The Wednesday before my departure was a dress rehearsal. I’ll explain what I mean by that. 

I had to go into the office for medical stuff, and for a meeting. I don’t recommend leaving site the week before you leave site forever…. But I had to. So I left on Wednesday afternoon to meet the shuttle at Los Encuentros and, earlier in the day, my host family saw my bags and started to cry. When I left to run an errand, I looked at Clara and said: Kat bisontaj (don’t be sad) and she turned away and began to sob: a feeling I know all too well myself, the sob. Then my host Mom saw Clara and started crying too and had to walk into the kitchen. They were sobbing from the type of pain that someone feels when they get jabbed in the heart. I think it’s the financial anxiety coupled with the sting of my absence. And seeing my suitcase packed for the first time since I arrived. (If I can be so bold as to say).

But something a little funny: I discovered at this time that when my host family cries, I don’t know what to do but pull them to my chest and, with our height difference, it results in nestling them into my bosom: venerable Mayan women two and three times my age crying against my chest. They are stronger than me and I’ve seen that strength manifest time and time again. You don’t know what luchar looks like until you see 85-pound Abuelita wielding an axe at the firewood and grinding coffee with a heavy rolling stone. But here they are, pulled to my breast, crying. It’s odd, but there’s no way around it. I can’t stand there and do nothing while they cry. I don’t think they appreciate being held against my bosom but what’s a woman to do?

I got back from my errands and grabbed my bags to go. Clara accompanied me to the bus stop. My costal was so heavy that we carried it together. She grabbed one strap and I carried the other. It was a perfect gesture of how this society works: you get by with the help of your family, always. 

And after 7 days (or 8 days if you’re Guatemalan, because they count the day of + 7 more), I packed my bags and left Santa Clara for good: Wednesday March 27.

Santa Clara La Laguna, my home. 2 years and four months. Tortillas, sweat and tears. If you include training months, I lived in Guatemala from September 28, 2016 to April 1, 2019. That’s bonkers. And what’s more bonkers, this time it wasn’t a dress rehearsal. I wasn’t leaving, I was moving, going, gone. Rápida y furiosa.

It was sunny out when I emerged from my room around 9am. I wasn’t looking forward to anything about this day. It felt like I was dying or something (that sounds so dramatic, but it was so somber!). I gave Clara an envelope and she started to cry. We talked. She was sad. She was worried for Abuelita. If she had had a father, she wouldn’t be in this situation. There would be a man to help with the expenses. But he isn’t there. This was a lot to take in the day of my departure, but I didn’t have a choice but to stand and listen. She is like a sister to me. She has been a sister to me, and I hope that doesn’t change.

I made my last boiling pot of water in my (handle-broken) small pot, and poured my coffee grounds into my Bodum coffee press/traveler thermos. I poured the hot water over the grounds when I heard the pot begin to bounce against the grill of my 2-burner gas stove. I switched the gas off. For the last time. I brushed my teeth and retainers over the pila, spitting into the drain and using the small plastic bucket to drain the soap and spit. I watched it go down the cement ridges and into the drain. I began to fill the pila basin in the center to have water for my laundry. I wanted to leave the house clean. I poured my powdered detergent and Suavitel, fabric softener, into my big plastic bin. Then I poured water in with a big plastic bucket. I grabbed my wool blanket, white sheet and pillow cases from the bed and dumped them into the bucket. And my fleece blanket.

Everything would stay. My hammock, my fleece blanket, my yoga mat, my aqua blue laundry bucket, my pink PACA bathrobe that’s Oscar de la Renta, and my house sandals. Like I’m dying and leaving all my stuff. The rest of the clothes I couldn’t fit, I piled into my laundry basket. I would bring them down to the PACA pile and ask if they could resell it (if I would have time..). I bought it from the PACA, I am giving it back to the PACA. Full circle.

I had to get Clara’s signature on a document stating that I left the house without damage, clean, etc… But guess what? The power was out. All over town. And when the power is out, you cannot print at the internet shop next door. You cannot print anywhere. So I said I would get her signature when she came to my close of service ceremony the following Monday.

I gave a note to Clara and asked her to hold onto it for my Señorita student who would stop by to pick it up. I invited my student to my despedida, my going away party, but she didn’t come. I had a paper she wrote about herself back in February 2017. Her name, her goals, her age, her hometown, etc. I saved it to write her a goodbye note because she was one of my good students. By that I mean one of my students who paid attention and didn’t make me want to climb the walls or walk out (it was hard, I am not going to gloss over that). So I put her note inside my goodbye note to give to her as my final goodbye.

