At first I wanted to call this column "How I Spent My Summer Vacation", but that seemed a little too trite. Nevertheless, in early June an international flight brought me to Guatemala City for my first-ever visit to our mission priory in Coban. The central part of Guatemala is very mountainous, so the four-hour drive from the capital to Coban had a good amount of climbing and descending on narrow, twisting roads. Coban itself lies in the middle of steep hills covered with heavy green rainforest. Almost every afternoon during the summer, thick mists gather over these hills and drop rain onto the town. As we passed by coffee plantations and banana groves that surround Coban, the phrase "banana republic" came to mind.

Coban is a small regional center, busy with traffic and commerce. The center of town is marked by the centuries-old cathedral. Nearby is a traditional marketplace where natives from the countryside sell their produce. The buildings of our Priorato de la Resurreccion cover a modest city block near the edge of town. Our complex includes the monks' prayer chapel and a separate church that serves the local parish, San Marcos. Although the buildings have been designed as a monastic enclosure, the sounds of the busy town around them sometimes work their way inside. Most of the Priorato is laid out as two quads with open courtyards within. The monks' rooms open directly out onto the courtyards because Coban has such a mild climate most of the year. The temperature never got below 60 degrees F or much above 80 F while I was there. I found this a pleasant contrast to the severe winters and hot summers in South Dakota.

Although my knowledge of Spanish is minimal, the community members made me feel welcome. Frs. Basil, Bernadine, and Cletus are the original monks of Blue Cloud who came to Guatemala thirty years ago, but the rest of the community members are from Latin America. Of the fifteen monks at the priory, almost half of them are young men in temporary vows. They also had two novices.

Fr. Bernadine continues his work on television-related projects for the region. Recent projects have included dubbing a movie about Christ into the local Indian dialect, and an independently produced video to promote area businesses. In this past year Fr. Bernadine added a new broadcast antenna on a local hilltop.

The priory employs a number of Coban residents in its workshops, garden and services. This includes staffing the local parish and a religious goods store. Most of the monks work in these areas as well. The monks who are priests serve in many local churches. Fr. Carlos Pop, the most recently ordained in the priorato, serves as pastor at a parish in Coban. Fr. Pedro Choc, the first native Guatemalan to be ordained from the priory, took me along on a Sunday trip to an "aldea", a Maya village. This village, surrounded by jungle, was so remote that we could reach it only by boat. As we traveled down the river, we saw wild orchids growing in tree branches overhead, and workers on the banks transporting freshly cut pineapples.

At the village itself, more than one hundred people crowded into the small dirt-floor church for Holy Mass. Most of them had traveled some distance on foot to get there. These people were largely subsistence-level farmers, but everyone wore their best clothes for Sunday. The Mass was preceded by group catechism lessons and included a wedding followed by several baptisms. Fr. Pedro said the mass in the local Indian dialect, which is also his original language. The villagers were friendly and naturally curious about the American, as this village is not on the usual tourist track, to say the least. Some of the children tried to teach me words in their language on the return boat trip. They had a good laugh or two at my attempts to pronounce words in their tongue, which is of course unrelated to English or Spanish.

Before leaving Guatemala, I had the chance to visit another Benedictine priory. The Priorato de San Jose was founded by Marmion Abbey from Aurora, Illinois, and operates a seminary in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second largest city. Quetzaltenango, also known by its Indian name Xela, lies in the western part of Guatemala. This region is still very mountainous, but drier than Coban. It also gets cooler at night than in the Coban area. The priory and Seminary lie just outside the city, with a striking panoramic view of three mountain peaks. One of these mountains is a volcano. Fr. John Brahil is the prior and this community also has some

Native Guatemalans as its younger members. Many graduates of the seminary are serving as priests throughout Guatemala. My stay at Xela was short but enjoyable.

The trip showed me firsthand how Benedictine communities carry on their mission in a society so different from ours. As a third-world country, Guatemala shows great color and great conflict. It is a country of widespread poverty, but also shows signs of progress and hope. Indian women in traditional dress sell their vegetables at street markets only blocks away from offices with internet access. Many families live just above subsistence level, yet new homes are being built and a new generation is being raised. I especially noticed the large number of children and young adults. The United States almost seems an elderly society, in comparison.

The strong Catholic culture of Guatemala provides a fertile soil where a new generation of Benedictine monasteries can grow. The original mission of Blue Cloud Abbey, to Indian peoples, is being carried on in a new way here. More than just a vacation trip, seeing the Benedictine communities of Guatemala was a chance to watch an important work in progress. Since I did not have time to visit the largest abbey there in Esquipulas, I also hope to visit Guatemala again some day.