Climbing mountains in Guatemala and learning to live with a ‘strong back, soft front, wild heart’
“I have a lot of story ideas from today,” I said in Spanish, my voice strained and cracking with the choppy roller-coaster cobblestone descent from Hobbitenango in the trunk of a small SUV.
The four teachers, principal, secretary and Hannah exploded in laughter, both about the day’s adventures and about my difficulty expressing the sentence with the rocky ride down. Bradler, Escuela Integrada’s principal, hung on to both sides of the trunk trying to stabilize himself. Hannah and I braced ourselves against the back of the seat, where four teachers sat on each others laps. The school secretary and driver sat up front, bringing the total to nine for a four-wheel adventure down the side of a mountain.
We boarded a school bus Friday morning for a day of rest and relaxation to celebrate the teachers at Escuela Integrada. They work incredibly hard to provide safe and welcoming learning spaces for the children at the school. A mission team from Tulsa, Oklahoma, provided the resources for the day and accompanied the teachers and staff. That put the total headcount near 50 on the bus, with a separate microbus carrying a handful of others and supplies for the day.
The bus left Jocofut, a soccer complex near the school and the only place big enough to load a school bus near the busy streets of Calle Ancha. Instead of taking the road directly to El Hato, we “toured” Antigua to avoid the checkpoints. No one really understood why, but the bus driver said that is what he wanted to do, so we went with it. As we drove, Hannah and I tried to pour coffee from a thermos into our two paper cups between speed bumps. We started to climb the hill to Hobbitenango about an hour after we were supposed to leave the school. We were on Guatemalan time.
Hobbitenango is a small eco restaurant and destination on a hillside outside Antigua. To get there, most people drive to the dirt parking lot and then ride in the 4x4 vehicles to climb the final 800 meters. Because we were on a school bus, we stopped two miles below the dirt parking lot, which was the last accessible area for a vehicle that size.
Earlier in the day, someone mentioned a “small hill” we would be walking up, and there was another rumor circulating about it being “four blocks” from where we got off the bus.
As we started to climb up the side of the mountain, memories pulsed through my brain. Remember that one time Father Maher said “just a little bit further” as our tired (and hungry) group walked through the midday heat in Rome? Remember when you did the same thing to Mom, Dad and Holly the following summer because they *had* to see all of the churches? Remember when you were supposed to lead a gentle 3-mile hike for Kim’s bachelorette weekend and seven and a half miles later…
We shed layers as the heat, humidity and exertion increased. The microbus made it to the top, dropped off people and supplies and then started doing laps. The school director, Hernan, raced down the mountain, picked up a carload, ran them to the top, and then did it again until everyone made it to the dirt lot. The downside to having long legs and living at altitude was that I was within about 100 meters when the microbus came for the last of us. When we reached the parking lot, we looked like we just got out of the shower, our hair and t-shirts soaked with sweat.
We piled into the back of pickup trucks to ride the final 800 meters up to Hobbitenango.
It was thrilling! I felt so alive and so close to the part of my core that ignites with a little taste of adrenaline and the unexpected.
At the summit, we took in the expansive views of Antigua and the volcanoes. We refilled water bottles, reapplied sunscreen and laughed at the way the day unfolded. We climbed 68 floors, roughly 10 floors shy of scaling New York City’s Chrysler Building.
The teachers, staff, mission team and interns ate lunch together at one really large table and exchanged words of appreciation. Hernan and Bradler thanked the mission team for providing a great experience for the teachers, and the mission team thanked Hernan, Bradler, the teachers and the staff for leading Escuela Integrada with compassion, effort and integrity.
Lunch was served slowly—as would be expected with a table of near 60—translations weren’t perfect, and people were tired from the hike. And hungry.
Despite the morning’s adventure, each person, Guatemalan and foreigner alike, was content and appreciative of the time together. That, or they did a very, very good job hiding discomfort behind hilarity and their enjoyment of one another. I think it was the former, sprinkled with a lot of laughter and a shared experience to reflect back on in the future.
