Shortcut.

I’d never heard the word.

I think I looked it up one other time, but like imperfecto de subjunctivo, it didn’t stick. And the term I found wasn’t extravío, it was something else.

In the exact moment that I needed the word, Damaris said: “Aquí hay un extravío.” I immediately noted it in my phone, lest I forget. I liked the sound of extravío and how different it sounds from so many other Spanish words. It sticks to my brain, “extra way.”

I stayed in site on this particular Saturday in July, a new custom, to not disrupt the flow of staying in Santa Clara.

When I leave Santa Clara on Saturday and get back Sunday night, I have to reset my system to being in Santa Clara again. I am reminded of how simplicity feels, and what’s more, I have to readjust to the feeling of simplicity in the form of cold pila water, a warm fire for cooking, being recognized everywhere I go, and lots.. of.. quiet. Thinking of daylight savings isn’t the same experience as losing that one hour of precious sleep, the sun invading your blinds one hour earlier than the day before. That’s what coming back to site is like, it’s like adjusting to losing an hour of sleep as you go back 50 years in time to a place without washing machines, hair dryers, refrigerators, wifi or cheese. Something feels off until I readjust.

So I take a shortcut. I stay in site.

What I really lose an hour every time I go back to site? In two years, will I be like… living in another month than my friends and family? Obviously I’m not talking about time, I’m talking about living by a different measure than my people after two years in rural Guatemala. 

I called my student Damaris and told her I was on my way. She invited me to pass through before but I’d had to postpone. I haven’t been there on weekends, or haven’t felt like going to be frank. I figured she would be happy to see my call, but like most Guatemalans, her phone voice was very neutral, almost bored. When I arrived via tuc-tuc she asked: “What do you want to do?” She invited me to pasear para Triunfo so how was I to know?

We casually launched our paseo by walking out of her house. Simple as that, our adventure started. I quickly realized that pasear in this case meant kick around. I inquired about the other students who wanted to join but she wasn’t sure where they were. And as we wound down the streets lined with pavers, adoquín, she’d casually pointed out houses of my other students.“There’s Erika’s house” or “Ashley lives there” and I’d respond as if I learned of some hidden treasure! I’m from suburbia, finding a house whose inhabitants you know is some sort of revelation. I shouted up to one house: “Saqirik Nan! Quiere acompañarnos Sandra Joaquina?” Then Sandra would bajar the steep entrance to her house, permission granted from her mom, and join our quiet paseo in the sun.

Paquip is an aldea, or village, of Santa Clara La Laguna, my site and municipality. I try to walk to Paquip on days when I work there and it takes about 50 minutes. It’s the perfect amount of time to listen to podcasts and put one foot in front of the other as I traipse by the corn stalks, higher every day, and listen to anonymous callers unravel tales on Beautiful/Anonymous, or Terri Gross expound on a comedian’s career or Anna Sale excavate a person’s modes of being.

Paquipenses (err.. people from Paquip) are quick to tell you that they are not from Santa Clara. The Mayan language K’iche’ has noticeable differences between the two places though they share a mayor. In Paquip they say: “Fuerte jap’ ” for “It’s raining” rather than Santa Clara’s “Il jap.” Paquip uses ‘fuerte ‘aq’,” “fuerte tew” and “fuerte sutz” to describe the types of weather. It doesn’t seem like a big difference except that it was important enough for my school director to point it out to me when I said “il tew” one day. She said: “Oh, we don’t say that here. It’s fuerte tew.” Just the minute I learn the Mayan term, they tell me to use the Spanish one.

And we absorbed Wendy into our wandering crew, making us 4 (including me). I was surprised by how beautiful and exquisitely simple Triunfo was. As we plodded along, we’d pass other students on the street and invite them, Alexis or Julieta.. “La peresa” they’d say, if they couldn’t or didn’t want to come. That means “oh.. the laziness..”

I snapped pictures and as we left ASUVIM, the coffee cooperative tucked back behind Paquip, I noted how each señorita was hunched over their phone. Cell phones are still newish in rural Guatemala, I don’t even think the girls had internet/minutes on their phones, but they’d still glue their gazes to their screens as we walked. My students, ages 12-16, don’t necessarily have phones whereas some children in the States are breastfed with iPhone apps. Even still, I took a picture of these three wanderers, two of whose heads were pointed down at their phones, as we walked through the beautiful countryside.

(so I’m just as guilty as they are, taking pictures instead of taking in the real thing).

