.





Here we are, some of us anyway, our isolated brother is next to Mike at the far right end.
So back to the story, we had a late start so we worked into the lunch hour and were very hungry, by 2 pm we had found everyone and were all back at the beginning to eat lunch. Grant had just moved the truck to a better location to park it and informed us that now it won’t start again. The men in the group begin putting their heads together to assess the problem. A helpful local man pulls up in his tractor and offers to help. We decide to eat lunch in the back of the truck since we were starving and obviously not going anywhere for the time being.
Starving and not going anywhere...the girls pick up some WIFI. Who knew?
After much deliberation and passersby stopping to offer their opinions...Oh, did I mention we don’t have jumper cables? Sorry, you were probably wondering why we didn’t just use them….we don’t have them, and neither does anyone in all of El Tumbo. But the brother quickly goes home, up and down the muddy hill, to cut some electrical wire from his house for us to try instead of cables. Yikes!

Here you see Mike and Felix helping to charge the battery with fake cables and rocks to press on the connections. We all prayed of course for this to work. Grant and Maritza say that real cable never could jump this truck for some reason, so the fake ones were a long shot. After about 5 minutes or so, they gave it a shot and it started right up! Grant saved the wire for future use. He said real cable would just get stolen, but maybe not this wire.
All good? We thought so ! We say our good byes to the brother, pile into the truck, all 14 of us and head down the road. Less than a 1/2 mile later, POP! Yep, we blow a tire, and would you like to know something else? It was the spare. So there is no spare!
So Grant tries to turn around and with no 4 wheel drive (it’s broke too) and no good front wheel, we get stuck. So we send two girls back on foot to find the helpful local man with the tractor and wait about 20 minutes for him to come help us. We also sent the 7 Diamante friends ahead on foot to find other transportation and continue with some nearby Bible studies. So now we are 7 again, it is getting late and we are cold. Tractor guy is amazing and literally pulls us out of our rut with one graceful move hooking his bucket to the hitch. Another Yikes! But it worked!

 
So we decide to park the truck back in town and take a Combi home, a large public van. Well, everything happens extremely slowly here for some reason and suddenly it is 5pm and no more Combis...however we are waiting right out front of the home of a Combi driver who has parked his van for the night. Maritza decides to go plead with him to take us home. Now remember we are almost 2 hrs from home...a lot to ask of a man who is home for the night.
Guess what? He says sure! He agreed to take all 7 of us for 300 pesos, a bargain for our request. ($24 dollars)
Well, 30 minutes out of town he pulls over and asks us to all get out and change into a pick up truck to take us the rest of the way, something he had evidently radioed ahead to arrange for us. We get moved over to the pick up now driven by a young fellow accompanied by his 3 little brothers, and 10 minutes later find all 7 of the Diamante friends just finishing their studies and waiting for a ride that was never coming. So they pile in the back, Mike said it looked like a circus car in reverse as they all climbed in.
We eventually get to Diamante and let off the 7, continue on to Jol Tulija, picking up a few random passengers and a couple of chickens along the way. By the way, Mike emptied his witnessing bag on the passengers and the drivers 3 little brothers. He asked the youngest, named Fred, if he enjoyed reading his Bible. Fred replied that he only gets to read it at church because he did not have one at home. So Mike offered to give him his copy from his bag if Fred would promise to read one chapter every day. He happily agreed and was so pleased to have his own Bible.
Finally we arrive and after all the extra passengers and the vehicle change we still only paid 300 pesos. Tired, cold, and ready for a hot bucket shower, we were never so happy to see our sad little shack. Yes, somewhere around week 3 this place and all of its quirks has started to grow on us. If you would like to plan a visit, we recommend at least 3 weeks to get you over the initial shock and to start enjoying it all.
We attend the Tzeltal District Convention this weekend, 6-8th in Chancala and return to Merida on or before Monday the 16th. I will try to write again before that. Sending our love to you all!

Jol Tulija Part 4 – San Jose

 

San Jose is the second closest village to Jol Tulija. A quick ride by car or truck. The truck in the photo is owned by one of the many unbaptized publishers in the congregation. Did we mention that most of the congregation are unbaptized publishers? They are at every meeting and support service zealously...this day would have been a typical day in the fields for these brothers. However, they responded well to encouragement earlier in the week to help us finish covering San Jose with the convention invitations before we run out of time. So 10 of us piled into the truck and headed up the road to the rugged village of San Jose, lots of hills and mud this day, it had rained the entire night before.

