New Eyes

That's not me editing photos... that's the colors of sunset!

Being in Guatemala with my parents the past week has given me a fresh set of eyes in which to see the world.  We have spent a lot of time in Antigua seeing museums, restaurants, a super sweet coffee tour, and climbing Pacaya.  We also went to the Lake where we went on the zipline (even my mom!  with some help...), explored San Juan and San Pedro and spent the night on the patio of our hotel drinking wine, watching the boats on the water, admiring the lightening behind the clouds, and talking about aliens, weather patterns, and everything in between.

I am continually amazed (and, yes, slightly embarrassed) by their excitement and attempts at undercover picture taking whenever they saw someone carrying a basket on their head, the comments of colorful clothing, or their adverse reactions of fear to some of our shuttle bus drivers' car-handling maneuvers.  These things that have become so normal and natural to me are incredibly new and different (and at times terrifying) to them... and their shock, fear, and excitement is what fuels them into wanting to try new things and get out of bed at the inhumanely wee hours of the morning.

 Watching their reaction keeps reminding me what it is like to be in new situations.  They are excited by the classic cross and arch in Antigua - it's new to them and they now can say that they conocer (really know) that location (well, they could if they spoke Spanish, but we're working on that). They can be shocked by the clouds, the mountains, the volcanoes letting off a bit of steam...  It's a healthy joy, a fascination with the new... the childlike viewpoint that we all secretly desire whenever we are with an easily excited child.

As I see them and their excitement, and get a glimpse through their eyes, I realize that I'm going to be having a very similar experience Saturday night when I step off the plane in Houston, and for many more days after that.  Like them, the States will be all new for me.  Exciting and new.

Yes, I did grow up there and have seen them, but when I last saw the States, I was a 25 year-old driving around with a friend, a tent, and a mountain bike on the lookout for the next adventure and begging God to take notice of me and give me guidance.  I was a girl who was confused about life, God, and hitting an identity crisis.  I had an appendix.  I didn't speak a word of Spanish and had no close friends who came from socioeconomic backgrounds other than my own.  I didn't realize the global effects of our actions.  I did not come nearly close enough to understanding and valuing community.  There was so much I didn't know, and even more I didn't know that I didn't know.

Now, I'm returning to the States as a 26 year-old who will be starting her first "big girl job" (Wednesday afternoon, I looked at my dad and said, "In a week, I will be finishing my first ever lunch break").  I will be on the lookout for a healthy friendship community around which to surround myself.  I will speak Spanish and try to actively seek out others who do as well as friends from classes and backgrounds different from mine.  I will hopefully not lose anymore internal organs.  I will still not know exactly who I am, but I will at least stop working in vain to find out and/or run away and instead be still and know that I can listen.  I will understand my worth through being versus doing and value relationships over checklists.  I will be aware of my actions and their effects on the world.  And most importantly, there will be so much that I don't know and I know that I don't know even more.

Or, at least, these are my prayers.  These are some of the lessons I have had the honor of learning this year and that I would like to continue learning over the years to come.  I want to go back to the US with these new eyes and be able to see the same things I saw before I left, but with a new excitement and viewpoint that leaves me wondering and enjoying for a long time to come.

Even if these new eyes give me so much excitement that I begin taking pictures of animals on the highway through the dirty windshield as we drive down the road...

Community

(if you go to FIUCC, what I speak about Sunday will be rather familiar to this post... just for a heads up!)

 One of the major themes of my personal study this year has been community.  As I've been going through my journals processing and making a memory book of the year, I have been continuously reminded about how thick the theme of community ran through my writing, reading, and thinking. 

And it makes sense why.  

I was sent a year ago last August to a country I had never been to that spoke a language I did not know.  I was sent with two people I had met for about a day in March and with two people I had never met in my life.

and then they became some of my best friends in the world.

Monday, the last of them, Andrew, left Antigua.  Now that leaves us with three in the States, one in Honduras, and Marcia and I here in Antigua until she leaves for vacation tomorrow.  It's so crazy.  Our family for the year is breaking up... or, I guess I would use past tense, it has broken up.  Not forever, primero dios, but at least for now.

Henri Nouwen, my favorite author ever, describes community as the result of solitude greeting solitude.  He defines solitude as broken, vulnerable, loved, and a part of a family. Solitude is not loneliness, and that's what makes true community unique.  We're together because of love, not desperate loneliness and need.

With that definition, community then becomes related, connected, interdependent, healing, accepting, and although not perfectly harmonious, a place to simply receive love and care.

That's definitely the community that I saw this year.  I came into this country and community with a lot of loneliness and not much solitude.  My walls were up pretty high.  Through health, family, and general life fatigue issues, the vulnerability and brokenness that defines solitude and therefore prepares us for community were able to enter into me.  And these people were ready to accept me for who I am and was.  Thus, I became a part of the community.  

