Del tal palo, de tal astilla: of such a stick, of such a splinter (kinda like: the apple doesn’t fall from the tree).

This post is about my parents’ visit to Guatemala, which I’ll split into three parts: Antigua (3 days) Santa Clara (2.5 days) and Panajachel (3 days).

Being with family can be packed with emotion and the complex tug and pull of the need for shelter with the need to branch out. Plus every single day in Peace Corps is multi-layered like bean dip: a simple spell is no loss for me. (If you’re wondering, I think 7-layer dip is an Estadounidense invention.. never had it in Guatemala or maybe it’s Mexican, but it ain’t here). But this trip was very relaxed, active and full of love. I might say it’s one of my favorite visits because introducing my Parents to my Life was so special.

I’m so happy that they came and saw, smelled and tasted what this experience is like and that I got to spend time with my Mom and Dad. They are wonderful people. One of the first things this culture taught me is an inherent respect for your parents that I have personally lacked. I haven’t ever bent over backwards to help them, or taken enough time to thank them for the life they have provided me as a child well into my adulthood. On this trip I wanted to host them and to thank them. On the first full day of their visit they celebrated their 36-year wedding anniversary, something else to celebrate too.

Our lives have gone down different roads: My parents don’t speak a second language and here I am learning two at a time in a house with chickens and the artist formerly known as Rooster (que descanse en paz). My dad works in a fancy church and I only experience church in nightly installments via the evangelical music that invades my room every Saturday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This is the foundation of cross-cultural experiences: different starting points.

I had been planning, preparing and reminding my parents to read my (brief but helpful) guide emails since my return to post in January. Three months of anticipation and a busy workload had me ready to get out of site and enjoy the comforts of Antigua in addition to the excitement of being with family. Come to think of it: this is my first real international travel with my parents (not counting a groupon week in Cancun). Antigua is just as much a vacation spot for me as for them, seeing as the travel restrictions prohibit us from spending the night in Antigua, I can’t really go there even if it’s a weekend, without taking a vacation day. Antigua is 4 hours from Santa Clara so if I am going to make the journey, I am going to spend the night (which means I never go).

 

I begged them: Please, please, please try to rest before you come. We do a lot of walking in this country, and international travel is exhausting (and you work too much Dad!) but I omitted the last part. They understood. But right before their departure my dad had to ready one of their rental properties for a new tenant so he spent the days anticipating his visit scraping muck off of tile and making general repairs which implies that he strained his back. My mom stayed up until 4am packing the night before and I sent her a very detailed list of packing instructions 6 weeks before the trip. Best laid plans.

But I knew life would happen and I had pena about very little. I knew that some of my parents’ comforts would not be met, and I knew Guatemala might not be ready for my parents, but the excitement of introducing Guatemala to them, to my house, my life and, most of all, my host family, far outweighed any concern I had for wrinkles in comfort or the demise of intention lost in shoddy translation.

MONDAY, March 26:

As any Peace Corps volunteer knows, you have to multi-purpose your trips into modern civilization. In anticipation of my parents’ arrival on Monday March 26, I scheduled a work day on Friday, a day-date on Saturday, spend-the-night catch-up pajama party on Saturday night with my former site mate and COFFEE AND INTERNET for all the spaces in between. One must know thy needs, limits and boundaries in Peace Corps and be able to express and fight for them or be ever-bombarded or uncomfortable. I can explain this is more detail but for now, take my word for it.

I got into a kerfuffle finding my ride to the airport. 6am or 9am. I paid for it the day before, 80Q, and even though the tour lady said: “Get here 10 minutes early, Amiga” I had two thoughts: “Why do you keep calling me Amiga, we have not met” and “yeah right no one does anything 10 minutes early in this country.” I was in for a rude awakening because I wasn’t in the country, I was in the city, and she probably called me Amiga to confuse me into being on-time but I got A: lost by google maps and B: over-whelmed by such a long walk on the IMPOSSIBLE streets of Antigua that I almost missed the shuttle. The ancient cobblestones of Antigua for me as a young, fit person, are still threats for ankle sprains.

