In January of 2016, I looked at one button on my computer screen.
It was an “Accept Peace Corps Service in Guatemala, September 2016-December 2018” button. I had to click the button then press “Submit.” With two movements of my finger, no handshake, signature with ink or exchange of body heat, I would commit to go to a place for two years and learn how to communicate, work and be.
I clicked “I accept” and Submit.
Today is Sunday March 11, 2018 and I have lived in this country for 16 months. Look at a 16 month-old baby and consider that it grew to that size while two of my late-arriving wisdom teeth broke in as I was hand-washing laundry, walking to work on uneven pavers while dodging horse and dog poop and learning Spanish and the Mayan language K’iche’.
When I started this process 2018 was more of a terrifying prospect than an eventuality. Not only 2018 but the very end of it, December. Did I think I would make it this far? Now I have 1,143 emails that contain “Peace Corps Guatemala” in my inbox. With that foundation laid you can understand that the story below stems from a crock-pot of experience not cup-of-noodles.
With that, I welcome you to a day in February as a Peace Corps volunteer.
Saturday February 24th, 2018 AD:
Pana is for people who don’t want to grow up and the locals who make money off of those people I thought to myself. The shoe shine kids know enough English to ask for money. The privileged locals are the street dogs. They have names, their turf and they are fat as cheshire cats, the only fat chuchos in Guatemala perhaps.
On this particular Saturday I passed two old Mayan women carrying their wares on their backs in slow-motion, one with a walking stick. I wondered if their humble gait was an act, but I saw that her legs bowed out. Even under her corte (wide, long fabric skirt) I could see the misdirection of her bones. I passed them as I walked to Mr. John’s.
Ugh. People visiting Pana are so damn curious. And curiouser is how I get looped in with them.
With their Aussie-packs and their long hair and foolishness and walk-about-town-while-on-vacation strides, they drive me nuts. Mostly this one dude who sat in Mr. John’s talking about beer like it was a new invention to Mr. John himself. Guatemala is not the place for beer, my friends, wrong country that starts with G. He was talking about Abita Beer like it was a new discovery and what he had ordered wasn’t even draft. I directed so much dislike towards this unassuming stranger you would wonder if I had a happy childhood.
I woke up on the fence about coming to Pana. I have decided to leave site on the weekends this year, part of my “DO/BE BETTER” plan for 2018. If I want to leave site I leave site without pena about how much money I would save if I stayed in Santa Clara. I’m working more this year and I can’t stay in site on the weekends and be worth anything during the week, or it just feels like I kept working.
Still I woke up on Saturday unsure.. The night before I got back from a three-day training, all of my socios with me in a squished microbus/passenger van from Km 148 to Santa Clara. Did my male co-workers offer me or the 15 year-old señorita a spot on the bus? No, they ran to take the last seats. So there are moments when I miss my country, come to find out. Even though I was tired of buses the thought of sitting around Santa Clara when I could be somewhere with internet and cappuccinos won out. My host sister gave me money to buy hair dye for my host mom and I decided to let that nominally tilt the scales. I went to Pana to buy my host mom hair dye (pronounced: internet).
On the 75 minute trip to Sololá, the capital city of the state/province where I live, I listened to two podcasts featuring heroin abuse (Death, Sex and Money) and marginalization in Hollywood on Fresh Air, both heavy in nature. When I bajared in Sololá I walked with the weight of these thoughts to the Despensa in search of hair dye and I thought about the word belong: what is it Spanish again? I know quedar is to stay, but to belong? I learned it at some point. I kept walking. The only locker available was 29 and the two white numbers stencil-painted over bright green sent me to Alaska.
Yesterday I was 29 (if 2.7 years are sandwiched between me and yesterday). Anxious about teetering on the edge of a decade of confusion, depression and exploration, I worked and drank and wrote and that’s what I did for my summer in Alaska in 2016. The time and place between me and that year, 29, is my life in Guatemala. Below locker 29 was locker 32. I’m turning 32 in a few months. Why are these two lockers touching each other like nothing happened in between? And moreover, why am I staring at two haphazard lockers like there’s a hidden code somewhere in the shiny paint? I snap out of it to take a picture of the lockers, even stranger than staring at them in a trance. I sought out the hair dye, picked a color, paid for it (“NIT para la factura?” they ask every time they ring you up.. “No lo tengo”) and I walked out leaving the wooden key dangling from locker 29.
On the curvy bus ride down to Pana in a giant US school bus turned public transport, I noticed the beamy haze that hovered over the lake. Disappointed that the lake wasn’t it’s usual stunning, I lambasted the sun. When the sun is out, the lake is vogue and when the clouds descend the lake is like a supermodel without a shred of makeup. The sun has complete control of the lake’s beauty.
How can the sun meddle with the character of stuff? It can change the very nature of something by it’s arrival and disappearance, like your crush’s arrival at a party you’re secretly hoping they show up to. The sun is like a man in Guatemala, it sets the tone. My mind drifted to my country’s obsession with TIME MANAGEMENT and how that’s not a concept in the campo. The podcast I listened to the day before featured a 10 year-old who mentioned stress about time management. What? Go play leap frog and grass-stain your jeans.