But there wasn’t time and my student lived in an aldea. I had another pile of stuff prepared to give to Fulvia and her sister. I called her at her number she’s had since last year and she actually picked up. Surprise, surprise, her number hadn’t changed. She said she would be over in 30 minutes. I had 2.5 hours left in site.

I called my student: “Mire pues, dejé una tarjeta para ti y hay que llegar para recogerla con mi hermana anfitriona…” I told her to come by and get her card from my host sister sometime. She responded: “A qué hora sales?” “A las 2 Amiga..” and she said: “OK I’ll grab a tuk-tuk and be there.”

I ran an errand in the street, I took a plant down to Nan Wij, and as I passed people in the street, they yelled to me: “Es cierto que ya te vas?” ‘Sí….!” I said. Word had spread quickly. I guess people talked about it after my despedida cake-fest on Sunday. People who I didn’t know… “Ya te vas?” It made me feel special. I knew people cared about me, but like with most things, sometimes you don’t know how much they care until the end. Teens popped their heads out of windows “Ya te vas?” and women on the street “cierto que te vas? No te vayas hombre…. quedate aquííí….” I felt a little like Belle in the opening number “Bonjour!” but instead “Adios!”

I’d walked these streets a bajillion times in two years: bored, in a hurry, coming, going, looking at the alfombra, buying groceries, just walking… The fried chicken shop was trying to do a promoción with a blow-up chicken, but there was no power so… the chicken looked how I felt. Deflated.

I got back home and began to wash the soap out of my bedding, article by article. I always get splashed from doing laundry. Worse when it’s bedding. I managed to finish the sheet and the fleece blanket when my host family called me downstairs to eat. They had made my favorite: brócoli en vuelto. (It’s broccoli fried in battered egg. It’s so good. I stopped making it after the first year because I…. am lazy… and whipping eggs with only a fork…. cuesta). I always cook for myself but I hadn’t bought food this week and I didn’t have time, so my host family invited me…

Before lunch, I dyed my hair and bleached my teeth. Why? Because I did not have room in my suitcase for another single thing. And I had to throw this box of hair dye AWAY.

I got through a bit of my plate when Fulvia and Paola appeared. They had a gift for me in a plastic bag. I wished they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble, because I couldn’t take it with me even if I wanted to. I gave them the sweatshirt and my leather jacket from my pile for the PACA, along with the earrings. And my brown hat with the flower on the side. They gave me their words of despedida. They are so sweet. Fulvia is the older one but Paola is the louder of the two, the bolder of the two, and so she spoke. “Siempre va con la bendición de Dios y sepa que siempre tiene amigas en nosotras. Cuando quires llegar, la casa tiene las puertas abiertas…”

I asked if I could take their picture and after that, we hugged once more, and they walked back out of the lamina side door and onto the street. “Adios, se cuidan…” and I went back to eating. I finished eating and thanked my host family “Muchas gracías…” and they responded “Buen Provecho” for the last time. I called my Dad so that he could say goodbye, and my Mom was there too, and I translated for both of them. To which we all started crying again. Crying translators are less effective.

After another half hour with my laundry still in process, my Señorita knocked on the door. I was half-expecting she would not arrive. She walked in the door and seemed different. Same soft countenance, same sweet smile. The truth is that I hadn’t seen her in many months… I didn’t work with her this year because she had graduated from the school where I worked, but I knew she was studying to be a doctor in the neighboring town.

She came in and I asked Clara to recover the note I had left in her care, and brought it out to us. I handed it to the Señorita and in that moment I saw her belly. Her life flashed before my eyes… the diagnostic tool called a Problem Tree that I did with her participation: “What are the ‘Raices’ of embarazos de temprana edad… (Roots of Youth Pregnancies).” She was the most vocal, although shy, during the activity with her opinions as to why teenage pregnancies occur, especially in Santa Clara. “Tal vez sucede por autoestima baja, falta de educación, falta de apoyo de los papás….” And from the ‘raices’, the roots of “the problem tree,” grow the outcome, the trunk: Teenage Pregnancy, and the results: female students drop out, they don’t have money to pay their bills, they are left without husbands to raise their children, their children ‘caerse en vicios,’ etc. These were all realities that the students suggested, and I added them to the tree. This was October 2017. And now she was at my door, an hour before I left site, pregnant.