I called the three numbers on the receipt and true to form, two of them were dead-ends or no longer accurate, but the third number saved my late butt as someone finally answered talking rapid-fire Colombian Spanish which sends me always knocks me and my confidence down several pegs. That’s one thing about foreign language life I could not have anticipated: It’s So Hard To Understand What People Say On The Phone. The new lady took a tone with me and even called me Niña, maybe if I had taken my Amiga title more seriously I wouldn’t have been demoted to Little Girl. I scaled the shuttle morning-sweating, huffing and puffing, insulted but relieved. When the lady offered to carry my bundled sleeping bag I coldly said: “No.” I’LL SHOW YOU I’M NO NIÑA AND CARRY MY OWN SLEEPING BAG BECAUSE REAL ADULTS TRAVEL WITH SLEEPING BAGS TO PLACES AND ARE ONLY 8 MINUTES LATE THAN THE SCHEDULED TIME OF 9AM (but 18 minutes late if they were told to get there 10 minutes before 9).  I should really leave earlier as a person who has a Bop-it in her brain where a sense of direction should be.

I shuttled to the airport with a young family: a straight married couple with a 6 and 2 year-old daughter in tow. We planted our weight firmly on the seats so as not to fly out the windows, the curvy roads dictating our choreography. Before we shared words I quickly sized them up: an adventurous couple patting themselves on the back for bringing their kids to a developing country for vacation. But I actually really enjoyed talking to them. But I don’t care how much I love Guatemala, I will not bring a potty-training aged child here. Or anywhere. They will stay at home and stare at the plastic throne until they lock it down.

The couple was from Wisconsin, accents detectable, and lived and worked in Antigua seven years ago, pre-nuptial and pre-children. They didn’t leave Antigua on this visit, which made me sad because anyone who comes to Guatemala and doesn’t leave Antigua is like going to Ireland to stay in Dublin (children are weights that way). As they told me about their work in Antigua, I had to heavily moderate the current of my thoughts from ebbing to the familiar stream dictated by hubris: “We don’t know the same Guatemala.” I had to remind myself: There are many ways to experience a country, especially with as much rich and varied cultural heritage as Guatemala. But, I felt deep in my heart like I know a more marginalized, off-the-beaten-path, occluded part of the country and that therefore made me stronger, more interesting and more important than them.

This must be the Peace Corps effect.. even though Peace Corps as an agency doesn’t intend for us to feel this, I just do. I have been learning a Mayan language, working with Guatemalans in a rural context where few tourists step foot and wearing (and buying) local clothing. NOT JUST the tops that look good with jeans, the whole schmalabble: belts, skirts, bags and a lifestyle to go with it. I get asked about visas and passports weekly sometimes daily and I am the ONLY white person currently residing in my pueblo. You could never say this about yourself in Antigua. You see how my pride puffed up into microwaved marshmallow size? It’s not a pretty part of who I am.

They knew that we lived different Guatemalas when I told them I was learning K’iche’, and some of my confusions with the Spanish language that I bet they hadn’t encountered (linchar means to accost, lynch in English is much more severe).

It sounds like their life in Guatemala shaped their work in the US. She is a Spanish teacher in a bare-bones, underserved community of Wisconsin. She teaches many immigrant students Spanish (as, oddly enough, they do not learn the grammatical side of their mother language or often times want to speak it for the discrimination that it implies). Her husband has a new job working with the YMCA. Of course we discussed the political climate of the US and what disgusts us about our Leader in Chief. But we moved on, democracy and systems that course on privilege mean that you might not like the results, or despise them. Their two daughters were engrossed in light-up, plug-in brain-melting appliances and barely interacted with me: This Is Our Future, United States of America, Tablet Minions who will swipe on humans instead of their mouths and scan chips in their wrists to buy groceries and survive.

How many soap boxes can I find in one morning?

When we arrived to the airport, I shook the husbands’ hand and the driver took to me “Arrivals,” a different part of the airport.

I told my parents to wait for me at the luggage carousel, their inability to speak Spanish a concern for me. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t go inside, I had to wait outside the airport. I begged security: “It’s that, my parents don’t speak Spanish and I need to greet them..” I explained, low-key whimpering. It occurred to me right as I walked away what a fool I was. I bet the guard thought: “Do you know how many children, KIDS, grandparents and adults arrive to the US every day who don’t speak a lick of English and NO ONE helps them or cares and wants them gone?” Privilege has taught me that if I just ask, if I just beg, someone will help. This was a wake-up call for me. I thought about my next door neighbor Wilson who tried to cross the border and didn’t make it. He slept under a layer of sand one night as part of his border-crossing journey. En fin, he was caught and sent home.

