Hello again! Cana writing. I know it has been a while. Since we last posted, Rachel and I have gone to Guatemala with our program, spent fall break at the absolutely stunning Manuel Antonio National Park, and started our next three-week long class! So, as always, we are keeping busy. Our trip to Guatemala was eye opening and very impactful for both of us, though, so it definitely merits a post of its own, even if it is two weeks late :-P
We left Costa Rica for Guatemala City (the capital) and spent our first two days there. While in the capital, we visited an organization called Safe Passage that was started to help give education and job training to families who live by and work in the dump, or "basurero." A worker at the organization gave us a tour of the area and, oddly enough, the place to best view the dump is a nearby cemetery up on a hill. To preserve the dignity of the people who call this place their home, I will not provide a picture, but standing there was one of the most distinctly uncomfortable moments of my life. Hordes of vultures ominously circled the premises. The smell, even from hundreds of feet above, was enough to make everyone instinctually cover their nose with their sleeve. And yet amidst the layers of trash were men and women, some of them with children on their backs, sorting out the garbage— our garbage. They work around ten hours a day for no more than $5 a day. And there we were, standing above them, looking down. The imagery was so real it hurt. Histories of injustice and development had brought all of us to those spots and I felt as helpless to change it as I imagine the workers themselves felt. We continued our tour and learned how the organization gives education, English classes, resume help, and even has a sewing company staffed by local women. Safe Passage is doing good work, dignifying work. But nevertheless the basurero exists down below while life goes on as "normal" above it.
These emotions and unresolved thoughts still running around in our heads, we left for Antigua, an old colonial city and tourist attraction for many. Not going to lie, the cobblestone streets and intricately carved cathedral entrances were beautiful. There we visited some other non-profit organizations and took a day trip to hike Volcano Picaya, where we got to roast marshmallows over lava!!!! That's probably the coolest thing I will ever do in my life :) Staying in Antigua immediately after visiting the basurero is what the students in my program call a "choque," literally a crash, but also used to explain a collide of ideas of stories. It is harder to enjoy the beauty of a colonial city when you think about the painful stories of people being colonized. It is harder to spend $4 on coffee and toss my cup in the trash when I know that the people who will handle that cup later might make less than that amount of money in a day. But pity and blame only keep me up on the hill looking down at the people in the dump, they don't actually make me move.
After Antigua, now with even more emotions and even more unresolved thoughts running around our heads as if it were a treadmill, we left for Santiago, a smaller Mayan village four hours away on Lake Atitlan (which is called by some the most beautiful place on Earth). Santiago for our group was one choque after another. We were led by two local men who run an organization that hosts groups to teach them about the realities that people face in their town and how that applies to the Christian faith. We learned about the history of the Tzu'tuil, their struggles to protect their lake from contamination, and role of the Church in the community. Most noteworthy, though, was that we got to stay in the homes of local families, most of whom spoke their Tzu'tuil language and a bit of Spanish. These families have humble living situations, limited water and electricity, and so much contentedness and generosity. Staying in the homes of people that, in my mind, I too often pity or consider to be incapable of serving me, was the beginning of break through for me. With them I was not on a hill and they were not working below me. We were eating dinner together. Our economic differences had no bearing on our relationship. They were serving me out of their material poverty but a spiritual richness that moved them to accept a stranger, a foreigner into their home for nothing in return. I was humbled.
Our final morning, a local man told l us that he does not wish that foreign influence would stop. Yes, aid efforts have caused him pain in the past and international businesses would be the ones benefitting from the drained lake that he now uses to make his living. But he does not want foreigners to leave, he wants them to listen, because when one listens, she is capable of making more mutually beneficial decisions.
Listening. Do you know what is a necessity of listening? Being close enough to hear.
We started our trip to Guatemala on a hill, looking down. We ended our trip at the dinner table, looking eye to eye. We started our trip in a cemetery and ended in a home. Standing too far away to hear is stagnant, dead. Sitting at dinner, close enough to hear clearly, is life- giving, healthy.
In no way did I come back with a way to fix the systems that plague people today, but I did come back knowing how to go from the hill to the table, and that is a trip I want to make many, many more times.
