Five Senses: Guatemala Style

I See
The bright lights
The sun reflecting off
Of every possible surface.
Taco carts
Bundles of wood
Eyes,
Looking up.
I see lakes of bright blue
Rivers the same.
Dogs, abandoned.
Women, adorned.
Purple, yellow, silver, blue, green,
Rainbows woven into clothes
Dreams, holding it all together.

I Smell
Corn.
Always corn,
And wood smoke.
I smell tradition worked into every tortilla.
I smell bathrooms, as I walk by.
I smell blacktop in the cities, I smell tires rubbed in.
I smell rain as it drips through the fresh leaves
They smell of summer.
The air smells
And I smell it.

I Taste
Hard work.
Dedication.
I ate a meal flavored with smiles, spiced with laughter.
The main course was a giggle and dessert was hilarity.
I never knew I could taste those things,
but I can.
Laughter is sweet,
Giggles are like meringues,
fluffy and light.
I asked for seconds,
And they obliged. 

I Touch
Feelings, hearts.
They touch me,
right in the corazon.
I touch rocks that tell stories
I feel grass that grows from sadness over a village that no longer exists.
I feel sun on my face in a way only the equator can provide.
I touch ropes—nay, vines—vines that feel like ropes.
Mud in-between my toes coolly reminds me that I am alive,
And I inhale,
Fresh jungle air.

I Hear
Sounds.
Many.
All of them?
Cars beeping,
Animals laughing,
People yelling.
Tone is everything in a language that is not your own.
Do their words curve up
Or down?
Does their voice smile,
Or frown?
You tell me,
When you listen. 

A Cross Cultural Analysis of Guatemala and the U.S (unfinished)

What’s the Difference?
A Cross Cultural Analysis of Guatemala and the U.S.A

Guatemala and the USA are two very different places.  However, they also both have similarities.  Both places have beautiful lands and lovely places.  Both places have a government, both places have people suffering.  Both Guatemala and the U.S both have rich people and poor people, both have teenagers just trying to make it and kids just trying to have a good time.

It’s the way that both countries individually handle their similarities that shows the difference between them.  What makes them different is that people of the U.S ignore me on the streets, while everyone in Guatemala says good morning.  What shows me the difference is when looking down on the city of Xela, I see many colored garments in place of the dark coats of Chicago. What highlights the difference is the fact that as a young woman in the U.S I have more options for my life than just a place in the kitchen and the role of a caregiver.

I see the difference between the two cultures when I look at the strength of the people in Guatemala.  They had to build everything they have.  They fought for it and worked for it and it’s theirs, and they plan to keep it that way.  In the U.S, I don’t see that same strength.  I see strength in most eyes, but it is a different kind.  It is the kind of strength that grows in a healthy way, over time.  The kind of strength that develops in a girl when she is told a million times by her parents, “You can do anything.”  It is the kind of strength that was allowed, accepted, grown.    

I see the difference between the cultures when I look at the sacred way tradition is held in Guatemala.  They hold onto their roots and are proud of them.  They want to be the culture who they have been for years, and with that comes a sacredness for what has already been done.  In America I see progress.  I see an upward pushing motion towards an unclear goal.  We keep moving upwards but the gap between here and the end is not closing, so where is it that we are going, exactly? In the way of America I see constant progress, and I wonder if maybe for a while we should go the Guatemalan way and just not worry about time. 

    

Home Again

        Here I am again back in the U.S.
        After being in Guatemala for almost a month it is a lot.
        It is a lot to think about the fact that I've been gone for almost a month.
It feels like more and less both at the same time and my sense of time has been changed.
        I spent a week in San Lucas staying in a hotel full of succulents and working in communities.  We built stoves and friendships, we spread cement and smiles.
       The weekend was spent in Xela (Shay-La) the second biggest city in Guatemala.  There we went Salsa dancing and sight-seeing and stayed with host families that welcomed us into their homes even though it was only for three days.  Xela was the place of hot springs and we rode in the back of a pick-up truck up the side of a mountain until we reached pools of relaxation and rejuvenation at the top.  We left there shriveled like prunes and smelling of the sun.
        The next week we spent up in the mountains, learning the language we were surrounded by.  We had class in grass huts that were built by a medicinal tea brewer named Jorge. I ate meals with an old lady covered in wrinkles and full of stories.  We bonded over pancakes with pineapple marmalade and she taught me how to make tortillas.  The week ended with graduation from the Escuela de las Montanas and a long bus ride back to Huehuetenango and then off to Chacula.
        Chacula is charming, beautiful, homey, pleasant.  It is a small village and there we stayed with host families for the week.  my family was the two parents and then three kids, a fourteen year old girl and a thirteen year old girl, and then an eight year old boy.  They were all happy children that cried when we said good bye.  The mother, Catalina, had a booming laugh and a wide smile, and she made me a hand woven bracelet that smells of woodsmoke and memories.
Did you know that memories have a smell?
         Our week in Chacula was full of adventure and laughs and beautiful places.  We hiked to a waterfall which turned out to be a moss covered wall with ice cold salvation running down it's face.  We hiked to ruins that were surrounded by green and gray and white and for two hours I drowned in stories.  We played volleyball with the locals and my team, Los Ganadores, emerged victorious from the tournament.  Our goodbye was tearful and then we drove twelve hours back to Guatemala City and slept for three or four or five hours, getting up for our first plane at 3:30 am.  We flew home through the skies and then there we were, back on American soil, my eyes happily reading all the signs that were suddenly in English again.
        The trip was so much more than just this and my stories will never be enough to do everything that happened justice, but I hope that you vicariously through me for a little while, a little while that may inspire you to one day go and see it for yourself.