Returning to Guate

I just got back from a week’s vacation in the States and it’s like I completely forgot Guatemala while I was gone.

Back stateside, I definitely tried to put my Peace Corps life in perspective. I was standing in the kitchen and trying to remember life here in my site, the afternoon rains, my tin roof, cobbled streets, poverty and second hand clothes, tropical plants and trees and hot weather. Unfortunately, I could barely hang onto the thought. I’d recall an image, maybe it was the view from my office doorway looking out into the street, watching the people pass by, and then I would push the image away. There was too much good food to eat, casual socializing and car rides and bonfires, clean streets and beautiful houses, big buildings and paved streets, real coffee and doughnuts and sushi and every easy detail.

I’m starting to think that maybe I blotted Guatemala out, which is weird because I like it here. Up until this point all I’ve been telling people is how much I like the people, the climate, the food, the flora, the culture and my work – I have very few complaints. At the same time, I spent a week in the States and forgot everything.

I imagine it’ll take a few days to settle back into my site. Here, there are stares and stray dogs and bizarre questions about the United States, pollution and crowded buses and beggars, gun-battle massacres and fear, contaminated food and minimal hygiene, a lackadaisical attitude and complacency that shrugs in the face of, well, craziness. There are new stories, superstitions - these kinds of things have got me reeling a little bit.


I remember the sarcastic remark I made to someone about how odd it was to “vacation in the States”, but now that I’m back, I realize that it’s really no joke, whether for me and the 18 months of service I have left, or for the Guatemalans who live here everyday and can’t simply get on a plane and fly off to a foreign country.

One notable thing about my trip was the Greyhound station where I had to wait for a connecting bus at 2:20 AM last Wednesday night. Sitting there watching people lurch about, I saw poverty, stress and sense of wariness…it struck me that the setting was almost like Guatemala (although much weirder, more diverse and not nearly as poor).

Getting away

I’m in Antigua this week, which is the de facto nexus of all Peace Corps life. It’s a beautiful city (I know I’ve been skeptical about its origins before, all colonial and ironic and mute about all the historically reprehensible stuff that you can turn your nose up at from the past, but I do love it here.)

For one, the Peace Corps office is nearby, so we inevitably stay in Antigua whenever we have to visit for official matters. It’s also where the hotels are, the hostels, the bars, the delicious restaurants, the glimpse of the western stuff we miss or long for. Some things I’ve mostly forgotten but will suddenly recall (like juicy bacon and a stack of fluffy pancakes). You come to Antigua, it’s where you can find what you’re craving.

It’s like a mini-vacation when you come here, and I’m sure that Peace Corps posts all over the world have some city center or locale to which volunteers can slip away, zero the balance and go back to their sites feeling recharged. Here in Guatemala, it’s cobblestone streets and Spanish architecture (plus the volcanoes).

The funny thing is that yesterday I realized that I’ll probably be coming back here the rest of my life, like my relationship with this country and this city is already forming or has formed to a degree that I’ll never forget it here, like I’ll leave but it’ll be too beautiful in my memories to not think about. I’ll come back, and I seem to sense it every time I hike back into town. From the teeming bus station, towards some modest hostel with a knapsack stuffed with clothing I stream past tourists and townspeople,the brilliant colors in the market stalls, down bumpy streets and alongside the beggars, the fashionistas, the teenage school uniforms, the Europeans and the business suits, the mopeds, tuk-tuks and the Beamers, the indigenous traje and the working poor, the Burger King and the hawkers and hustlers and everyone else.

Into the central square, the trees are shedding purple blossoms and someone put two bursting bouquets of flowers in the fountain, waters streaming over the basin lip and people stroll around, below the gleaming white stone church which lingers while an even larger, slightly foreboding volcano looks out over everything.