In the mountains of Sololá

Friday night I drove through misty mountains and torrential rains, literally over “Paso Misterioso”, into a quaint little quiche town in Sololá with Katie Miller, our new director of development.  My clothes reeked of mildew, my body reeked of sweat, my mind reeked of a week’s hard work.  I stripped down and wrapped myself in a towel before scurrying quickly but carefully through the rain across the muddy hillside into the family’s very own tamascal.  On hands and knees I made my way inside the miniature sauna, my naked bum cozying comfortably on an old wooden bench.  The coals sizzled as the rain drops slipped off of my neck and onto the fire as I leaned over.  The buckets of well water – one cold, one hot – patiently awaited my arrival.  I will build one of these for my house one day. I will bathe in it every week, I told myself.  The raindrops played their common concerto, moving forcefully in and out of the chorus of pouring. At 8,500 feet I sat in this little cave, feeling nothing but warmth and hearing nothing but calm.

Every Guatemalan I meet is in someway my superior (thank you Emerson), and each offers me something to learn.  All these different cultures, languages, names, sounds.  That the ingredients you put in your recado may define where you were born.  Perhaps it’s the lack of culture I’ve always felt in my own history that draws me to places like this.  Ella was born in Uspantan, Quiche (and thus makes her atol with honey and chocolate). Studying social work in Xela, she cozied up with a nice Quiche fellow from Sololá and thus transformed her life her. From a family of nine, Ella is 33 and only has two children with little plans to have any more.  She woks with peace corps projects, teaches literacy classes to local women, and seems to have a healthy banter with her husband, something resembling an equality I don’t see with many couples here.  I wonder how she started her education, how she blossomed to be this diamond in the ruff of sorts, a courageous independent female among a sea of oppressed.  Still donning her traditional huipil  and corte, where does her tradition and modernism meet and who brought her to that intersection? 

Malawi

As we drove down the surprisingly wonderfully-paved highways of Southern Malawi, spectacular mountains adorning the landscape, I couldn’t help but think of all the similarities between Guatemala and Malawi.  Trucks from the United Nations might drive down the left side of the road here, but they still kick up dust in the paths left behind them.  Bicycles are plentiful here, just like Guatemala, toting thrice the weight previously thought possible, the most accessible mode of transportation for farmers.  Women walk with a similar grace here, that uncanny ability to balance heavy loads atop their heads and wear an insatiable smile while they’re at it.  The markets are busy, the children are running in the street, the truck almost just hit a goat, the communities still shyly giggle and whisper about the incoming gringos (here in Africa, Mzumus) wandering their streets.   Malawians mill their corn and make porridge, we boil and mill our corn to make tortillas.   The farmers might have less land, the average landholding size here is 1 hectare (about 2.2 acres); in Guatemala our farmers a lucky enough to hold out a few more than that – average 8 acres. The women might cook their pigeonpea differently, grounding up peanuts and making a paste, but their children still play tag.  Running up and down the narrow dirt pathway meandering through endless fields of pigeonpea, bare feet scurrying over dead corn stalks and kicking dust into the joy-filled air.   It is these moments when you see an undeniable connection among all of humanity.  Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.   What affects one directly affects all indirectly.”  And pigeonpea, this humble little bean crop, is doing that.  From the coastal plains of Guatemala to the mountainous terrain of Malawi, pigeonpea is transforming lives and landscapes, and facilitating an international collaboration of NGOs to do it. 

Malawi

As we drove down the surprisingly wonderfully-paved highways of Southern Malawi, spectacular mountains adorning the landscape, I couldn’t help but think of all the similarities between Guatemala and Malawi.  Trucks from the United Nations might drive down the left side of the road here, but they still kick up dust in the paths left behind them.  Bicycles are plentiful here, just like Guatemala, toting thrice the weight previously thought possible, the most accessible mode of transportation for farmers.  Women walk with a similar grace here, that uncanny ability to balance heavy loads atop their heads and wear an insatiable smile while they’re at it.  The markets are busy, the children are running in the street, the truck almost just hit a goat, the communities still shyly giggle and whisper about the incoming gringos (here in Africa, Mzumus) wandering their streets.   Malawians mill their corn and make porridge, we boil and mill our corn to make tortillas.   The farmers might have less land, the average landholding size here is 1 hectare (about 2.2 acres); in Guatemala our farmers a lucky enough to hold out a few more than that – average 8 acres. The women might cook their pigeonpea differently, grounding up peanuts and making a paste, but their children still play tag.  Running up and down the narrow dirt pathway meandering through endless fields of pigeonpea, bare feet scurrying over dead corn stalks and kicking dust into the joy-filled air.   It is these moments when you see an undeniable connection among all of humanity.  Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.   What affects one directly affects all indirectly.”  And pigeonpea, this humble little bean crop, is doing that.  From the coastal plains of Guatemala to the mountainous terrain of Malawi, pigeonpea is transforming lives and landscapes, and facilitating an international collaboration of NGOs to do it. 