We're all different, come from different pasts, have different strengths and weaknesses, but we are a community.  And in a community, we are here to celebrate each other's gifts and through that celebration we are accepting one another's full humanity as a reflection of God (thanks, Nouwen, for that genius thought!)

 

"Community develops where we experience that something significant is happening where we are.  It is the fruit of the intimate knowledge that we are together, not because of a common need such as to learn a language, but because we are called together to help make God's presence visible in the world." - Nouwen, Gracias

 I am so grateful for my YAV community, as well as Team Xela, this year.  These friends have become so close to me and supported me through so much this year.  The ongoing question throughout my journals is, "how can I do this during my stateside life?  How can I find community?"  I think I go back to solitude... only through solitude can true community exist.

One of the greatest oxymoron's of life - but oxymoron's do make sense... at least on some level.

a time of transition...

I'm in the midst of transition. 
I'm in Guatemala, but in Antigua so we're practically in Spain/USA. 
I'm with people from home (my parents), but still surrounded by strangers.
I'm speaking English, but also still can hear Spanish. 
I'm doing the activities of a tourist but my heart still calls this place home.
I can shower for as long as I want and with hot, running water but it is still water that I cannot drink.
I miss my Guatemalan students and families and keep thinking that I'm going to go back, but my heart is slowly coming to terms with the truth...  I can't.
And although I can't see them, I can still call them on my Guatemalan cell phone, so that makes life livable.
I'm writing swim work outs, planning calendars, and preparing to begin work in 10 days at Whitman, and I'm also sitting at our condo's pool and talking to shoeshine boys in Parque.

I can walk through the supermarket or the mercado, choose from chicken in a fridge or chicken in the open air, and am hearing horror stories of how there are 18 varieties of Oreos to choose from in the grocery stores in the States (Thanks, Juli)

It's a good time for transition... I'm glad I'm here.  I don't think I'd choose to do it any other way.
I just don't like doing it.

I don't like change.

Walla Walla, Gig Harbor, and the rest of the USA - I'm excited to see you, but it really is hard to let Guatemala go.

wisdom in unexpected places

i creepily went into the bathroom at my favorite cafe the other day to take a picture of this...  

life motto right here.

So many ways to say goodbye

Spanish, as in English, has many words for goodbye.

The little girls' goodbye... "We like you, Cat!"

There is the ever popular, “hasta la vista, baby” – not actually used, and I’m not actually a fan. 

 

There is “adios” – simply, goodbye.  Nothing else.  In this situation of saying goodbye to students who are on the brink of making decisions that will change their lives for good or for bad, “adios” is painful.  I don’t want to say that.

There is “hasta (insert time here – “manana”, “en la tarde”,etc)”- I can’t actually use that one in this case because my life has too many question marks to be specific. 

There is “hasta luego” – which means “see you later”.  I guess that one works, but seriously… when I live with abuelos who are old and have failing health or in a developing country that doesn’t have much police presence and my students live in bad, dangerous situations, I don’t want to use that.  “Luego” is too broad, too long, too much can change between now and then.  Too much will change between now and then.

Then, there is “hasta pronto” – “see you soon”.  That’s been my phrase of preference.  I don’t know when “soon” is, but I hope it’s sooner than “luego”.  I hope it’s in June or July when things slow down at Whitman and I’ll (Primero Dios) be able to return to visit my friends for a short time.  I hope that not too much will change, although it is inevitable that some things will. I hope that when I return in a time “pronto”, I will still be the person I have become here in Guatemala and that person will continue to love life, no matter the hardships or joys it brings.  I hope I still remember Spanish so I can talk to all these people I love once again.  I hope that my students have taken care of themselves and that those around them respect them, their bodies, their health, their personality, and their safety.  I can’t wait for “pronto” to come. 

Notes and letters are definitely my favorite way of giving and receiving love, and that has been hard for me here. But, I am now going home with at least 300 little notes from host sisters and students, and I can finally understand what they say.  More importantly, I was finally able to write notes to all the teachers and my friends here who I love and respect, and (hopefully) tell them how much I love and respect them. 

And in every note I signed, “Hasta Pronto”.  Goodbye, but not forever.

And, it’s also a hello…

As I look to next Thursday when my parents come, “Hasta Pronto”

As I look to August 14-16 and 20-22 when I’m in Gig Harbor, “Hasta Pronto”

As I look to August 17 when I start work at Whitman in Student Activities, “Hasta Pronto”

As I look at August 22 when the Wa-Hi girls start practicing, “Hasta Pronto (and start getting in shape now!)

Hasta Pronto, Guatemala…. “Ustedes se robaron mi corazón”

Hasta Pronto, USA…. “I’m excited to see what’s around the corner.”