I don’t think my jaw dropped on the outside, but my invisible jaw was agape. Maybe she got married and I didn’t know. That happens here, very young. Or maybe she was happy to be pregnant? Maybe this was an exciting thing? A child is a gift, after all. And hadn’t the whole pueblo told me for 2 years that not having a child meant not being a woman? Here she was, according to Santa Clara, about to me more woman than I at half the age. “Es de tu novio?” I asked. She shook her and asked if we could speak privately.

“Pase” Of course, come in and I indicated that we move upstairs. I had an hour left in site, in service, but this was more important than my bags, missing the shuttle or having a peaceful time for my last moments in site. This was her life and I might be the only person who could support her. I don’t pretend that she isn’t getting support from other places, but a pueblo is a hard place for a young, pregnant teen.

She said: “Someone did this to me and I didn’t want them to.” My heart sank. We sat across from each other in two chairs, my apartment so empty that it echoed. She spoke softly and cried gently. I offered her tissues. I told her about her options: “Denuncia… Adoption…” A denuncia is a formal report that a crime has occurred, such as rape. She told me her reasons, her thoughts around denuncia and adoption which I won’t share to respect her privacy.

I sat up tall with a rage that strengthened my backbone and I said: “You have options. You might not have options here in the pueblo, but you can go to the state capital and consider giving the baby up for adoption.” In terms of what happened to you, it is not your fault. If I suffered and struggled two years to be able to put together a sensical sentence in Spanish just for this moment, maybe it had been worth it. I was going to give it all I had. I tried to send her all my strength through my eyes as I told her: “You can accomplish your dreams. Yes it is going to be difficult, but you can keep studying. You can achieve your goals, even if the path winds a little differently than you anticipated. Okay?”

We continued to talk, and I told her how sorry I was, and that this wasn’t her fault. After our conversation seemed to end, she gave me a bright and shiny hair clip as a going-away gift. Clip or no clip, I would never forget this moment. Not a single one of my students has knocked on my door pregnant and the moment it happened, 2 years and 4 months and the last hour in service is when it happened. Thud.

I hugged her, offered her my prenatal vitamins (errr- even though she was not prenatal I figured it could still help) but she didn’t take them. Maybe she thought I was pushing pills. Pueblos are leary of pill bottles even if they are vitamins… We walked back downstairs, I hugged her and she walked out the door. “I will call you” I told her, and I will.

I went into the kitchen to finish my meal, but this time even sadder (I didn’t know this was possible). My host family noticed she was pregnant and I told them what happened. She said: “We’ll adopt the baby…” I said. “Okay you should think about it” and gave them her phone number. They wrote it down. So somehow I was facilitating an adoption my last 30 minutes in Santa Clara? Head-spinning. I got my bags downstairs and in 10 minutes Lic. Enrique would arrive to drive me to the shuttle stop for Peace Corps.

I felt heavy and sad for my Señorita. I can’t believe how our interaction played out. If I hadn’t saved that piece of paper she wrote her name on in 2017, and folded it up in a note, she would not have come to the house and I would never have known what happened to her, and how she felt. But I did save the silly note. And I did call her twice before I left. And I wonder if it’s moments like those that make Peace Corps important: unexpected, heartbreaking situations where someone from the outside can spark a little light. And you don’t have to be in Peace Corps to do that. You just have to listen to your heart, and listen period. But it made me so sad because her story is played out a million times to young girls. She isn’t the first, she won’t be the last. And it was there right in front of my eyes: “even though you worked in sexual health education for two years, things aren’t going to change overnight and here is proof in the form of a student knocking on your door.”

Throughout the morning, I walked past my flower sprouts in my planter. Up and down the stairs, doing the laundry and hanging it on the line. When I moved here, someone wrote me a postcard on a packet of seeds and I mistakenly (promise!) brought them back to the country. (Can’t receive mail here, they sent it to my parents). Every time they appeared to almost bloom, they stopped. I saw one tiny flower open up before the small sprouts flew away. I saw three different sprouts about to open up that morning. It reminded me (as nature does) that we planted seeds in this project and we won’t be here to see them grow and bloom. And I would go before I could see them bloom.

