Better Now

Today just goes to show that when you're not comfortable at home, you're not comfortable anywhere. In a manner of thinking about how everything here relates to my students, I am glad I had the experience I did this week. I was not comfortable in the first host home I was in. My host mom there was very stern, serious, even rude at times. I felt like I could never make her happy. From the moment I arrived, she treated me like I had done something wrong even though I barely knew her. Even though I was unaware of it at first, my anxiety grew every time I had to go back to the house because I knew she'd be upset at me for something. I didn't realize how much of an issue it was until I was talking to one of my group members about how I was hungry because I hadn't eaten much at meals. She suggested that I could ask my host mom for more food, and I remembered that morning when I was scared to even ask her for a napkin. I realized that it was impossible to practice Spanish, or feel comfortable, with someone I was afraid to ask for a napkin. So, despite how comfortable I was with my room there, the family cats, and the other family members, I went to the school director today and asked for a transfer of host family.
To my surprise, he agreed, and told me to go grab my stuff. I was shocked, because I figured it would be at least a week to arrange another host home. I went back to get my stuff packed, and within an hour, I was in a new home. My new host mom greeted me with a warm smile, introduced me to the rest of the family  and sat and talked with me for half an hour about our families, our work, and our lives. She told me that if I needed anything to just ask, and that she was happy to have me here. In just the first 10 minutes of being here, I felt like I could breathe again. I don't have to stress about making small mistakes, or worry about what I'm going to get scolded for next. I feel like I took a gamble in requesting a transfer, and won. Now even though I know this week will be busy and I will be stressed with everything I have to do, I know that I will be emotionally more prepared to handle it.

Hardest Week So Far

I wish I could say that I'm enjoying myself and having a great time here, but that wouldn't be the truth. This week was hard. Not so much the learning of Spanish, but the fact that we have no time to learn it. I have started crying at several of my class sessions because I feel like I have to pack in all the knowledge quickly, because I know I will forget all of it by tomorrow. I would feel better if I had time to practice later, but I know there won’t be any. 

We go straight from breakfast, to school, to our host family for a quick lunch that I usually have to wolf down so I don’t have time to talk, back to the school for a trip or event, back home to, again, wolf down some food as fast as I can, so I can go back to the school for yet another activity, which ends late and then I have to straight home to bed. Most of the time after 1:30pm  is spent thinking, and speaking, in English. The tour guide speaks in Spanish, but a translator is usually there, also, so we don't catch any of the Spanish. 

Of course, I understand that it’s important to learn about the culture of Guatemala, and one or two activities per week I feel like would suffice to be able to experience the culture, as well as the language. I do want to learn about the culture, but not at the expense of learning Spanish, which was my original goal in coming here. Being required to go to every single activity is a little excessive, and takes away from the learning that I could be doing if I just had some time each day to process the new things I learned at school. 

I’m also struggling because I am missing the people back home. I am one of only two people who doesnt have wifi at my host family home, meaning that the only time I’m able to connect with my loved ones is when I’m at school, when I should be studying and learning! So now if I need support or encouragement from home, I have to sacrifice more of my learning time for that. I feel like that should be the last thing I have to sacrifice. It really makes me angry. I realize we have free time on Saturdays and Sundays, but that is absolutely not enough time to receive support from my loved ones at home, or practice my Spanish, which are the most important things I need on this trip right now. 

Despite being in a new country and being with the other group members from Newman, it’s difficult to support each other and encourage each other, when every single person is feeling stressed out, tired, annoyed, and frustrated. None of us are in good shape emotionally right now, so it would be helpful to get encouragement from my loved ones back in the United States who still have their strength and energy and can remind me why I chose to come here. 

I'm sure it will get better with time. Or perhaps, I will do what one of the other girls has already started doing today, and boycott the field trips and extra events that I don't have time to go to. We're hopefully all going to talk to our teacher this weekend and see if there's something she can do. I don't know if it will work, but I can hope for the best. 

My First Week

I felt more love this week than I have ever had in a lifetime. 

