Thoughts

So I am sitting here in the little internet cafe I have been using during these last four weeks in Antigua. The sun is just going down over the volcanoes outside, and I can feel the air starting to get cool as it comes in the door and makes goosebumps on my dry, dusty legs. Every once in a while some fireworks will go off (fireworks/firecrackers are constant here), setting off some car alarms along the street and instigating a chorus of barking stray dogs. A group a spanish speaking teenage girls is clustered around the computer behind me, shrieking and giggling at something on their screen. There is some punchy, bass heavy beat in the background, some indistinguishable song with words that I don´t quite understand that sounds to me just like all the others that are so popular here.

It´s a typical evening in Antigua, one of dozens that I´ve spent in this magical place. Except it´s different, because tonight is my last Saturday here. In a few short days I´ll be boarding a plane to go back home.

This past week there were two girls from Philadelphia living in my homestay. They were really nice, very sweet girls, but I was kind of shocked at some of the things they said/did. They woke up one morning in terror at the scratching sound they had heard on the roof in the night. I laughed and shrugged, telling them that this happens every night and it was probably just a bird or a lizard or something. The next morning they complained over breakfast about the cat that had been screaming for what seemed like hours in the night. I agreed that it was kind of startling the first time you heard that, but that it was just one of the stray cats that had gone into heat.

The girls woke up early every morning to shower, straighten their hair and apply make up. I realized when I saw them doing this that I haven´t worn make up in weeks, maybe months! My hair straightener hasn´t left its case since my first week or two in Guatemala, and my hair spends most of its time scraggaly and sun dryed hanging around my face, until it gets in my way and spend the rest of the time in a bun on top of my head.

The girls picked at their food, removing the seeds from their watermelon and picking peas out of their rice. They eyed their plate of black beans suspiciously and were horrified when they found a fly in the jam jar, while I happily gobbled down everything and wiped my plate clean with a tortilla.

They were bothered by the fact that our house doesn´t have wifi and they couldnt use their laptops or iphones. They were hesistant to use the internet cafe because they were worried their spanish wouldnt be good enough to negotiate what they wanted.

It was the sharp contrast between all of their behaviors and my own that made me stop and reflect a bit. Because in watching them, I remembered that I had been the exact same way only a few short months ago. I remember meticulously applying mascara every morning before I went to volunteer. I would jump two feet in the air everytime a firecracker went off nearby. The first time I heard a cat in heat I woke up in a panic thinking it was being eaten by a wild dog! One of my first days here I bit down on something hard and crunchy in my soft meal and couldn´t eat the rest of it. I too picked the seeds of of my watermelon, and had zero interest in tortillas.

These days, I find myself unphased by the strange noises all around me. I eat everything I´m given at the homestay, knowing that we eat three times a day and if I want food in between I have to go buy it and it´s going to cost me extra money. Finding hair or something that shouldn´t be there in my food really doesn´t bother me anymore. Just pull it out and keep eating! The loud termites in my wall that once caused me to stay awake all night have now just become a slight annoyance. I´ve learned to work my way through the busy streets, how to deal with the agressive street vendors, how to ignore the flirtatious men without coming across as completely rude, and knowing the exact moment to cross the road amist chicken busses and motorcycles and a lack of any form of speed limit.

I´m not trying to act like some guatemala pro or anything, I know it´s only been four months that I´ve been living here. It´s just that seeing these girls, I realized how different I am than when I got here. How much I´ve changed. It´s happens slowly, so that you don´t quite notice it until one day it is shoved in your face all the ways in which you´ve adapted and become someone a bit different than who you used to be.

I used to think that I was coming here to help these people. That clearly they live in severe poverty and need my help. I thought I was doing a good thing, coming here to help these people who needed me. But over the weeks, months, I´ve realized that I needed them just as much. Yes, there are some really awful problems here, but there are awful problems in the developed world too. They´re just a different sort of problems. The people here have taught me so much. How to be happy in the midst of awful things. How to choose joy when it would be so easy to just give up and sulk and cry and scream about the hand life has dealt them. They have taught me how to give. How even those who have nothing can always find something to give. They´ve shown my the importance of family and friends, how looking out for the people around you is the most important thing you can do in this life. Having each other´s backs is second nature to these people. They stick together and find their strength in the knowledge that they have people around them who will have their back no matter what happens.

These people do not need help any more than we do. They can help us just as much as we can help them. I have shared with them everything I can in order to make their lives easier. In turn they have shared with me more than I ever thought I would learn on this trip. I thought I was coming here soley to give, to help the needy. But they have helped me too. They have had just as much to give as I have, just gifts of a different sort. I have given them food and school supplies and labor and support, and they have given me back knowledge and happiness and love so much more.

Bye bye Guatemala, thanks for everything!

More Pics

Hi everyone!

Here are some pictures from the past while ... enjoy!

Ps, most of them were taken on a disposable camera so the quality is a little sketchy, sorry!

xoxo Kate