I stood in anticipation, the balloon vender passed me twice and on the third pass, I bought flowers and a balloon. Even a cheap-o like me knew that I needed to buy those flowers to express my genuine excitement. I was genuinely excited. I kept looking up at the arrivals screen to check the time. “Aterrizado/Landed on Time” switching from English to Spanish, English to Spanish. But no parents. I imagined them in the long customs line, or at the carousel, I even eyed luggage tags to see which flights were coming out. At small airports you can do that.. It would be no use in Atlanta, but at La Aurora Guatemala you can be a DETECTIVE like Fanny what’s-her-buckets on Netflix.

I noticed all the faces coming off of the planes, the profile of traveler, and I colored in the lines on their visit.. “Visiting son-in-law,” “Semi-retired traveler from New England..” “Destination wedding in Antigua.” I do this as a defense mechanism because I feel bombarded by society. In Santa Clara I have a reputation and a name, here I have neither and I feel pegged for things I’m not. So I, in turn, peg people with falsities as I don’t know who they really are. Thin slicing it’s called, I recently learned the term for this.. Guatemala is not a widely trodden path even though this is the largest airport in Central America so people’s reasons to visit fascinate me. Equally I noticed the faces waiting behind the stanchions, some holding signs, some selling wares and some patiently waiting. I noticed the few wearing traje típico like in Santa Clara, children.

“Please use the bathroom when you get off of the plane because we will have an 1-1.5 hour ride to Antigua from the airport” I reminded my mom on the call the day before. She forgot. You have to plan for bathroom trips in developing countries. US Americans who don’t often travel do not realize that free public bathrooms abound in the US, even with an abundance of toilet paper, soap and paper towels. That’s not how Europe works, nor here. But there’s a lot going on when you get off a plane in an unfamiliar airport and you don’t want to lose the friends you have made on the plane because they suddenly become allies in countries where you can’t communicate. My dad can make friends with a brick wall and my mom can persuade an apple tree to grow blueberries so I anticipated heartfelt introductions.

Also, the clincher, there was no way for them to call me once they arrived: no international phone plan or access to wifi. Their phones went from their personal buddhas to useless airplane mode aparati.

When I saw my mom’s smiling face after what felt like a millennium, I was so happy. I handed them pink roses with a red heart balloon and scrawled “You Made It!” across the heart in silver script. I handed it to them and we hugged and kissed and rolled our way to the shuttle. We got on with a retired couple with lots of questions. My mom and dad quietly took in the view as I gave my usual Peace Corps pitch, but in English instead of Spanish. It was the opposite of the conversation with the married couple on the way over… This time it was a couple on the other side of age coming to Guatemala for the first time.

My mom whispered something to me about how I treat she and my dad differently, maybe half of the ride in. I shut my mouth and reverted inward. I don’t have it in me to analyze my family of origin or call a therapist because I live in a pueblo and I can’t, I just can’t. Thankfully the moment passed and it didn’t come up again.

We checked into our hostel, Maya Papaya, and I paid with my credit card (what? I can pay with card?!) and we walked 15 minutes to lunch, Mom and I a good handful of strides ahead of dad (maintained throughout the trip).

We settled into our room and arranged our stuff in the space- me on the top bunk and my parents sharing a queen bed. On the bottom bunk I spread out the shared items: sunscreen, big spray, sombrero and their sleep clothes which I brought in a PACA. We briefly discussed plans for our three days in Antigua. The hostel was really cool, really expensive, but really cool. If I had cash like that I would always stay there: breakfast included, modern interior and two house dogs one named Maya (naturally). But I am fine with the simpler life.

My Mom accompanied me to a side-shop and we bought two gallons of purified water (for teeth-brushing, drinking, etc.) Tiendas are such a big part of my life that it felt like a big moment: My Mom in her first tienda! Which she found funny. But like, in Santa Clara, tiendas are life. You don’t do your grocery shopping because I do that on market day, but I buy everything at corner shops.

