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/
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