.jpg)
“At first I wasn’t in favor of his going abroad,” Margot Lindau confessed. “But when I saw how important it was to him I began to do research. I went from a mother who did not want him to go to a mother finding places for him to go.”
Lindau knew that Rafael wanted to do “useful things, like construction” during his time away. Having studied Hebrew, Latin, Gaelic, Italian, Spanish and French he preferred a language immersion program.
Through a chance encounter at the 2009 Women’s Intergenerational Community Seder, Margot Lindau found Long Way Home, an international non-profit that fulfilled both criteria. There she met a board member of a Guatemalan non-profit where volunteers build structures using earth-filled recycled tires and soda bottles stuffed with trash.
Rafael Lindau left home in mid-August and returned at Thanksgiving. He worked with Long Way Home to build a community vocational school, construct a 67,000-gallon water tank and also maintain a public recreational park. Lindau spent up to 40 hours each week doing assigned tasks such as carrying concrete buckets, filling and stacking tires, gardening and cleaning bathrooms.
During Lindau’s 14-week semester he lived with an indigenous Mayan family and worked with local laborers speaking only Spanish. He shopped in the local market for necessities plus his favorite treat, a soft-shelled taco filled with pineapple and cheese called a “gringa.”
When Lindau left work each day he traveled a dirt road passing crowing chickens, barking dogs and small cornfields. The women he saw on the road who greeted him with a “buenos tardes” wore colorful traditional tarje (clothing) and carried their fruits and vegetables in hand-woven clothes balanced on their heads.
If in a hurry, he paid the necessary .26 cents for a TucTuc (taxi) ride home. A TucTuc is a small ladybug-shaped three-wheeled open-sided cab navigated by a teenage boy.
Lindau found many differences between the cultures. Comalapa is a rural town of 39,000, 95 percent of whom are descendants of Mayan Kaqchikel where there is 75 percent unemployment. Many of the “unemployed” work their own small plots, living a subsistence lifestyle. The traditional religions are Catholic and Evangelical Protestant with no Jewish population.
Lindau described his Mayan family as being “bigger on being a family than a lot of American families.”
They were pretty close, just like doing a lot together and almost every weekend went to visit [my host mother's] family in Tecpán, an older town than Comalapa and about 45 minutes away, Lindau said.
In spite of the differences he “felt accepted immediately and integrated easily.”
“It was a really good experience, a good eye-opener because the culture is so different, especially because the people have a lot less money and it makes you appreciate your education,”
Lindau’s mother, Margot, and his father, Jeff Cornblatt, keep a traditional Jewish home. Cornblatt has been the spiritual leader for Congregation B’Nai Israel in Woonsocket Rhode Island for over 25 years. Lindau attended the Solomon Schechter Day School in Haverhill, MA for eight years.
Lindau recalled that when his Guatemalan family learned that he was Jewish they seemed alarmed. “They asked me, ‘but you still believe in God don’t you?’” Lindau said.
Lindau also saw differences in the way that the population handles trash.
“I was a little surprised to see how casually people littered and to see that there weren’t any public trash cans.”
Constructing buildings with trash is an environmental initiative for the area.
“Bottle stuffing [with trash] is important. There is so much trash that they burn or dump on the ground or in the rivers. The program makes people more aware and it gives an alternate place to store the trash,” Lindau said.
Cornblatt praised the opportunity and the manner in which Lindau handled himself.
“Looking at Rafael, it was the best thing in the world. I am glad it wasn’t the standard situation,” his father said. “He improved his language skills but the experience was more about communication. He got the raw thing this way. He will always remember his time in Comalapa. He reached down into himself and found ways to communicate. I am proud of the way he handled himself in a bizarre situation.”
Margot Lindau echoed her husband’s praise: “Rafael did so well that it made it easier for me, I didn’t miss him because I was happy for him.”
For more information about Long Way Home visit http://www.longwayhomeinc.org.
Elizabeth Rose is the president of the Board of Directors of Long Way Home and a freelance journalist.
Above, Rafael Lindau snacking with a friend and, foreground, working with colleagues on a community vocational school.