Then we made a 15-minute walk to Rincón Típico for a late lunch and ordered chicken and salad and I had a ‘rona. At the entrance, two women are making huge tortillas on an iron stove. My parents stopped to comment and observe. Tortillerías are as normal to me as sewers in a city. We briefly caught up and I was filled with the absolute shock and happiness of looking at my parents looking back at me in my humble, beautiful country of Guatemala (though the pueblo is a far cry from Antigua). Of course it was late, like 3pm, so the chicken wasn’t available. We chose with sausage and some other mystery meat. On the way home we checked out central park and I had to teach my parents about the vendors. Young children carry wares on their heads in baskets, strung across their arms and speaking the few words they know in English. You have to ignore them unless seriously interested in what they are selling because they will follow you. After we passed the vibrant central park, we continued onto a busy side-street, still trying to keep stable on the rocky, bumpy sidewalks and trying not to hit our heads on the window railings that stand out.

We stopped for frozen yogurt, it’s not the same here as in the States but I can’t really explain the difference they just have to experience it. After we sat for a spell, we walked to a tour office and I booked our visit to the spa for the next day, debating over when we wanted to go to where and how. We made a plan, not happy with the times offered.. but moved ahead. We went back to Maya Papaya passing a food fair and rested for a spell. My dad was excited about the boiled corn on the cob and the empanadas. My parents are onto this no-sugar lifestyle which is just challenging to accommodate in a country that puts sugar in most things and gives you bread to go with it. The problem of my dad thinking he could communicate in English to anyone he saw had already presented itself.

I filled the role of Treasurer and Translator and Cultural Ambassador which was, well, tiring. But it was good because my parents were very open-minded to experiencing Guatemala. My dad’s biggest confusion and complaint was about not having ready access to ice, so he had to adjust to room temperature water.

When I returned to the cathedral by Maya Papaya I saw none other than my former sitemate and weekend hostess Abby, about to walk into me. I invited her to the hostel for Happy Hour and before you know it my dad was eating all of the happy hour popcorn in reserve while we three drank our drinks. I was thrilled because they had my favorite beer on draft, and draft hardly exists in my life currently, not even in the tourist traps close(ish) to my house, so I was very happy. My mom emerged at the end and I was so happy that we ran into each other.

DAY TWO:

We planned the next morning for the spa. I had never been to a spa day, not in Atlanta or Antigua, and it was really interesting! The morning started off a bit stressful for me because a jewelry vendor approached my mom while I was trying to locate the shuttle to the spa. Knowing what I know about pricing in Antigua vs. the rest of the world and the way they charge Gringos, I wasn’t comfortable with the transaction but it was also my mom’s wish to buy them. He charged more money than I can remember spending on my two-burner stovetop in my apartment, but she got the jewelry she wanted. She said: “It’s for my anniversary” and I knew that was just to make me quiet because, no one buys presents for themselves on anniversaries, or at least that’s not how I thought it was supposed to go.. But what could I say? We got on the bus and after 40 minutes my dad asked me to ask the driver “How much more time?” but I refused to ask. In Guatemala, you get there when you get there. He went home and looked it up in my dictionary. “How much more time…” is such a US question that it doesn’t apply in other countries.

We got to the spa and our guide spoke to us in English but it made more sense for him to speak in Spanish and have me translate, which is what ended up happening. We got lockers, saved our keys on our wrists and got used to the quantity of people in this building (it was a lot). I had never seen anything like it, a three-story patio area with pools, a jacuzzi, a thermal circuit with hot and cold water and a mango smoothie whenever you ordered it. We did a thermal circuit which means we went from cold to hot water in these thermal pools timed by pool attendants. After the allotted time in each temperature they would say: “Okay now you can move to the other pool.” Even in Guatemala city, all of the signage and communication to us was in Spanish. They’ve traveled internationally (some) but I bet this is the first time they’ve had to wait to understand something and rely on a translator. After lunch we went back to whatever pool of water we wanted. After 30 minutes our guide appeared again and told us we could go to the jacuzzi, which only my mom and I opted for while dad rested on the wooden benches with a book cracked open and face down on his chest: “Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult” the title making me chuckle.