This is another typical home.

 

 

 

This was our lunch spot, the front porch of a Bible students home with the benches from the back of our truck. The meal was another potluck of course, we are starting to enjoy them.

 

See the rugged muddy terrain. No real driveways, as no one has vehicles, just foot paths. We wore our rubber boots! Glad to have them with us. We did not take notes of any kind, and frankly I don’t know how we would have. There are no names to the “streets” but the government did paint numbers on each home. You see a narrow path and just keep trekking through the hills and keep finding more homes. Finally you have to ask the householder if there are any more homes or you could just keep going...some foot paths belong to the pigs so they lead nowhere.

Jol Tulija Part 3 - Chancala Assembly Hall and “we need a truck!”

 

The Assembly Hall is located in Chancala, 45 minutes from Jol Tulija. Chancala is a small city with a market and vendors and internet cafes. Carina and the Lees are in both of the dramas for their convention in December so we accompanied them to one of their rehearsals at the Assembly Hall which they have every Saturday. This particular Saturday the Chol convention was also having their rehearsals so the group was large. The noon meal was another shared one, Carina prepared a seafood salad on tostadas that our group ate and shared with others and we nibbled on what the others brought as well. They put many mix matched tables end to end to seat all of us insisting that we all sit “together”, about 50 total. This day was very encouraging, to see the friends travel from hours away each week for these rehearsals, looking forward to the fellowship it will bring. They don’t view it as a sacrifice, rather a privilege! They have very little, yet they lovingly share it with one another. Many of these ones have moved from other parts of Mexico, leaving family and friends, to support the Tzeltal and Chol fields, their example was heartwarming.

The roof above is basically all there is to this Assembly Hall, a roof and concrete floors. Primitive bathrooms are in the side yard. A very nice Kingdom Hall sits on this property as well as a two story building with 2 overseer suites and storage rooms.

In the second photo I am in the green shirt standing at the street entrance of the property, notice the pink two story building behind me inside the wall? These are the CO suites. On a later occasion we spent the night in one of these when it was too late to catch a bus home. The CO was on the road and the guest bed was free, that room is currently storing drama props too. We had to used Queen Esthers purple velour pillows from her divan to sleep that night. Shhh don’t tell.

A few times since we arrived we have found ourselves in this predicament, away from home too late to find transportation and needing somewhere to sleep unexpectedly...not my idea of good planning and not something I want to continue doing. So we are working on that. Carina just keeps an extra toothbrush in her purse because she constantly finds herself in this situation, I however am determined not to adopt this practice, too stubborn I guess.

Well guess what, last night it happened again, we were in Palenque grocery shopping and using the internet (sending you Part 1 and 2 thank you very much!) The last van home leaves at 5pm. So by 4pm we arrive at the terminal like good responsible adults only to find that they were already closed and gone! Apparently not all of their drivers showed up and they just stopped running for the day at 3:30. Our veggies and water we purchased earlier that day were locked inside. Carina suggested we (4 of us) stay the night around the corner at a sisters tiny place...probably on the floor with no blankets. Remember, she has the toothbrush! For fear that I would have another mini meltdown, Mike kindly agreed that he and I get a cheap hotel room, so for $170 pesos or $14 we had privacy and a hot shower, a real one with a shower head and everything! These days the shower alone is worth $14, it was wonderful. We bought a toothbrush at the store and made the best of it with renewed determination to plan ahead better next time. We are continually finding that a vehicle of our own would solve most of these problems. Otherwise you are always in a group relying on someone else for transportation and whatever the group does, you do. Lots of waiting and late nights or unexpected sleepovers.

The third photo is the truck we rode home in the day of rehearsals. An elder from the neighboring congregation owns it and uses it to “haul” the friends around. Again we found ourselves away from home too late for public transport, but this brother agreed to squeeze us in as he had to pass Jol Tulija to take his group home. We were over 20 persons! Sisters get to sit on benches, brothers get to stand in the middle. A snug ride where you find yourself touching 4 people involuntarily at any given moment, but still better than a sleepover.

Hopefully you are getting the sense of what things are like here, there is definitely a flow and we are finding that you either go with the flow or find yourself struggling and uncomfortable. We are learning many things about ourselves, like the need for more flow :)

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