The Chicken Bus Lullaby

Four hour bus rides can seem long. Especially when they actually end up being six hour bus rides. Because there is no direct route anywhere, here in Guatemala.

Sometimes all you want to do is sleep. You caught the 5:30 a.m. bus and the wind is blowing in through the window, making your eyes even more tired, but each time you begin to drift off to sleep you have to catch your head before it accidentally falls on the shoulder of the man sitting next to you. And each time the bus rounds a corner you must grip the seat in front of you with all of your strength so that you aren't hurled into the aisle, because you are currently resting half a butt cheek on the school bus seat originally meant for two petite children's bottoms, not the three full-grown adults who now sit squished against each other.

At each stop, more people pile on the bus. Soon, in addition to sitting three per seat, there are people standing in the aisle. It begins to rain, and immediately all of the windows are shut. The air in the bus is now stagnant. A man with a good sized gut squeezes into the aisle next to you. His back is pressed against the side of your face; you relax your neck and let your head rest. A women moves into the space in front of him, her long, curly, sweet-smelling hair brushing your face. It covers the body odor that hangs in the air.

It isn't long before the gentle rocking of the bus, the warm cushion supporting your head, and the sweet smell of lavender shampoo lull you off to sleep.

Scaling the Volcano

About a week ago, Norma, Starfish's in-country director, described the Starfish journey as climbing a volcano. I agreed with her enthusiastically. Mountain-climbing seemed to me like the go-to metaphor for challenge. Not even a metaphor anymore, considering how often we use it in our day-to-day conversations. And so I was hardly paying attention when she continued the analogy: a steady, difficult ascent, with the ultimate and hardest challenge presenting itself in the final stretch to the top.

Sure, we've all heard it before. And it is for that precise reason that many of us haven't taken the time to truly understand it. This past weekend, I finally understood. On Sunday, I climbed a real life volcano.

I left for San Pedro on Saturday evening with four other volunteers living in Panajachel. As the motorboat sped away from Pana into the sunset, we reveled in the idea that when the sun peeked out from behind the mountains the next morning, we would be seeing it from the top of Volcán San Pedro. We arrived in town around dinner time, carbo-loaded, and hit the hay early to rest up before our little sunrise hike.

It was 3:30 a.m. when we began climbing the volcano. It was dark and humid, and my headlamp matted my hair with sweat as I hiked upward into the wee hours of the morning. I looked down on the town of San Pedro, and saw just what I expected to see: stillness. Sleep. I hiked on.

We stopped for breakfast a little before five, resting our sleep-deprived bodies on benches that had been built just a few years ago, when the volcano was officially made into an Ecological Park. A map nearby told us that we were almost halfway. After scarfing down some crackers and chunks of banana bread, we were on our way. We had a schedule to keep, after all.

Soon, a glow began to spread across the horizon. It was almost 6:00 a.m. when I turned off my headlamp and stowed it in my backpack. We were almost running. We didn't know how far we were from the top, but there was one thing we did know for sure: we weren't there yet. And the sun had no intention of waiting for us. I didn't look at my watch when we reached the top, so I have no idea how long we half-ran for. But for the last stretch of the climb, I was in pain. My lungs burned as they struggled to keep up with the quickly changing elevation. My legs protested with every step upward. My right ankle stung each time it rubbed against a rock that had lodged itself inside my boot, which I had no time to stop and remove.

When the trail began to level out and we looked up and saw sky instead of trees, rays of light were streaming in through the fog. We made our way towards a pile of boulders, where we set down our packs and turned to gaze out at the lake. For a few minutes, all we saw was fog. No one spoke during that first moment. Then the clouds in front of us began rushing over our heads, condensing in our hair. We held our breath. And there it was. First the skyline, the clouds in the distance hanging at eye level. Then the mountains, painted with early morning shadows. Finally, the lake. And with it, all of Guatemala. When the clouds parted, we were able to see how far we'd come. And how far we still had to go.


It was then that I realized the truth in Norma's words. When looking out at the volcano, it seems easy. We can see the top, and things seem more manageable when they are in sight. It's the dark that gets us. The moments that seem to stretch on for ages, when we can't see beyond the jungle that engulfs us, and we don't know how far we are from the top. When we can't even be sure how far we've walked already. When our lungs and our legs and our hearts hurt. And when we're racing the sun, the all-powerful source of energy and fatigue that does not give us a second glance. The sun that means everything to us.