We went into private bathing rooms with a piping hot sauna, my parents in one and myself in another, with a large bathtub and a glass door that you open and enter the sauna dripping in the scent of eucalyptus. I imagined (correctly) that my Dad did not fare well in the sauna for it’s immense steam. I’d never felt that sensation, like I was being pressure-cooked. I forced myself to go into the sauna and try for at least three minutes and then I would retreat to the bathtub and sip more of my smoothie. The day finished with massages and my dad was so funny, he wore his bathing suit in and didn’t take it off (even though my mom said: “You can take off your suit in the massage, Honey.”)

We were ready to leave but had to wait for the shuttle, so we sat patiently in three plastic chairs. We climbed onboard with a couple from Philadelphia and chatted with them on the trip back, my third time explaining what I do to a third couple from the US in two days. They were a biracial couple and I wandered why I noticed it or cared, but I did notice it and I cared that I noticed it. But I didn’t have any thoughts except that I noticed they were a biracial couple. I noticed my dad noticing the buildings, cement block, and branding of Guatemalan fried-chicken companies and repetitive signage and Spanish advertisements. I wonder what he thought about it, if this is what he expected, or if he knew what to expect.

At lunch I cried at the spa, in front of the menu and the silverware and napkins. I was in a white, fuzzy thick bathrobe waiting for my fancy lunch and I thought about my host family and how they could never afford an outing like this and it made me feel guilty. Many of these people at this spa were Guatemalan, they could afford a spa day. But my host family could not. And I thought about how I could never post photos of myself at a spa on social media for fear of what the Santa Clarense’s might say. “Why didn’t you bring me with you?” “Dichosa la Natalia…” (lucky) “Usted tiene dinero pero nosotros no tenemos” and they say it with smiles on their faces, to chide me, but I still feel it. And I tried to explain how I felt to my parents, who were so sweet, as I’m sure they didn’t want to be spending their vacation with me in tears. They listened and offered a suggestion: “Is it possible that you can enjoy this because you are helping your community in other ways..?” and while it’s a feasible question, and one that I might say to me if I weren’t me, it doesn’t hold water. In Santa Clara, most people don’t know how to swim.. And meanwhile Santa Clara has been so generous, loving and open-armed in receiving me and we are not, and will not ever, have the same privilege, access to opportunity or lifestyles. It’s why our time shared together is so special, and why going to a spa (for me) is so uncomfortable.

When we got to Antigua we padded 13 minutes back to the hostel and rested. My parents had reached vacation mode, this being the first full day of their visit that did not include air travel. I walked through the streets to rearrange the transport for the morning (let’s do the volcano at 2pm, even if the sun will be setting when it’s all over) and my parents stayed back.

It was nice to go on short walks alone, just to process the bizarreness of my parents being in a place that has only so far been mine. My parents knowing Guatemala doesn’t make it less mine, but it becomes a shared experience. We facetimed with my sister and brother-in-law and we went to sleep.

DAY THREE:

The next morning we went to my favorite cafe, there was not the smoothie bowl served at that location so we when went to the original so I could have my favorite dang smoothie bowl. Then we walked back to the hotel and left for the office where we would leave for the volcano. I was told the driver would not be able to make it to the hostel because of the roads blocked off for processions, so I made sure to be at the tourist office on time and wouldn’t you know it the driver went to the hostel. After the situation was arranged and my parents had eaten some frozen yogurt, we set off for Volcán Pacaya (an hours ride).

After our arrival, I remembered the face of my guide from the previous hike up (Nery, I think). Nery has been a tour guide hiking this volcano for over 25 years. His son also hikes. I warned my parents about the annoyance of the horses offering taxi rides, but it’s not something you know until you get stalked by people on horses saying “TAXI” just when the hike gets harder. My dad looked at me at one point and said: “Natalie, when is this thing gonna flatten out?” and I thought: “It’s a volcano. Probably never.” And just at the of our trip and our turnaround to go home, the volcano begin to erupt and we saw red lava shoot into the sky.

We gave Nery, our guide, a tip and left on the bus home. When we got to Antigua, we stopped at a busy, understaffed and brightly-lit restaurant and decided against it. We ordered pizza in the hostel and enjoyed our last happy hour as we would leave Antigua for the campo the next afternoon. I was sad to leave Antigua and so excited for my family to meet my host family.

The next day we would leave Draft Beer and Bumpy Streets and Beautiful Coffee Shops for another beautiful place, Santa Clara.