With

I feel as though the dam has broken on my enthusiasm. What I thought had drained away in a drought, I had actually carefully walled away in a big cistern. When I saw no natural spring in my Sololá community, I bottled up my own motivation and eagerness in anticipation of rationing it out to bolster my resilience for the next year and a half. I did so out of fear and in response to a situation that seemed impervious to all my attempts to plant seeds of relationships, knowledge, development, and community.

I feel reborn. I feel refreshed. I feel renewed.

My first two days in site were spent with Wendy (as my site mate is known in our community), learning the ropes of local transit, checking out my housing options, and being introduced to a few key friendly faces. The next two days I was flying solo, as Wendy had to travel to Guatemala City to pick up a friend from the U.S. I arranged my things in my temporary quaters, I went with my counterpart Andres to his house to meet his family and admire his crops, and I successfully navigated getting to Coban and back for my first Q’eqchi’ class.

Tuesday, my fifth day, was shaping up to leave me at loose ends. Irma is Wendy’s counterpart, an impressive translator, and currently in the running for Guatemalan I most want to be like when I grow up. On Monday evening, she was looking at my calendar for June and asked where I would be for the last day of May. I had no answer. She mentioned she wouldn’t be coming in to the office (where I am living) because she and the other members of the cooperative would be out at a project packing bolsas (bags) to plant coffee. I asked to tag along, and she immediately arranged for Filomena me to walk out to the community where the work would happen. Filomena was among the first people I had met upon arrival, was the first to greet me in Spanish, and her calm broad smile made me categorize her immediately as a good egg. I felt I was in good hands.

After breakfast with my future host family (starting in July, after the construction project to give me a room gets completed), I was walking toward Filomena’s house and she met me on the path as she came in search of me. We chatted comfortably in Spanish for about half an hour on the walk out to the other community, as my eyes darted between admiring the scenery, dodging hitting my head on cardamom and coffee branches, and trying not to trip on the uneven path.

Immediately on reaching our destination, I was drawn into Irma’s house and given a place to leave my things. Next thing I knew I was sitting on a small flattish rock shoulder to shoulder with a group of women crouched around a pile of sifted dirt as we stuffed small black plastic bags to be used as containers for coffee plant seedlings. Around us there were boys, perhaps 10 year-olds, shuttling the filled bags from the circles of women to young men working on a shallow trench to hold the bags upright in lines running across the hillside. The older men worked further up the hill to transplant seedlings into the bags and water the ones already transplanted. The older boys were kept busy shoveling dirt onto a wooden frame with screen on it to sift the soil, which two other boys would shake back and forth while chatting idly.

The whole process threw my thoughts back to the fall semester in 2005 that I spent in Oaxaca, Mexico. Some of my favorite memories from the whole experience surrounded very similar bags, which we were using for a reforestation project. The language was different, the purpose was different, but my experience of it was the same in all the important ways.

We worked together companionably, smiling and laughing over the repetitive and mindless work. Few of them speak any Spanish (and fewer speak it well) and I know only a few words in Q’eqchi’. Still, I felt included. When we took a mid-morning break, Filomena made sure to bring me a mug of fresca (a sweet fruit drink… in this case probably mixed from a powder) and also passed along a banana that another woman wanted to give me. One girl kept an eye out for me any time we broke the circle to move to a new pile of freshly sifted soil. If I hesitated even a moment she’d catch my eye, smile, and pat my designated rock in an invitation to join back in. After lunch the women who had shared my circle stopped by Irma’s kitchen door to collect me as we walked back to the workspace.

I heard my name mentioned several times in any given five minute period, as people tried to remember how to pronounce it, and commented on my bag filling skills. Often my name was followed by peals of laughter, and I just chose to take it as inclusion without needing to know what the joke was. At some point I’m pretty sure two women were commenting on my lack of love handles (after one tried to grab for them), and when Irma and I took a turn at the sifting station there was laughter about how we looked shaking the wooden frame about. When it threatened to rain, they were concerned for me (I had forgotten my rain coat, but then, none of them had any rain protection either) and suggested I go take shelter. When I refused, we all giggled as we scrambled to fill as many final bags as we could before the rain really set in and the dirt turned to mud.

