As of today, I have 18 days left in service. My Peace Corps days are numbered.. ‘son contados’ says my host sister Clara. And many magical things are happening between the moments of uncertainty and flat-out grief that course through my heart. I think it’s because sweetness and sentiment piles up for the end of things to help you push through the loss, and the goodbye.

I went to Mexico last weekend (but not actually). (Well yes, actually). I went to a far corner of Huehuetenango to visit a friend I hardly know. Huehuetenango is a Guatemalan province that sits just under the border of Mexico, a stunning part of the world. I went through this area in 2017 with three other volunteers, one of the best trips I’ve ever been on (to San Cristobal de las Casas). But this trip wasn’t about Mexico, or Huehuetenango, it was about seeing a friend and going to an unknown place, because I needed to put myself in an uncertain situation to take my mind off of things and get out of Santa Clara.

I marvel at many things about Guatemala: one is being able to make a friend on a plane and visit her almost a year later. In May 2018, I went home unexpectedly, and somehow, an elegant woman in her 50s named Rosita ended up sitting next to me on both flights! How unusual. I went to a bar for my eternal layover in Ft. Lauderdale and ordered a Blue Moon (something exotic after only having the option of Gallo for so many months) and a burger with all of the meat. ALL OF THE MEAT. This is the type of food that a girl from a pueblo orders when she didn’t expect she’d be in the States for another 6 months. The older guy to my left ordered me a third beer before he left with his fishing friends and his iPad the size of a big screen TV. When I got to the gate for the second flight, I’ll say it, I was tipsy. I should clarify (because I care about what people think) that I don’t drink much. But I had three beers at an airport bar and might as well have had a keg. I recognized Rosita at the gate, and felt immediately self-conscious and embarrassed. Spanish isn’t my first language, and after three beers, is English? 

On that 10:45pm flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta, Rosita told me more about her life. She put up with my beer breath until she offered me gum (a smart move) and we continued talking. By the time the flight landed, I said goodbye to my new friend Rosita after we exchanged numbers and made plans that one day I would visit her coffee farm. I greeted her daughter and blue-eyed, blonde haired son-in-law. In the months that followed, we messaged back and forth. I tried many times to plan a trip but it never worked out. And now, with less than three weeks left in service, I am going to see this unexpected friend on her coffee farm.

I could only imagine what this place looked like: a coffee farm on the border of Mexico. That trip home in May was unexpected, and so was my trip to see this coffee farm: Paraíso La Libertad. I googled it beforehand (how far am I really going?) and all I saw was green. Not roads or water, but green. Most of touristy Guatemala gets a serious eye-roll from me, but this was going to be different. I was going to be hosted by local Guatemalans on a coffee farm without anything connecting me to this place but a faint murmur of friendship. This was going to be unforgettable.

THE TERMINAL:
When I got to the Huehue terminal, I walked through the usual cloud of chicken smoke and passed women saying “que le damos” and male ayudantes shouting “Xela Xela Todos Santos Momostenango” on repeat. I hadn’t been to this terminal since last year. All terminals in Guatemala feel the same: hectic, lots of trash, clouds of exhaust, buses in and out and ayudantes yelling destinations to get their buses filled. I carried my heavy bags into a tienda, expecting the unavoidable stares, bought a comfort bottle of coke and waited. I put down my bags and sat on top of them, ignoring the bevy of taxi drivers to my right. I was feeling lost and uncertain, and sad. This break-up has been the reason for countless emotional breakdowns since February and I wasn’t sure how I was going to navigate these emotions during this visit. Eventually I got it together to call Rosita. She said: “We’re almost there!” which can mean 20 minutes or an hour.

Maybe I shouldn’t have come this weekend. Then I saw three women pull up in a silver Rav4, including the face of Rosita in the back seat with a big smile. When you have a friend picking you up in a vehicle, life transforms into your personal runway and the cloud of grilled chicken smell almost evaporates. I smiled back (feeling uncertain). I opened the back door and hopped in the car to sit next to my smiling friend, Rosita.

I was reminded, as I entered this car, I do not know these people. I met Rosa a lifetime ago (Peace Corps years are like dog years) and I don’t know her two nieces in the front. They all seemed nice but it was uncertain. I had to reset my brain to understand their Spanish, which was much faster and simply different than Santa Clara. We pulled into a mall parking lot and headed inside. Colocha (the curly-haired sobrina) looked at me and said: “She’s skinny, puro modelo” because it’s normal to comment on bodies in this country, big, small, light, dark, round, short, tall. I felt uncomfortable and said: “Maybe it’s because I’ve been sad and haven’t been eating much.” Wamp wamp. But true.

We looked through a food court and chose Pizza Hut.

THE MALL:
This mall was weird, because, well because I was in it. There are plenty of malls in Guatemala but not near me. Rosita even said: “Malls are like this in the USA, right?” and I said.. “Yes tiene razón.” I don’t eat pork which makes pizza ordering a challenge- pepperoni, Hawaiian, meat lovers and supreme are off the table. So we ordered supreme without cerdo, and wings. I never eat wings in Guatemala! They were so good!