I’ve never heard anyone in Santa Clara say TIME MANAGEMENT. We just do what we need to do when we need to do it. Time Management is for MORE. “If I can manage my time, I can get MORE work done, have MORE time to exercise, MORE time with my family, MORE MORE MORE.” I can prioritize and do MORE of what’s most important to me. But (and this is my own opinion according to me) in the States the last thing we need is MORE. We need less; less of everything except time with each other. And if there were LESS then we wouldn’t need to manage our time because we would just do what was in front of us. I tuck the conviction away as I hop off the bus with my backpack on either shoulder, the weight of my stuff pressing on my shoulder blades. My soundtrack is the massive engine churning out black smoke as I put distance between myself and the bus. I beelined to Calle Santander as it was already 11:30am.
First, I needed food. I decided on Mr. John’s because it’s close, has internet, and grants my one-pancake blackberry desire for 16.50 quetzales (it’s a big pancake). I immediately recognized faces as I walked into the classic-music playing diner: the new, young volunteers. Poop. Can one ever be anonymous in Pana, Panonymous? No. Worse if you meet up for a date in Pana, then you have to introduce the other volunteers you run into to a person you yourself are meeting. And then the elephant in the Pana is that everyone knows you’re on a date and it’s awkward, the carpet of awkwardness topping the foundational awkwardness of a first date.
Once I acquired Mr. John’s new wifi code, PANCAKES, ate mine and felt out the waiter to determine if he’s into me or dudes (it appears to be strongly one or the other and I am still waiting for a sure sign), I walked up to the photo developing place and waited as a grumpy man downloaded and printed my photos. 77Q and 40 minutes later, I stepped into Té Quiero Café noticing for the first time ever that the name is “I Want Tea” not “I Want You.” Sneaky accent mark. I ordered my small chai latte for upstairs and scaled the curvy stairwell up to what I now consider my secret apartment. There’s a private three-couched room upstairs and either no one knows about it or has internet at their house so they never post-up (or at least, I have yet to encounter interlopers) in my space. I myself lope large and wide in said area, plugging in all possible appliances and watching Netflix without headphones thank you. In this quiet, empty room I have my choice of three delightfully unoccupied black faux leather seating options. I distribute my stuff between the two couches because why not and seat myself on the third, sinking into the medium grade furniture. If I didn’t have to go downstairs to use the bathroom I might never leave.
In the hours that followed I slowly drank in the drug that is internet. I transferred videos from my phone to a USB and cleared memory in my gmail. I made (minimal) progress on my grant completion report and caught up on Ellen Degeneres on youtube. I plugged in all of my appliances. Between clips of Donald Glover interviews and stand-up comedy on Netflix, I was consistently entertained between downloading powerpoints for the English diplomado I will give in March. A diplomado is a series of trainings through which you earn a diploma: a diplomado, you see? A former volunteer sent me all her presentations which makes her My Hero. #weekendvibes
This is what a normal weekend is like for me: I do not hike mountains, make tortillas over a fire, go on epic trips or hug malnutritioned babies, rather I take two buses to the nearest town with consistent internet and take two buses back. That’s 3 hours of travel in one day for a cup of coffee and comedy clips and it’s completely worth it (or so I thought) . We are not allowed to leave site on Friday nights because we can’t travel in the dark and work ends at 6, so that necessitates travel on both weekend days to permit travel at all. I wore my black lounge pants (sittin’ clothes my friend Jacey calls them) with a loose-fitting teal cotton top. I was there to impress no one, but I put on purple eyeliner because my eyes are starting to get lost in my face as my timeline extends further from the placenta bath that started this whole dog and pony show.
At the last moment possible I left for the bus to take me back to Sololá where I find the bus home. Engine purring in the distance, I walked onto the bus from Pana and found a space, this routine so familiar. I thought about making a joke to the ayudante on the bus: “And where does this bus go?” because ALL the buses from Pana go to Sololá but I knew he would dismiss me as a dumb tourist so I skipped it.
The bus from Pana to Sololá is foreign, no one recognizes me or cares who I am or thinks I am any different than the next SandyMcWhiteLady. Once we made it to Sololá I thanked the driver, disposed my coffee cup in the available bus trash can and bought my fabric softener and spray-on deodorant (it was en oferta) at Despensa after enduring a forever check-out line. I saw a blob of stylized plastic marked Nivea for Q20 and tossed that in the checkout belt (under 3 USD and might come in handy). I hopped on the last bus home, where the ayudantes see me comin’ a mile away and yell “Pazapik’ a wi’ (curly haired) Santa Clara Santa Clara.” This bus, unlike the others, is home. The drivers and ayudantes know me, the passengers know about me, and we are all going to the same place. There was just one space left for my butt, gracias a Dios, so I didn’t have to face the threat of standing or folding myself into an untenable posture to get home.
