The first 6 months in site were beautiful and difficult: everything was novel, quaint almost primitive (I use this word to mean simple but not unsophisticated or crude). Every tortilla, every billowing laugh from my host grandmother and every new interaction was edged in noteworthy detail; every store owner was an invitation for conversation, every person I passed on the street was an open door for observation. The simplicity of life was gorgeous but I didn’t know how to do my job.
By month 2 I was using the K’iche’ greetings to distinguish myself from tourists. “E na. Sakirik. La utz a wach? Chawilana Nan….” I did not want to be seen as a foreigner, foreigners are tourists, vagabonds or missionaries. While I’ve been all three, it’s not why I am here now. I felt something sharp sticking out of my gum: my first wisdom tooth.
I live on the main street of Santa Clara, allowing me to take a left and go straight until I reach the muni (town hall), the market or one of my schools. I marveled at the tight-rope balance the women maintain as they carry their their cargo on their heads with babies tied to their backs. I dodged donkeys, cows and horses or stopped to remind the kids: “no me llamo gringa. Me llamo Natalia.” Still staring. Yep, still staring. Now? Yep. The most solid stare is that of a child observing something unusual. That’s me, the unusual.
Buying groceries was overwhelming and washing my clothes in the cement sink, the pila, took hours. I had to learn how to bargain and eat without leftovers because where there is no fridge there is no refrigeration. Mangos and pineapples went bad after a few days which whittled my fruit intake down to choco-bananos with mania (chocolate-dipped bananas with peanuts). Once I stormed off from the papaya guy because he wouldn’t give me the same price as he gave my host mom. Then I learned that the prices on produce change periodically and he wasn’t taking advantage of me. Oops. Out of respect, you don’t linger once you get the price you want and if they put the item in the bag, you have an agreement. You never talk to other customers out of respect for the vendor and a terse nod is an understanding. If you hear “No sale” (sale in Spanish meaning it doesn’t go) they really can’t give it to you that low. If they come back with a counter offer, say 30 to your 20, that means you still have a fight for 25.
I went to work at the two middle schools which were like day and night. The aldea school, that means a community on the outskirt of the pueblo, was one culture and the pueblo center school was entirely another. It took some adjusting to the bathrooms.. Kids bring a roll of toilet paper to school in their backpack, school is from 1-6pm, and they don’t play soccer with real soccer balls, instead they use a 3 quetzal plastic pelota/ball from the corner store. And the students responded with varying levels of participation to the activities I presented with unconfident, challenged Spanish. When in doubt, I reverted to Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber. My first 4-month report of achieved deliverables was, well, not much to look at.
When I went to Jersey in July it was a calculated risk. 7 months into service (9 including training) with 17 months more to go.. I knew it would jumble my equilibrium and jog my memory to Iced Caramel Macchiatos and Anonymity. And it was difficult. On my 10-hour layover in Houston, my former site-mate picked me up in his BMW and we ate sushi. We walked through an H-E-B grocery store the size of my entire pueblo.
I got off the plane in Guatemala but left my ever-sweater in 26F, an unusual thing for me to do. I tracked down the right help after three redirections. “I know sweaters aren’t usually a big deal” I narrated in baggage claim: “but this sweater is really important to me.”
As I waited, I stood against a pole and tried to blend into it completely. Tears crescendoed down my cheeks. “Gringa disolved into a wall” the news would say. I constantly want to contextualize myself to customer service strangers during service: “IM BACK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 9 MONTHS” “My dad gave me this sweater for my 27th birthday and it represents my connection to my family who I won’t see until Christmas” “I’m not a tourist!” My sweater represented my comfort and my theatre dreams and my proximity to Iced Caramel Macchiatos and my parents’ health. So I cried. The couple from Dallas passed me and waved “BYE!” and didn’t acknowledge my display of emotion to my relief. To even greater relief my gray sweater was recovered. I tried to give a tip which the attendant denied with a “No te preocupes.” In the campo they would take the tip. I don’t fit in in the city and I don’t feel at home in the campo and I feel confused in my own country.
I had 1.5 years left of service and I still didn’t know how to be any good at it.