But to be honest, there was nothing else to do. It was kind of a reality check for me. These kids really do live out in the sticks, albeit beautifully arranged sticks.

By the time we’d passed through the white church that marks Triunfo, we continued up a windy path and the girls said: “This is Lilian’s house.” (I really like Lilian, she’s always attentive in my Tercero class albeit youthful and silly at moments like every other jóven but never disrespectful). When we arrived to Lilian’s house we simply said “Hola Lilian!” from the path, without raising our voices, to which a confused and quiet Lilian appeared.

Seeing their homes and imagining them in their wooden desks is like looking at their picture vs. reading their file. (Of course I don’t have files on my students, but you get the point). I was peeking into their lives, why didn’t I do this before? I’d seen my students but did not know their surroundings, not the trees that drape over their homes or the quiet that sustains them.

Lilian truly lives on the side of a mountain. I didn’t see a man, I imagine he was working or he is long gone. Her younger sister fixated on us, namely me. In the first three seconds of conversation with Lilian’s mom, I heard her whisper urgently: “tem” to her daughter which means “chair” and Lilian instantly turned to bring me one. I said: “Gracias pero no te preocupes, queremos invitar a Lilian para pasear con nosotras.”

And then we were five.

I heard Lilian’s mom ask if we were going to the piscina. I thought I had heard wrong, a pool.. As in, a maintained body of water, for swimming.. in Santa Clara, er rather, past Paquip into Triunfo? I felt all the shock as we bajared to what I can only describe as a tiny paradise, two beautiful pools perched on the edge of a slope ensconced by trees.

The owner appeared, Don Pedro, and he was kind enough to sit with me and ask me where I’d come from. He explained that the pool hadn’t been cleaned but that it gets maintained on a regular basis. I would not step foot in that water, to be honest, but still encountering a swimming pool in a place where I’d sooner imagine Dumbo riding into the distance in the backseat of a truck was shocking. And what’s more, why had no one mentioned this to me, not ever, in all of my 8 months in Santa Clara?

You think you know a place.
We thanked Don Pedro and headed back up the unwieldy path of rocks and dried out mud cakes. At one point I lost my footing and almost became the flying gringa circus act. After Lilian involuntarily grabbed an armful of green stalks and threw them in front of a horse. I said “That’s yours?!” and she responded like “duh. That’s my horse.”

Lilian returned to her home and we were again four. Sandra didn’t have much to say throughout our little viaje, her tiny little frame wrapped in traje típico even on Saturday, the other two girls in jeans and soccer Jerseys. The girls sought out a tienda as they chided that I would pay for whatever they wanted. “Nos invita para comer? Nos invita?” When you invite someone, you pay for everyone. If you ‘ir a la americana’ you split the bill. Funny how we call that ‘going Dutch’ in the States. But we couldn’t find an open store so we wandered back to the main road, tuc-tucs leaving us in a trail of smoke as they occasionally puttered by.

The tuc-tucs were frequent enough to give me comfort, a connection to the outside world. I was getting good and sweaty and the idea of waving one down was tempting me with each passing rickshaw. Damaris wanted to continue walking instead of taking the tuc-tuc so I agreed. Thank God we made it to Sandra’s house up above, I picked up an avocado that looked ripe and handed it to her. “Don’t forget this” and with a shy goodbye, she was climbing up to her house again. Then there were two.

Damaris had already gone through photos on my phone and listened to some of my songs in English. She is not one of my most respectful students, nor most participative, but I wondered if somehow our walk through Triunfo would encourage an earnest bond. We found a small shop and bought two waters, she gave me the chilled one and took the tepid bottle. I paid even though she had her wallet out (If it’s your suggestion to buy something, be prepared to pay for everyone). But I wasn’t about to let my student buy me water or anything, really.

We had much further to go. To my giant relief, Damaris asked: “Do you want to go back how we came, or take this way?” I looked at the winding upward path back to town, and I said: “mejor aquí. Pero se va directamente para su casa?” and she said yes. It’s an “extravío.” I’d never been so excited for a shortcut.

Extravío- it makes sense, an additional way, except that the definition on my Spanishdict reports otherwise: Extravío: to be led astray, to lose one’s way, which is sort of a shortcut but not really.

I think my little trip to Triunfo required a little self-animo, but once I was there, I was so glad. So in actuality, I didn’t take a shortcut in visiting them that day. I discovered 2 pools, how to trip ungracefully in front of my students, the neighborhood where all my jóvenes live and how far some of them have to walk to get to school. I took the long way round.