In my last 10 minutes, I ran down to the PACA pile in the market center and asked if he could resell these clothes. He said yes and I dumped them out and left. I ran into Rafi, another volunteer in site, ending his lunch break. I started to cry. This was all too much more for me. I told him I was sorry for all of the emotion but I was past my breaking point. It all came out: my Señorita, Clara’s emotion in the morning, grief. We eventually said goodbye and I walked myself up the incline to my home, for the last time.

I went into Mireilla’s house, my next door neighbor and little friend. She came and played with me, colored with me, and grew up into a little girl during the two years I lived next door. I came in and she was using the bathroom. I waited for her outside and she came out to wash her hands, her mom lifted her up over the sink. I explained: “I am leaving Mireilla, but one day I am going to come back and we are going to color together again.” Thud. She said: “Síí!!” I don’t think she understood that I was leaving para siempre. I may have told her: “this is my last day here” but I don’t remember. The next time I see her, she will be so big.

I went upstairs to carry down my bags and my host family followed me. They said they would help me carry my bags down. I think these bags weigh almost more than them. I couldn’t let them carry anything but they insisted. As I pulled the handle of my suitcase up my host mom crumbled into tears. She “remembers the day I arrived” she said… “You had those bags and I helped you carry them across the street..” and then Clara began to cry. Last was Abuelita, who had remained strong until this moment. She said: “Que Dios le cuide…” and that she is happy that I had two years here, without health problems, and now I would go back to my parents happy. And for this reason, she was happy. Thud. (That’s the sound of my heart on the floor). And Clara was crying and turned to hold Abuelita as they both cried. I felt like I was in a Picasso of sadness and all my organs were crisscrossed.

I was in the midst of three generations of women sobbing over my departure. Call me a narcissist (I would understand) but amidst feeling terrible, I felt very loved. And concerned for their wellbeing. And like it was time for me to go. Lic. took one last picture of us. Although we were all sad, I wanted the memory anyway.

I got in the car with Lic, and tried to generate polite conversation. He is doing me the kind favor of driving me to the shuttle stop so that I don’t have to worry about changing buses with my heavy bags… which I genuinely appreciate. But me and Lic aren’t terribly close, so I felt like a rubber band: going from guttural sobs to polite conversation in a manual transmission Rav4 as we drive to the shuttle stop. We picked up his wife on the way and ate cake and coffee at a restaurant I’d never been to off the mera carretera. I asked his wife about herself, I didn’t know her, as we politely ate our cake and coffee. We had to quickly get into the car and speed to the shuttle stop. The Peace Corps shuttle waits for no one.

As we pulled up with exactly one minute to spare, Lic helped me move my bags onto the shuttle. I didn’t recognize the shuttle driver. He introduced himself to me. “Alejandro para servirle” as he shook my hand… He seemed new. I went from super familiar (host family) to Lic (professional relationship) to stranger shuttle driver in the span of an hour. This is Peace Corps. You are along for the ride.

I sat in the backseat, alone, and took the Peace Corps shuttle for the last time. I watched the repetitive streets of Guatemala go by. The cement block buildings, the painted sides of tiendas for the upcoming elections, the familiar street signs with the remaining kilometers, and the mountains as the world rolled by. I didn’t listen to music, to podcasts. I just sat, numb, and watched the street move past us, or us move past the street, I wasn’t sure. I got a message from my former Gentleman Caller because I take my heart shaken, not stirred. All of the emotion I can pile on at once, please and thank you. What would the hotel be like tonight? Would I be in a room with other volunteers? Would I tell them about the Señorita today? Would I go to La Torre and cry as I walked up and down the bright aisles?

I had a headache. This seems to be expected at such a time as this. But when would things feel again like I wasn’t falling apart? Because all I could see was more sadness and uncertainty up ahead. I was in a room with two volunteers who I didn’t know very well but who were very nice.

I went to the art supply store and spent Q75 (a fortune) for a painting canvas. The Dr. at the Peace Corps office has a STARK WHITE office and I said I would buy her something with flowers. I found a Q2 dress with flowers in the PACA and I began to cut the flowers out. Flower by flower. As I listened to the two volunteers talk. I told them eventually about my Srta, how sad I was. They agreed about the irony of the timing… I continued to cut out the flowers from the dress until it wasn’t a dress anymore. Until it was something new. And I went to bed. Tomorrow I would have medical check-out and a bunch of forms to do.

COS (Close of Service) begins.