This week I got to experience firsthand what it's like to learn a new language in a new country. At first, I was surprised how easy it was. I was meeting new people and seeing new things, beautiful views and landscapes that took my breath away. I tried my hardest to speak Spanish, and didn't mind being the target of jokes and teasing because I didn't understand. My family asked me a lot of questions and were very careful to speak slowly and clearly so I could follow everything.

It was about a week in when things got hard. I'm not even sure what changed. It was probably just a buildup of a lot of things. I think I just got tired. Now tired physically, because I have been sleeping enough. But tired of constantly having to struggle. I was tired of trying to explain basic things and needs that I should be able to say but don't know the words. It's much more challenging than I thought it would be. 

Fortunately I'm thankful for a lot here. My host family was wonderful. Betty, the grandmother, was so loving and sweet and kind. She was a terrific cook. She always made sure I had plenty to eat. Her daughter, Mariela, was beautiful and was exactly my age. She was always really interested in learning about me and very patient with teaching me new things. The youngest sister was 21 and taught me a lot about Guatemalan culture for people my age. Her boyfriend really liked including me in the conversations, too. And Eduardo, Mariela's son, was 7 years old and a riot! He loved to give me random hugs and entertain us instead of eating his dinner. Not unlike the kids in the United States.

My favorite thing about my host family was that they never gave up on me. They didn't let "Yo no entiendo" (I don't understand) be the end of the conversation. They would talk and explain and draw pictures for me, sometimes for 10 minutes or more, until I understood what was going on. 

All of us girls on the trip felt like we were back to being children again, in a lot of ways. Our moms gossiped about our sleeping, living, and eating habits, and if we could speak and understand them. We had to eat our food even if we didn't like it. We had to go to bed at 8 because we were so exhausted. Most of the time we don't know our plans for the day, so when our parents said "Vamos!" we would "vamos" right along like little ducklings with no clue as to where we were going. It sounds stressful but in a way it was kind of freeing. I had very little to try to remember, so I was free to devote all my energy to speaking Spanish (which is a lot more energy than I expected).

I learned a lot in my first week here. Not just Spanish but life, and the culture here. In Guatemala, there is a phrase called "sobremesa" which is a custom to spend time together at the table, whether you're eating or not, and just be in each other's presence, even if it's silent. It's silent a lot of the time, and nobody feels awkward or feels the need to fill it. I've learned to appreciate just sitting and being with other people I love. If anything was a gift from this first week, it was that. I feel ready to continue on my journey. 

First Morning Reflections

This morning, I am thankful for the fact that I slept well last night. Of course, sleeping medicine helps a lot. That was nice to wake up naturally to birds singing, cars driving around outside, and sunlight streaming through the open window. It gave me a solid hour to re-pack my bag from looking like "Holy crap here's everything on my list thrown into this bag!" to "Here's what I need on top."
I have always been an early riser as an adult. I think that comes from my dad, who would always tell us that the earlier we woke up, the more we could do in a day. Now I have gotten a chance to get my things organized, get my brain organized, and wake up slowly with the smell of fresh air from outside.
Yesterday was a trip! No, literally! They canceled our flight to Dallas, so we had to take a sudden 5 hour road trip from Wichita to Dallas, packed into the last rental van the airport had, with all our stuff piled on top of us! Somehow, we made it with about an hour to spare. Got our bags checked, got through security, and had just enough time to gobble down some snacks before getting on the plane. That was about when my anxiety spiked, but as usual, it dissolved as soon as the wheels on the plane were up and we were in the air. Somehow it's like I just know that whatever happens, will happen now, and there's nothing I can do but accept it and roll with it.
So far, I'm 1/1 on how to use the shower! (Although it did take me three trips to the bathroom to remember all my stuff), and 2/2 on brushing my teeth with a water bottle! I'm 1/2 on not throwing toilet paper into the toilet though. Oops! 😳 Guess my just-woke-up self is not quite fully acclimated yet.
It seems so strange to finally be here. Today we will get to tour Guatemala City a little bit, and start the beginning of our journey. Our professor is taking us on one of the museum tours, which has both an English and a Spanish tour. Guess which one she requested? It's looking like our Spanish learning begins today. Bring it on. I feel ready!