The adventure wasn’t over yet.
After lunch, the clouds moved in quickly before we could get everyone down the hill. The heavens opened and it poured. We shared the jackets and umbrellas we had and waited for the pickups to shuttle us back down. I sat with Hannah, Bradler, four teachers and the secretary under the deck of the restaurant, where we waited until the last 4x4 vehicle arrived to take us down. We packed the small SUV and descended, which prompted the expression that started this story.
I had many story ideas that emerged, and much to unpack on a deeper level.
Earlier this week, I struggled with some feelings of homesickness and discomfort. I felt like I hadn’t found a rhythm to my routine, and the smallest things were bothering me. I was tired of being dirty all the time. I was tired of seeing men pee in the streets wherever they wanted to, with little regard for discretion. I was tired of my stomach turning circles, unable to adapt to new foods. I was tired of keeping my head down to watch every step for feces and glass, which decorate the spaces between the uneven cobblestone streets.
I was tired of looking like a foreigner, sounding like a foreigner and being hit on like a foreigner. I was frustrated with my Spanish and my inability to communicate what I really wanted to, beyond niceties and questions. My brain was tired, my heart was tired and my physical being was tired.
The discomforts I was fighting were in many ways discomforts of the transition from the predictable, comfortable and clean, to the uncertain, disorganized and dirty.
I remember this happening last year, but I thought, for sure, I was immune to the discomforts of Guatemala. This is my third trip. As it turns out, anytime you are in a developing nation, anytime you transition from what you know as your daily, lived experience to an experience that challenges your political, social, emotional and physiological identity, it takes a lot of courage and a lot of adaptability. This is the wilderness.
I finished Brené Brown’s book, Braving the Wilderness, this week. Her words, coupled with some silence, more daily Masses and more vulnerability with others about the discomfort I was feeling, broke through a lot of the tension I was carrying this week. I also bought a Guatemalan SIM card to ease communication here and with people I missed from home.
Then, I started saying “yes” to more opportunities that would challenge my comfort-seeking. I spent time with new friends who prefer to speak only in Spanish. I went into Guatemala City, which held a preconceived idea of danger in my mind. I discovered that there are some really beautiful parts and people in the city. And, I had a crazy day climbing up the side of a mountain.
Travel, and mission work specifically, in a developing nation is about the furthest thing from predictable. It challenges our hard-wired Western systems of timeliness and organization. There is a lot of waiting, a lot of miscommunication and a lot of facing things that we don’t face in our normal routines.
In Brown’s book, she talks about living with a ‘strong back, soft front and wild heart.’ The strength of the spine comes from having courage and walking bravely into new experiences. The soft front comes in the form of vulnerability and being open with others about our joy and our pain. Finally, the wild heart is about embracing the wilderness, which often results in navigating the parts of our interior lives that are growing, sometimes painfully, as we encounter new experiences.
And the wild heart thrives with adventure, adrenaline and those very things we sometimes avoid because they cause us to step into the wilderness.
Guatemala will forever be a wilderness of sorts for me, no matter how many times I return, because it is not the same as Colorado. My life here is different than it is in the U.S. The challenge comes in sitting with the differences, embracing the discomfort, being vulnerable with others in those moments, and choosing joy despite the discomfort.
This doesn’t mean I won’t be disgusted every time I see a man unzip his pants and pee in front of men, women and children on the streets. It doesn’t mean I won’t watch where I step. And, it certainly doesn’t mean that I will not be affected by other discomforts of being away from home. But it does mean that I have a few more tools in my toolbox to face the discomforts. Brown puts it beautifully when she says:
“The mark of a wild heart is living out the paradox of love in our lives. It’s the ability to be tough and tender, excited and scared, brave and afraid — all in the same moment. It’s showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, being both fierce and kind.”
Thanks be to God for unexpected mountains to climb, good coffee to drink and friends to lean into when the wilderness gets really wild. This is the life God has called us to live.
Strong Back.
Soft Front.
Wild Heart.