I shared a hotel room with Melissa, another volunteer, who told me she came back from the States and she didn’t cry, she surprised herself. Well, I did. And the next morning I slept in past my dentist appointment. “I’M SORRY I’M IN SHOCK BECAUSE WHERE AM I? I wasn’t ready for life today” but I only felt it I didn’t say it. I got there late but they still saw me. I left for site on the shuttle and slept the whole way, shutting off from reality on the hairpin turns of the Inter-American highway.
The shuttle dropped me at the busy stop and it was just me and Guatemala, no more Peace Corps medical appointments or private shuttle. The maroon bag straps dug into my shoulder and I saw the white bus waiting. “Santa Clara” yelled the ayudante, recognizing me more than I recognized myself. I looked inside the bus “hay espacio?” and there wasn’t really space. I matched eyelines with a lady in the middle row. They convinced me to get on anyway and I squeezed between smells. The woman was sick from surgery, the ayudante said, and she smelled faintly of sweat and feces. There was a pink towel wrapped around her with some red or brown stain. The men around us were smelly from the field. Add “wet” to the formula and that is what I won in the olfactory lottery.
On the ride I pictured the earnest face of Ben Platt, the latest Tony winner, on top of the world for his talent and hard work for his performance in Dear Evan Hansen.With every turn of the microbus I plunged further away from my most idyllic dream. I measured the distance between myself and winning a Tony. Picturing Ben Platt’s face pricked me like a bag of water and all the liquid in my body shot to my eyes and down my face, matching the rain. I’ve cried over plenty of deferred dreams, but never on a winding microbus in a developing country. No one noticed or acknowledged my emotion. The woman who was sick from surgery wasn’t crying.
We got to Santa Clara and I still had to carry my bags uphill before I would be home. Which was heavier: the luggage or the months of service I had left? Were there skid marks on my face from the culture shock? At the time the walk home felt like an emotional marathon. I felt like a St Bernard, dragged jowls from dread as time makes a tic-tac-toe of my skin. Could the whole town could see how ragged I felt? I was there but I was out-of-order.
But time, like poop, passed. On my third day back in site I convinced myself to go to school (you know: work). In Paquip the rain hit the tin roof as I yelled for my students’ attention. I heard my voice, not on Broadway or in English, but I heard it. Pushing words from my core and fighting the rain on the tin roof made me feel stronger than I was. And I just kept talking until I was done with the charla. I walked 50 minutes until I was home. And I just kept walking and fighting the rain and showing up: not always on time and not always enough, but I didn’t stop.
The work of the project Youth in Development is to mobilize the community so that new methodologies, practices and developments can be utilized to support youth. That’s what the job description says on the Peace Corps Action Figure. But on most days, I felt like I was sitting out jury duty waiting to get released to my life. I would show up, watch soccer and feel useless, bored or just flat-out awkward. On other days I would facilitate classes to varying success, but I wasn’t giving the students a grade so it was hard to command their respect and attention.
So many classes were cancelled for band practice the weeks leading up to Féria (our annual town carnival). (Did you know that Won’t You Take Me to Funkytown? is still a popular jingle in middle school bands of Guatemala? Can somebody please sweet peonies take them to Funkytown?) I swore off the song Despacito but that’s the pace at which life was moving: desp……ac…..i…..o…….. slowly. Not even in the campo could I escape Justin Bieber’s reach.
It was a “wet year,” raining from the middle of March through October. We were getting a third level put on the house (sounds fancy but it was essentially putting a roof over a patio). I didn’t realize how fast construction goes in the US until I saw how slow it is here. My feet got soaked in flip-flops as I made my commute to the bathroom. They put wood beams up to be able to lay the concrete for the floor above us. This process took longer than I could have ever imagined and when I slept in late, it was super embarrassing for them to know my sleeping schedule but there was no way to hide it. They must have thought “Who’s This Queen of Sheba sleeping in so late?” Ucgh.