Ready to Leave

What a strange thing it is, to have the thing that I've waited for for 6 months, about to finally happen...

Today I crossed the last thing I had off my to-do list. The to-do list started as 4 sub categories, each with a timeline of which they had to be finished. The last thing on the list was pack. I now have 8 weeks of stuff to survive, in a suitcase, a duffel bag, and a small backpack. My whole life will be in those 3 bags for the whole summer.
I don't even know how I feel. I'm excited, obviously. But it's mixed in with apprehension. I have no idea what to expect. And maybe that's not a bad thing. If I go in with no expectations, then I will be surprised no matter what. It will be a strange feeling, not having to plan every second of every day. With my ADHD as bad as it is, I have gotten so reliant on external reminders to get through the day. My days, weeks, and months are just endless series of lists of things to do, reminders of things to accomplish. If breathing weren't involuntary, it would probably be on my to-do list.

So now I go to a place where, for 8 weeks, I will not be in control. I will simply just have to be. Be still, be present, be learning.

I think that will be a good thing for me. I notice as my departure date gets closer, I have been making an extra effort to hold and pet my cats, to give my horse a little more treats, to hug my boyfriend longer. I'm starting to suspect this trip will make me appreciate everything I have and love, that much more. Not that I don't appreciate and love them, but when my life is just one task after another, it's very hard to just be present and enjoy the things I love.

So among my goals of learning Spanish, and experiencing another culture, I want to practice being present, as much and as often as possible. I want to soak in every experience that I have, without the constant background noise of social media and checklists. I have made it this far. I no longer have to be an overachiever and have a big destination in mind. The destination is here. And I'm going to experience everything I possibly can.

Wish me luck, everyone! I will miss you all!

Bananas

The things you see when you suddenly are aware of what's going on around you. How many times have I bought bananas in the store and never noticed that they said Guatemala on them?

Then, I started to wonder. I bought an entire bunch of bananas for $1.18 at my local Dillons. Which means that in order for that company to have made a profit, that bunch of bananas had to have been grown, sprayed, cut down, and shipped over 2000 miles for my spoiled white self to be able to purchase them for $1.18 at Dillons. How much less did the (most likely) indigenous Mayan person get paid for this? I just bought enough food to make dinner for the entire week, in less than 20 minutes at the grocery store, and barely glanced at the total because I knew I had enough money for it.

Did this person's family eat tonight?

If you haven't donated yet, I need your help more than ever. I will be traveling there not just to learn Spanish, but to do some service projects in one of the most impoverished areas of the country. I will be spending my American money at local business and buying items from local craftspeople to help them put food on their tables.

https://www.gofundme.com/my-bilingual-journey

Progressing Reflections

When I first started on this journey of getting ready to go to Guatemala, my one and only goal was to learn Spanish. I had a very singular mindset as I got started. However, upon completing the readings needed for this month, and our talks in class, another goal has come to the surface that I am now adding to my goal list. I want to understand what my students are going through. One of the major themes of the readings and class discussions has been trauma. This year in particular, my district is pushing for trauma-informed practices among the staff members in all the schools of the district. Studies have shown that trauma affects the brain, and as the book We Were Taught to Plant Corn, Not to Kill mentions several times, trauma can become embedded in a person’s DNA, and can be a very challenging thing to overcome. Many of my students struggle with trauma also, which can make them act out in strange ways, often ways that one would not expect. If I view them from the lens of a traumatized person, rather than just a kid “acting out” in class, I am more likely to be understanding and patient with their behavior.