We waited out the rain, sipping on more drinks, and they thoughtfully provided me with more fresca, knowing I don’t drink coffee. When there seemed to be a break in the weather, the crowd dispersed and eventually Filomena and I took our leave of Irma to make our way back. Halfway there the rain started up again, harder than before. I made it home wet through to the skin, my back sore from hunching over a dirt pile all day and with streaks of dirt and mud all over me. But I was perfectly content.

It was not a day in which I taught anyone anything important. It was not a needs assessment or a community action survey. It was just a group of people coming together to get something done, working with each other, talking with each other, laughing with each other. I learned some new friendly faces, and many of them learned my name. Perhaps this seems a small victory, hardly worth commenting upon. But I have spent months feeling acutely how lonely it can be to be in a crowd, how it is possible to work in the same space as someone yet not work with one another, how two can eat at the same table but not be sharing a meal. I have travelled the same space without travelling with those around me.

The months ahead will have challenges. I will search for purpose; I will be confused by the language; I will be short of patience with myself and those around me. There will be days that I am exhausted by being watched by all and wish for the anonymity of living in a city or at least being an unremarkable community member. For now, all I want to do is to unleash my flow of enthusiasm to meet the hospitality I have been offered. They are small gestures, yes, but I am deeply grateful for each and every one.

I feel welcomed. I feel wanted. At last, I feel I am with.

Tick Tock.

Anyone who has spent much time outside of their home country will note that there is a wide variety of views on time and punctuality in the world.  While there’s plenty variety within countries, I think it’s fair to say the US as a whole tends to fall closer to the up tight end of the spectrum than most. 

Think about it.  Our watches have milliseconds.  Our flight times tend to be something like 7:06 or 1:34.  High schools have 50 minute classes with 5 minute passing periods.  Need an early out day?  No problem.  Each class period will just be cut down to 42 minutes.  People show up early for events to make sure they get a good seat.  We have an entire advertising industry devoted to the twenty minutes before each movie showtime.  That’s before the trailers begin.  Many people arrive a little early for meetings to be able to fill their coffee mug and settle in.  Sure, there’s always one in the crowd rolling in 5-10 minutes late, but it’s usually just one. 

We’ve got a slew of proverbs and adages about the importance of time.  The early bird gets the worm.  A stitch in time saves nine.  There’s no time like the present.  Time and tide wait for no man.  Time is money.  Using time well is a virtue in US society and rightfully so (how to define “well” is another conversation).

Within the US spectrum, I’ve always thought of myself as a relaxed yet more or less prompt person.  I like to be on time, and if I know I’ll get there more than 5-10 minutes late I usually call or send a message to let people waiting on me know why.  As a kid I wasn’t late to school.  My good friend who lived around the corner always seemed to be five minutes early to events, so I thought I was running late when I arrived right on time.  I remember one morning when I woke up late somehow my mom drove me to school with such urgency we went up over the curb as we rounded the corner, a big deal to my eight-year-old self.

My family had our own favorite phrases on time, too.   Anyone who slept in late risked being labeled a “slug-a-bed,” and having the covers of her bed summarily torn off.   Staying in the tent a little too late in the morning on camping trips usually resulted in our parents picking up the end of our sleeping bags and dumping us (screeching with laughter) out of the tops.   The ever popular, “Daylight’s a wasting,” and “Stir your stumps,” came out fairly often.  Or the idealistic, “What have you done for the good of the world today?” 

I don’t mean to say that I don’t enjoy my idleness or take time to rest.  I love a slow day as much as the next person.  I like to knit while listening to podcasts or music.  A day with a book, walk, movie or nap eased in between meals is a day well spent, in my book.  When I don't have responsibilities to others in a given day, I can take free reign to enjoy myself quite happily.  

So, I knew more or less what I was getting into when I came to Guatemala.  I knew I was stepping into a different rhythm of life and prepared myself to embrace the slower side of life.  To have many a lazy day as I learned my community and began to form work projects little by little.  I learned that the Guatemalan phrase on time is hay mas tiempo que vida (there’s more time than life).  I came to understand, and even expect, that meetings would start at least half an hour late.  I take it in stride when women arrive late to meetings that Ela and I hold, and have learned to keep a book handy when going to meet someone.