Now with nothing between me and my return except the ride, my attention shifted to a worsening pain in my neck and back that started in the morning. As we waved from side to side, our choreography dictated by mountain roads and a manual transmission, the pain climbed to my skull. Sometimes this ride goes by so fast and other times I feel each minute of the 75 minute commute home. Not to mention some drivers think they’re in the Daytona 500 while others drive like they are 500 years old.
This ride was more like the latter. My neck bobbled to the tide of the microbus as I hoped the pressure would dissolve like an alka-seltzer. I wondered if this is what a mini-migraine feels like, sensitive to light and the low-volume podcast in my ear. I paused the voices coming from the tiny speaker in my ear in exchange for muffled microbus sounds. When the faroff thought of my peanut butter jar did not distract me from my discomfort, a red flag was raised.
My mind shifted to when the waiter at Mr. John’s dispensed: “You look tired” and I feel more and more like I always look exhausted these days no matter how much I sleep. I considered the lines forming around my eyes as I dig further into my 30s like grubby hands in a dusty Doritos’ bag (thus the Nivea cream). Is Peace Corps exhausting, or am I biologically programmed for mattresses? I remember being very drained by life before Peace Corps was even a butterfly in my psyche so it can’t just be Peace Corps. Perhaps it’s me.
Every now and then I get a stress headache but I didn’t feel particularly stressed so what was going on here? Or was this late-release stress from the three-day training that just ended (I take inventory of the various stresses of my host-country counterparts) or was this from recent research on the future: grad school, be a Peace Corps Leader, be a Peace Corps Response Volunteer, move to Atlanta, Baltimore or Singapore, or did my head just hurt because heads do that sometimes? I review other possibilities as we sway our way home: I drank enough water today, peeing every hour practically (consult “my bladder as I age” for FAQs)… I tried scissoring my jaw to release pressure, rubbing the back of my neck, my temples, my hairline, pushed on the bone under my eyebrows all to no avail.
With half of the ride left to go, I came to the conclusion that perhaps I should cry. Would that release tension? Or did I need to cry anyway? And maybe a good cry would cleanse the spirit and soul. I amassed enough water behind my eyes to release a few skinny drops but it wasn’t backed by emotion. I thought about the last time I cried: when Joel McHale held Professor Slater’s hand on Community and rubbed his thumb over hers in a way that says “I really care about you” not just “I’m holding your hand because that seems the appropriate thing to do at this moment” and I felt my uterus do a flip-flop and surge venom of jealousy over fictitious characters to my heart. I love holding hands. When was the last time I held someone’s hand? Alaska. Damnit. I may have held hands on Guatemalan dates but I don’t count them because those were unsatisfying.
My thoughts turned to my host family: my grandmother, mom and sister. I anticipated this November which will be here in a flash, and my heart filled with a certain anxiety at the thought of moving away from my host family.
In Spanish, To Move Houses and To Move Your Body are different verbs. I like that because it validates the difference in changes: shifting your weight and moving to different countries justifies a difference in terms wouldn’t you agree?
One of the last buses of the night called for human Tetris of all of us passengers. It was stuffy and tying up my hair made the headache worse. When I felt gusts of air from the brief sliding door openings to load and unload passengers I retreated from my body momentarily until the door shut again. Microbuses, with the abrupt stops and starts, smells and sounds, are not conducive to forgetting where you are. I slightly averted my eyes to check-in on the two woman hunched in magical pretzel shapes to fit on this last bus ride home, noticing that out of necessity, her head was adorning the man’s crotch behind her and he was starfishing his limbs not to fall onto her. Her eyes had closed, so at least maybe she was dreaming of being somewhere else. But probably she didn’t care. This is life.
My thoughts migrated to my singleness and I felt the strange but somehow not-strange impulse to kiss any man on the microbus. Just to kiss someone. I thought about dating when I am back on my own turf because it is impossible here. I thought about how much peanut butter I have eaten in two months (jars on jars on jars that I brought back from my Christmas visit) and felt thick. And disappointed by my compulsive eating. I thought of my close friends who are also volunteers and their various struggles, the words they have said about how they are doing flashed through my mind.
My thoughts are pacing, picking up speed, eating dots and dodging ghosts like Pacman just before he wins the level. My eyes stayed closed as the light flicked on and off like it was xeroxing my brain. Even with my eyes closed my body knows these curves, a memory in waving like a freak flag between bodies over the course of one year of transit. How far were we? Still so much further to Santa Clara.
After we stopped in Santa María the town next door, we were almost home. We entered Santa Clara under the light orange arch and I could barely expel “Here, please” from my lips as I descended from the hell mobile and walked to our lamina door. By the time I had pulled the string loose and opened the door my mind was fully made-up as to what needed to happen next.
I needed to cry.
My sister walked to the door as I pulled the plastic rope free and made it through the door, let go of my things and pushed my palms to my eyes saying “No Siento Bien” as my voice cracked and tears started rolling. In that moment I felt waves of equal intensity: utter relief and utter grief. I was cracking open with my host family to catch me.