As we each used the bathroom, the two sobrinas were on their phones. Did they regret coming to meet me?? They drove two hours just to pick me up… Was my Spanish bad? Am I disappointing them? I’m not used to Spanish-as-a-first-language-speakers and I’m not used to Ladinos. Their style is different, well scratch that- I am not going to make a list- everything seems different about these women than the Guatemalans I live with. No, it’s not good or bad but it takes adjusting, sitting in a Pizza Hut (that’s actually a fancy establishment in Guatemala) in a mall with women I don’t really know. The sobrinas had drawn-in eyebrows and thick eyeliner running over their lids.

After lunch Rosita paid for us, over 200Q for wings, drinks and one pizza. I can eat lunch in Santa Clara for Q10. I know that Guatemalans pay for everything when you visit, but still it makes me twitch. We decided to walk around the mall.. Colocha bought a small purse from a LUGGAGE SHOP called CiCi.. I didn’t even go in, I didn’t want to see the prices, then another shop called ‘I AM’ that had a t-shirt that cost Q295. Colocha held up a shirt that said SUNDAY FUNDAY and asked: “what does this say?” I said: “Ummmm Domingo Divertido?”

I wanted to cry. This felt awkward, unnatural. What if I got to this farm and felt even worse? Sad and lost? What if I can’t get out of bed tomorrow? I stepped outside of this weird shop and called my sister, but she didn’t answer. So I let my tears build up behind my eyes but I left them there. Sometimes you just have to work through the sadness, I am learning, because calling to say “I am sad” is sometimes pointless. I found an ATM and pulled out cash to have something to do.

We got back in the car and the heat reached a new level. Colocha told me sit in the front for the view, and that’s how it was the rest of the trip. In the front seat for the view. We drove through quiet streets with fat banana leaves dropping down and I felt like I was on the coast. It wasn’t AS HOT as that drive to Monterrico, but I hadn’t been in heat like this in a long time. The other sobrina, the one with long hair, drawn-in eyebrows and a tattoo across her forearm who drove the car, asked me about my relationship status and I just said: “Soltera.” I closed my eyes and hoped the sadness on my face would evaporate, but everything still hurt. So I just let the heat and my heartbreak become acquainted while I closed my eyes.

All of the songs we listened to were women pouring their hearts out over their lost lovers. It felt like a knife to the heart but I couldn’t very well ask for other music, right? Isn’t all Spanish music lugubrious over lost lovers? After another hour in the heat, most cars don’t have air-conditioning here, listening to the sound of skipping CDs (haven’t heard that in a long time). I’ve heard Enrique Iglesias’s song “El Perdón” 97 times since getting to Guatemala and the words never hurt until today. Lily the driving sobrina said: “Ya casi.”

Finally, we pulled up to a building. “Bienvenida” they said as we parked the car and walked in. But we weren’t at a coffee farm. We were at the Sobrinas’ house. Cabal: a panadería on one side and a pastelería on the other (bread and cake shop). The two sisters run them but they have a host of muchachas working (hired help). When people have muchachas, they have money. You learn the signs that denote socioeconomic status over time and one of them is the employment of a muchacha. Needless to say, this is not the Guatemala I know.

Doña Rosa and I settled into chairs on the patio. I asked for a bathroom, wondering again where I was. I was ready to go to her coffee farm, but we didn’t appear to be leaving, so I asked for a tour of the bread and cake shops. Lily took me on a tour. There were electric ovens everywhere, the finest of equipment (whereas the bread shops in Santa Clara are all brick/clay ovens). The power bills must be a fortune. Lily offered me a cupcake (the cream inside was a very exciting surprise!). She told me her son made them! with pride. After 20 minutes Rosa and I left. If we had been Estadounidenses, we wouldn’t have sat in those chairs while the two sisters scrolled through their phones. But because we are in Guatemala, we sat. It is rude to leave in a hurry.

Rosita and I carried all of my things to her red truck. First we stopped at a tienda and I simply sat in the sauna of the truck and waited, next at the gas station and then we stopped at a market to buy tomatoes. In the market everyone stared at me and I was reminded that this place doesn’t get a lot of foreign traffic. I almost felt uncomfortable. We lifted ourselves back into the truck and stopped again at a corner, I thought: “okay how many more errands?” but I watched people waiting on the corner ask where Rosa was going then get into the back of the truck. As they jumped off the back they said: “Cuánto?” so Rosita makes a little cash going up the mountain this way… Giving people rides.

She told me more of her life story as we bumped and bounced our way over the dusty, unpaved roads up the mountain. “Terracerría” she called the dirt roads. The brief overview of the struggles in her marriage and her losses made my current heartbreak sound like pan caliente, like a piece of cake. I wondered about how a person so calm, gentle and composed, can endure what she has lived through. She shifted gears between sentences. I wonder about what makes people strong, and I think, for women, it’s being Guatemalan. That and this road, which had her truck stalling out and dust flying all around us and caking my bags with dirt (in the bed of the truck).