The thing is, I get it.  Mostly.  Most of the people in my community don't have formal work.  They run a household or work in the fields.  No one has their day planned out down to 15 minute chunks in Outlook.  There aren't any consequences in showing up late.  People don't expect promptness, and don't take offense when it's absent.  That's a little different in the municipality and schools, perhaps, but even there things are pretty relaxed.

What I didn’t expect was just how deeply imbedded my need to be on time really is.  While I can accept others arriving behind schedule, I simply can’t bring myself to be late in work situations.  And when I am made late by others, my own reactions shock me.  I am frustrated, annoyed, and truly angry.  I feel I have been forced to be disrespectful and unprofessional.  I know that those who are waiting on me probably don’t judge me for my lateness, and may not even notice the issue at all.  But I do notice.  And I do care.  I don’t seem to be able to do as the Romans do.  I can let them have their ways, but my own understanding of responsible and respectful behavior is too strong to let myself copy them.  I wonder if time will make me less rigid in this.  If not, I may need to work on my anger management skills.


Better yet, maybe I can just summon Tock, the fictional Watch Dog from Phantom Tollbooth to sing some sense into these Guatemalans!  As he says, “Look, son, it's bad enough wasting time without killing it.”  Right before announcing, "Time is your friend," and bursting into song.

By any other name…

I have begun the process of meeting the women in the women’s group with whom I’ll do the majority of my work in the next two years.  It turns out about ¼ of the women in town (or at least in my group) are named Catarina, and another third of the town is named Isabel, Manuela, or Ana.  Literally.  I crunched the numbers in Excel (no comments from the peanut gallery on my dorkiness, thank you).  Of the remaining 30 women, only 11 have unique names.

One recent evening Aunt Isabel asked me to go drop gifts off at two graduation parties.  When we went to the first house, Isabel introduced me to the lucky graduate, Isabel.  Upon arriving at the second house I asked the name of the graduate.  “Isabel,” replied Isabel.  At my confused face, she explained, “they’re cousins.”  My expression only deepened.  “Their grandmother is named Isabel.  We call the second one Isabel Maria to keep things clear.”  Indeed.

I guess I better get good at making nick names.

Big Friendly Giant

I have a new identity, or at least one I’m striving to take on as I integrate into my site.  I have no say over that fact that I’m a big/giant figure in town.  What I’m going for is a friendly instead of scary impression.

My first day at market in a neighboring town I found that most of the awnings were strung comfortably above the height of the Guatemalans I was accompanying, but that my head ended up sliding along the ceiling of the stands where we walked.  I ended up being like a wandering tent pole, raising the roof wherever I went under the tarps strung flat above stalls and walkways. Every so often I wouldn’t watch where I was going and would end up knocking into the occasional stand using a parasol, sending it spinning with my forehead (or shoulder). 

When I go on house visits be introduced to the women in the group where I will be working, I must duck to make it through many doorways, and some ceilings are uncomfortably close to my head as well.  Walking with my counterpart is a pretty leisurely affair for me, as I take measured tiny steps and still outstrip her.  To be fair, this is as much because we are pacing the 2½ year old as because she’s small, but it leaves me feeling a giantess all the same.  On the other hand, her sister in law keeps a pace that’s comfortably quick to me despite being close to a foot shorter than I am.

Overall, I’ve found that lots of nodding and smiling is getting me through alright.  Most of the people (especially women) in my town are pretty timid; they often will not respond to my “good morning/afternoon/night” greetings, with more than a smile or sometimes will speak from behind a hand over their mouth.  Still, as long as I smile broadly they will usually smile back.  If I can manage to do something silly and laugh at myself (like getting lost trying to leave a compound that only has one entrance), they will happily laugh with me.

The one exception to all this friendly success occurred last week.  I entered a family compound with my counterpart and did my usual broadcast smile to the children as she launched the usual spiel (in Ki’che’ inviting them to a meeting on Saturday).  I smiled particularly warmly at a barely walking little rug rat who was watching me with big eyes.  Far from the desired answering smile, she immediately sprouted tears and began to wail.  It was that particular variety of wail where there’s a period of silence every time she pauses for breath to wind up anew.  Although I tried to not take it personally, I was still pretty sure I had been the trigger to her dismay.  As confirmation I later learned that she associates strangers in pants with imminent vaccination.  Ah well, at least it was my pants and not my smile that struck fear in her heart.

Not to self; it’s easier to cultivate a friendly image in a skirt.