So we keep going. You and I, and the Joven Estrellas who are graduating from Starfish in less than two weeks. The Girl Pioneers who have scaled that volcano, and who are almost at the top. Some can see the summit from where they are, and some are still staring up at the jungle. Some can see the bottom, where they came from, and some are waiting for the fog to lift. But all are still climbing. They haven't stopped yet, and they don't plan to stop anytime soon. Their lungs and their legs and their hearts may hurt, but they continue to climb. They climb the volcano as the sun climbs over the mountaintops, on schedule to greet their shining futures at the summit. To look out across the lake, across the entire world, and see everything they have accomplished. And the countless other summits that await them, should they choose to embark on those journeys, too.

If you want to learn more about Starfish One by One, the organization I'm working for in Guatemala, pay a visit to their website: http://www.starfishonebyone.org/

The Ballad of the Orange

There once was an orange that hung on
To a little orange tree in San Juan.
A girl came one day
And took it away,
And just like that it was gone.

Now she slipped that orange in her pack
For it would make such a fine little snack.
A treat for later,
Oh what could be greater!
And she left without looking back.

But, alas! As the tales all go
This one's filled with its share of woe.
The orange sat for a week
With not one little peek
From the girl who picked it long ago.

And after two or three days
An odor began coming her way.
But she misattributed it to
Just lake water and dew
And so, without her knowledge, the orange stayed.

A week and a half went by
And she could no longer turn a blind eye,
So she unpacked her pack
To find the moldy snack
And let out a horrific cry.

And that, children, is the tale
Of a careless girl who failed
To remember the fruit
That she plucked from the root
And which turned all her belongings stale.

Feria or bust.

Panajachel's celebration of San Fransisco occurs every year on October 3rd and 4th. Officially. But here in Pana, we like our parties. This means that the traditionally two-day holiday actually lasts for about two weeks, with street venders and tourists arriving early and only leaving once they've had their fair share of feria. The ferris wheel pops up around September 30th, and the bombas, or fireworks (some of which I think might actually just be small bombs), begin the last week of September and increase in frequency throughout the days and nights until finally, on Thursday of one of the longest weeks of your life, after you get home and swear that there's no way in hell you're going back out tonight, the feria has arrived! And it's calling you.

A typical young adult in Pana arrives at the feria around 11pm Thursday night. Humans move and ooze and melt like molasses, slowly making their way toward the Catholic church at the top of the hill. Food stands and impromptu small businesses have set up camp on either side and straight down the middle of Calle Principal, which has been blocked off to motor vehicles. Smells of three-for-10Q tacos, pizza, churros, and fried platanos saturate the street, which is covered by tarps to keep out the pouring rain. Soon, you approach the thirty-something Foosball tables lining the calle, where you can battle your friends, old and new, at the whopping price of 1Q for five games (with no dumb rules about spinning and shaking the table).

Eventually, you reach the end of Calle Principal, sweating and gasping for fresh air. You find yourself standing in the square in front of the Catholic church, surrounded by three ferris wheels, a rocking pirate ship ride, a small merry-go-round, and, unbelievably so, even more people. We are no longer individuals, but one heaping seeping moving mass of feria.

You clamber onto the biggest ferris wheel and hang on for dear life as it hurls you towards the ground at an ungodly speed, then lifts you back up into the air at the last minute, tossing you slightly out of the seat so that the tops of your thighs slam against the bar, keeping you from being flung off the side of the gigantic screeching clanking joy machine. That, not even to your surprise, is rigged to a tractor motor for power. At least it beats the kiddy merry-go-round, which two preteen boys are pushing by hand.

After three rides on the ferris wheel, you reluctantly step down because you know that you probably shouldn't spend more than 30Q on a children's ride. You head towards the church, where a stage has been set up and a band is playing. The rest of the night is filled with dancing, bombas, tacos, and churros, until the official fireworks show begins at 3am. You'd think people would start to head off to bed after that, right? Wrong! The first night of this happy holiday starts to wind down around 6am. As you head home in the wee hours of the morning, you stop by a taco stand where you show the owner pictures that you promised to take for him of the feria, since he wouldn't be able to see it himself that night. Gotta make a living, even during feria, he tells you.

So, if all of this happens on a Thursday night, what happens on Friday night? Well, the exact same thing. And Saturday too. The wonderful town of Pana ferias all weekend long. So much so that it has become a verb. So, are we feria-ing tonight or what?