Stress

I feel like I’ve lost myself a little these days.  My knuckles crack loudly when I pop them, but the tension doesn’t go away. I find myself repetitiously cleaning the dirt under my fingernails, as if they might crumble by sitting dormant for even two seconds. I feel something in my heart, my chest, my throat, what it is I can’t quite pin down.  Its something heavy, something hard, something stuck.  And the real problem is that I haven’t thrown up that something onto these pages in a too long of a while.

What is stress, really? Being stretched to thin, being pulled in opposite directions, a something trying to figure out how it can do thrice the amount of its intended use.  Welcome, Kristin, to adulthood. You better bite it in the ass while you still can.

Mostly, it goes away in the mornings.  When the doors of my eyelids naturally creep their way open, sleepy dust and all, to a misty, smokey 6 o’clock sunshine sneaking through the opaque curtains of my little cuartito.

These are the things that defeat my stress.  The absolutely, boringly, simple miracles of reality.  They have no budget, no deadline, no grant networking, no operations manual, no broken down car in the campo.  They are a reality that has existed for thousands of years.  Thinking of these realities, these commonplace, quotidian simplicities leads me… boringly.. into a realization that I am a small speck of a being in a much bigger carbon cycle of miracles. I look up at the sky, remember how much I don’t matter, and breath easier. 

I want to do this more, I want to revel in these boring simplicities of my life, and savor every last delicious bite of their pedestrian nature.  I want to walk – but really waaaaalk.  I want to become entrenched and betrothed by the steps I take, the miracle of my body taking them. I want to smell the tortillas toasting, hear the teenage girls gossiping, feel the innumberable cracks of these shitty Guatemalan sidewalks.  I want to cook, without hurry, without schedule, without worry to conserve or to waste, to achieve or disappoint, to nourish or to not.  I just want to fall in love with that moment where the only cracked wooden spoon I have swirls its way around a tiny pan of colorful vegetables. 

In my garden, my therapy, my refuge. Even there I find myself making plans, having anxiety – will the seedlings make it through the rain? I should have intercropped the carrots! Why isn’t my kale growing as big as Juan Pablo’s?  I want to dig my fingers into heaps of dirt and sleep there.  I want to dream myself a worm and wake up in the dizzy daydreaming inside a pot of compost.

In those sweet mornings when I take that first breath, I want it to be my saving grace. I want to smile at its ability and its freshness, and the way the chill of Xela mornings tickles my nose. I want to fold over, touch my toes, and pine for the way my body aches in its creaking and cracking, opening its doors and creating new spaces.  I want to hang there, dangled over, my head below my heart inverting my bloodflow and thinking shit, this just feels good.  No explanation.

Miracles. Dirt, sleepy dust, pot bellies, smiles, compost, bouganvilla, the smell of coffee, an creamy giant coastal Guatemalan avocado, a nap in a hammock under the tree, bug bites, scars from bug bites, cold bucket showers after a long day in the sun, a seed, more seeds, the mist lifting over Santa Maria volcano at sunset, getting out of breath walking up the hill to the market at 7,000 feet, rain, floods, rain that makes you feel like your in that romantic movie at the end when just when you think he has left your prince charming comes running back and kisses you soaking wet, wet muddy shoes, a frustrating day at the office, a magical day at the office, that 10 minute window where you can sneak out of the concrete slab of the house sit by the compost pile and feel the 2 o clock sun stream across your face, the cemetery, enchiladas from Doña Clemencia, the way the señoras tell me Buenos dias on the street in the morning, the way the Mayan girls giggle when they see me on the bus, the way my plants dangle over my bookshelf, wool socks on cold Xela nights, the smell of fresh rosemary, stretching my hips, dancing salsa, singing silly songs in Spanish, and once in a while, a good cigarette.