How is it that I find myself standing in the rain, on the corner of a dirt road in a tiny Guatemalan village with 2 women and a child none of whom speak English? After an overnight bus, I arrived at 6 in the morning, tired, bewildered and totally ready for bed. Instead, I was asked if I would like to accompany the women to a meeting about thirty minutes away where they will discuss a social development program. Fantastic, only I won’t understand a word. Honestly, the mental power it took me to understand her question in the first place would be enough to power this small town for a week. Regardless, like the polite westerner I was raised to be, and the nonchalant (ha!) traveller I would like to be, I say yes. And proceed to stand on the side of the road, in the rain, for an hour, waiting for the bus. Guatemalans I will find out, have almost as little regard for time as they do for pedestrians, queues and noise pollution, or pollution of any kind actually. Waiting for the chicken bus, trying to understand what the little girl is saying to me, and wanting nothing more than a place to curl up in and sleep, I wonder how exactly did I get here?
Here is El Peten, Guatemala. Part of a ‘voluntourism’ program, which can I add is nothing like the brochure. What was marketed as the volunteer centre is actually the family house, the volunteer programs actually housework, a positive contribution to the social development of a community is actually only the money you are willing to pay. Which, by the way, can you hand over now before we go any further?
It’s a poor area. The barrio is a series of dirt roads that sprawl out into bushland. It received electricity only a few years ago. The houses range from tin shacks with dirt floors, to concrete mansions complete with high cement walls topped with barbed wire. Chickens, goats, pigs, dogs roam the roads which are also shared by tuk-tuks, buses, motos, pedestrians and bikes. Kitchens and bathrooms are almost always outside, protected by an old tin roof – sometimes not. I will come to learn that the barrio is NOISY. Houses blasting music, masses from churches that run well past midnight (think spanish karaoke), roosters, dogs, fire crackers. Guatemalans live skin on skin with one another, without trying to hide their humanity or apologise for their presence and this is one of the things I will come to love about living in the barrio.
None of this is what phases me (although I do cross my fingers that I am with a host family that has a solid floor and roof – a door would be nice) What throws me into a mild panic is the atmosphere at the volunteer centre. Severe and unwelcoming, is an understatement. After reading a 30 page document on the rules (internet allowed 2 hours per day! Volunteers must pay for anything they break!Volunteers must bring own toilet paper! Volunteers are not allowed to use the fridge!) I feel more like an intruder in this family’s life and well, really I am.
To say I am inwardly freaking out is an understatement. If there were a way I could quietly get my bags and leave I would, but, being the polite westerner I was raised to be, this is, alas, not an option. So instead, I tell myself that I can do this. I. Can. Do. This. How many times have I uttered those words to myself? It has become something of a mantra. In fairness, I’m usually talking about a particularly bad hostel or shitty job. Still, I take a deep breath to keep the lump of panic that’s rising in my throat from escaping from my lips in what I imagine would be a wail of despair. The thought of being here for a month is completely overwhelming.
How smug had I been only a few days before, nay even the night before, after my transit from Hawaii to Guatemala city via LA and Fort Lauderdale. Negotiating foreign lands with aplomb like the worldly traveller I am (ha!), making friends, eating local food, catching chicken buses. How prepared I had felt. I was practically begging the universe for a big fat kick up the ass. Well played universe, well played.
I would blame myself for the stupidity of setting off across the world, and believing I could help in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language and don’t understand the culture, only I see the exact same bewildered, confused and frustrated look on all the other volunteers that I myself have. And this at least makes me feel better.
If my travels have taught me nothing else, it has taught me how to adapt. In fact, the world’s history is proof that given enough time, humanity can adapt to just about anything. So, I will swallow my disappointment, nod at little girl chatting away to me, take a deep breath, and wait for this damn chicken bus.
The Little Lost. 