The months leading up to féria, class was cancelled for band practice. I would show up and listen to practice but what was I even there for? With féria over in mid-August I could get back to teaching classes, and I left for work with a fresh roll of masking tape and animo to get to work on time when I fell and sprained my ankle. I lost the whole month of September to reposo, recovery. By October I could walk again but the school year ended and graduations began. Time to apply for a grant and plan two camps for summer break.
In November Abby (my sitemate) was visiting with my host mom. You have to linger and visit in this culture, Being in someone’s presence is an art that’s not been lost in Guatemala. “Hey How are You So Good To See You K Bye” doesn’t fly. I am certain to miss that skill of exist, share and remain when I go back to my country that’s too busy for everything but politics and Instagram.
My host mom, in her usual singsong conversation, said to Abby that I am ‘allada’ aquí. Ay-ah-duh? I didn’t recognize it. “Cómo si?” and she returned “o sea, ella es muy cómoda” and I made a mental note to check my Spanishdict! app. I looked up allada to no results. Add an h- hallada- and it appeared.
Hallada is an adjective that means found. The infinitive verb must be hallar, so I look that up next: to find. 1.(To find) to find 2.(to uncover) to discover and 3. (to receive a reaction) to meet with. Hallarse PRONOMINAL VERB I don’t know what pronominal means 4. (to indicate position) to be REFLEXIVE VERB 5. to indicate situation a. to be b. to find oneself 6. (to indicate state or condition) a. to feel b. to feel oneself.
Beautiful. And ‘hallar’ sums up so many words in English. Sometimes thoughts are more striking in a second language, like I’m considering the concept for the first time. And to think that my host mom, who doesn’t speak Spanish 100% fluently, introduced me to a word about being found. I wouldn’t want to learn it any other way.
One morning in November, I got out of bed at 10:30 (yes, it’s impressive). I scolded myself for sleeping so late and just felt like I’d lost a morning. But when I got myself out the door, I made moves. I was in planning mode for camp and ran errands to accomplish task after task. Went to the comedor to confirm the date, invited a youth friend I saw in passing, checked-in with Byron for the copy of the approval letter for the camp, went to the grocery store and asked for Roxana to participate and went to the Health Center to confirm the agenda. I printed off the ‘informe’ and dropped it with Lic. and just kept moving.
The sun was all over Santa Clara like chuchos on a chicken bone. And I just kept walking and greeting the faces and friends I see every day. In the market I always buy from Irma because she usually has eggplant. I can’t be bothered to shop around for the rest of my vegetables so I end up just getting what I need from her. Eggs is a separate trip in which I walk to the neighbors house and buy a carton of 30 tan eggs for 23 quetzales. They’re called ‘criollo.’
I think of all the year’s losses. The funeral of my students’ mother, Evelin getting sick and dropping out of school. At 16 years old she still struggles to walk up the stairs and she got sick long before I sprained my ankle. I’ve been on dates with three different Guatemalans, more chutes than ladders.
It seems like every three months some change in perspective or new strain of thought changed my focus. I would be reminded of my privilege as a white, US American and sometimes it would hit me in the face. Once I watched a host of young boys eat tortillas in tomato sauce for dinner. The family gave me the biggest piece of meat. And for the next two weeks I thought about malnutrition.
I felt like a part of it all, I felt like I fit into this town. And one of my favorite quotes is from James’ Joyce’s Ulysses (which I haven’t read): “Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way ’round is the shortest way home.” And that rings true: escaping a “normal life” didn’t prevent me from being exactly who I am it probably escalated my search for self. But no matter what I have learned about myself in this context, I feel a part of a community. Who cares about my strengths and weaknesses? All of life isn’t a job interview. The point is to be together.
I went home for Christmas and I missed my pueblo. I flew past the quiet highway and no one noticed me passing by or called me ‘Pazapik awi’ or asked me to buy avocados. I was another car, another face. It was cold and my skin got so dry. I felt a little lost. Even though home will always be with my family, my current home felt like it was with abuelita and my friends in Santa Clara where I am pazapik awi,’ where I yell over tin roofs and where my wisdom teeth are coming in. I started service without any and now I have two.
At 30 it’s not too late for more teeth to come in, for my to find home and to feel “hallada.”