THE FARM:
We arrived to her farm and I was immediately entranced. I don’t know why we are drawn to mountains, but I know we like reflections, and mountains are earth’s mirrors. We can see the land that surrounds us, reflects us, nurtures and sustains us. Guatemala, the Western Highlands (the region I know the most) is the earth erupting in staccato. This coffee farm is a sustained note in the libretto of the mountains of Huehuetenango.

A true coffee farm. She pointed out where all of her property is, and I was in awe. I knew that this farm was going to be impressive, official, but I didn’t expect to see sack after sack of coffee like this. A sign posted above the coffee that said: “Bodega de Cafe, Certificado Flo Utz, Starbucks.” I asked if that was true and they confirmed, Starbucks has purchased from them before. I said: “I used to work at a Starbucks!” I am seeing both sides now.

There were at least 15 men standing around Rosita’s son, to whom she introduced me. They all looked at me with the same look I’d been getting all day. WHO IS THAT PALE PERSON? I imagined all of their lives, their stories, what it means to be a coffee farmer. Then I met her son’s wife, who manages the farm, and his baby, and I ogled over the process by which their machinery sorts the coffee. It was soaked, then gets pulped by a big machine and sent to soak in a separate tub. I had a lot of questions because I know how my host family processes their coffee… but not to this scale!

We looked over the mountains, myself marveling at the view. She said: “My son is buried there, in the Campo Santos.” I said: How long ago did he die? and she said “20 years.” “How old was he when he died?” I asked. He was 20 years old. For a woman who has lived so much, she looks so young. She said: “That is where we are all going. Very little will matter in this life.” She didn’t say it morosely, just matter of factly. And she turned to take me on the rest of the tour. 

THE STORE:
Then it was time for Doña Rosita to attend to the store, her job. She told me about her store when we were on the airplane last year. I know it is her pride and joy. I went with her, brought my journal. I watched her attend to the people, grab two packets of sugar, or chicken or tropi-kuhl, or golosinas, and I wondered how much money she could make in a day. I wondered about how many days she spent in this tienda reasoning with life and asking it questions, or did she simply take one order at a time, like today, until the day was done, and left the questions for tomorrow?

It was beautiful to see Rosita in her element, with all of the people in line, and the ease with which she helped them. She offered me a seat and a water. The work was straightforward: you need salt? Okay, and she walked over to the salt and got it. You need two candles, I’ll get those for you. It was the way she took one order after another and held her upright posture against all the things in life that threatened to knock her down (and perhaps did) that called to me. After another hour of attending to customers, she said ‘the muchacha necesita cenar’ and we left the store with people waiting. We walked up the inclined driveway to the kitchen where I met another worker, someone who cooks all of the meals. She prepared us a chicken broth with rice and chicken legs. We ate the specialty bread that Lily (sobrina) gave us from her bread shop.

As we ate dinner, Rosa openly shared more of her life story while we ate, about what she has endured with her spouse. I said: “how old were you when you got married?” “15” she told me.. She spoke to the woman who cooks like she is a lifelong friend. The cook appears to be 50 years old, and the Cook’s Dad entered the kitchen and Doña Rosa offered them some bread we were eating. The cook helped herself to more bread from the specialty loaf. She didn’t eat in the other room, the way they treat some workers in Guatemala. She sat near the stove while we ate. They all live on the property, her whole family, and work for Doña Rosa.

Otherwise we chit-chatted about chicken and how life in the United States is lonely. This was her assertion (she has visited for months at a time) and I totally agree. Now that I see life here, and how families live and work together, I know what company looks like.

After dinner, saying Muchas Gracias, she went back down to the store. I looked over the view as the last bits of sunshine disappeared. I knew the smell of the coffee fruit because I have cut it myself for many hours, my hands dirty, sticky and my nails ruined afterwards. I knew the smell of coffee and the sting of heartbreak as I stood, a tiny dot of human, inside the mountains.

A little friend appeared, like my Tinkerbell. The cook’s daughter, Carmen Juliana, is 10 years old and she was playing on the giant bags of coffee beans outside the bedroom, standing on top of them. I asked her if she knew if I could take a shower. She came into Doña Rosa’s room and helped me with everything: find flip flops, a towel… She asked if I had shampoo? She looked up at my bare arms and said: “puro leche.” I said: “qué?” and she said: “usted!” to which I laughed. I’ll never forget that. “Pure milk!” she said.

The water wasn’t running, so I put my clothes back on, still feeling sweaty from the hot day, and grateful that we are on top of the mountain where it is cold.

Doña Rosa had offered me her bed, and when she finished in the shop she came into the room and said: “I am going to sleep in the room next door because I snore a lot!” I felt bad, I knew she was giving me her bed which was probably the most comfortable (and what she is used to). But she insisted. I slept heavily, even though I drank strong coffee before bed. I’ve been going through a lot in the past month, and I know I slept in so late because I am sad. The next morning I pressed snooze for 2 hours, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. 10am wake-up time in Guatemala might as well be 1pm. No one here sleeps in that late, so I was embarrassed when I did emerge.

Outside the day was sunshine and mountains. I wasn’t sure what the day had in store but I was quickly greeted by my little friend Carmen Juliana as I went to brush my teeth and retainers. And the magnificent world in green came up to greet me.