I feel like the trauma that my students have experienced and the trauma of the indigenous people of Guatemala share one big key element: being taken advantage of and unable to stop it. Page 38-40 of I, Rigoberta Menchu describes the death of her brother, and how her mother had to watch him slowly starve to death, unable to do anything to help him. The landowners wouldn’t even allow her to bury him, and when she finally did get the money to afford him a burial, they fired her for missing a day of work. I counted 7 different times in the chapter that Rigoberta said, “I/we didn’t know what to do.” The feeling of helplessness perpetuates the feeling of trauma even further. When she was a maid in the capital, her only way to maintain her dignity was to be stubborn and refuse certain tasks that the mistress was trying to force her to do. (pg 91-100) This applies a lot to my students as well, who will often be defiant just for the sake of being defiant. After reading that chapter, I now wonder if it’s because they are treated so badly at home, or because they see their parents acting like that to authority figures who take advantage of them. The part of the book that truly made me sick was page 177, where she described in detail watching her brother and other prisoners be tortured and burned alive, and knowing she could do nothing to stop it. Her mother later said on page 196, that “when a woman sees her son tortured and burned to death, she is incapable of forgiving anyone or ridding herself of that hatred.” After her mother was kidnapped, she still couldn’t even go to see her, because she knew she would be killed anyway, and there was nothing she could do.


That same theme of helplessness and trauma was present in We Were Taught to Plant Corn, Not to Kill, as well. The story that stood out to me the most was the one called Innocence on page 26. Up until that point, I had read about the atrocities in the other books we’d covered in class, but the evil in that story was what really hit home. I couldn’t fathom what kind of people would offer toys to little children, and then brutally murder them and their entire families. Later, when the author returned, she found that the soldiers had lived in and trashed her house. After reading that story, I had to take a break because I felt too sick to read anymore.


The other story that stood out to me in that section of the book was on page 43, the chapter called “Schools.” In college, I had read stories about children in the Southwestern United States who were indigenous Native Americans, who were forced to go through the same kind of treatment: Not allowed to speak their home language, verbally and physically abused at the whims of their teachers, and a lack of education overall. The quote that stood out to me the most was, “That is how they forced us to learn Spanish, and taught us to be ashamed of the fact that we were Mayan.” (43) I feel like when one has been taught from childhood to be ashamed of who they are, that doesn’t go away quickly, if ever.


But there was hope at the end of the book, and I did like that part. On page 117, it says, “Children represent Guatemala’s best hope for the future, their minds are still open.” It goes on to talk about how trauma-informed mental health services will be the best chance that Guatemala has at healing from the trauma in their past. Changing people’s mindsets, though, it not easy, no matter what country you are in.


On page 39 of Guatemala in Focus (which I finished last month but revisited this month), it says that by “The government agreed to launch a campaign to change mindsets and behavior and to criminalize ethnic discrimination.” I feel like the later will be much easier than the former. As with most stories in history, it is easier to change laws than to change people’s minds. Even in The United States, we have laws prohibiting racism and inequality, but we still see it all over the place in people’s minds. But I agree that something must be done.


I think it will start by listening. Listening to the families, my teachers, the people in the aldea, and hearing any stories they have to share. Last week, when I was doing parent teacher conferences, I experienced a lot of frustration as I tried to ask questions in Spanish, knowing full well I would only be able to catch half the answer. I was able to catch the important half, however. Maybe the same thing will apply with the people in Guatemala, also. Or maybe just by listening with my heart, I will be able to understand them, even if I don’t understand every word they say.


Another topic we talked about in class that I know I will need to improve on before leaving, is the ability to admit when I don’t know, and let others support me. As Profesora Bontrager shared her story about the man who told her, “You are really hard to give to!” that really hit home with me, because I started to realize that independence and self-reliance are the traits I hold dearest to me, too. In the last 7 years, I have lost a parent, moved myself across the country away from everyone I knew, lived on my own, started my career, started my own business, and became a homeowner, all by myself. Not only that, but I have been wounded countless times by situations where I have accepted help from others, only to have that help held against me as collateral, or to be ridiculed or shamed for the help I asked for. Or in some cases, I would be promised help, and that promise would be meaningless. Since then, I have prided myself on being independent and not relying on others. But as I read through the books, especially I, Rigoberta Menchu, I was struck by how often the people in her village relied on one another for food, shelter, protection, and support. I realized that independence is very much an American value. I am once again breaching a new territory with an unfamiliar custom. I don’t interpret gray areas very well, and I feel like this is a big one. How much should I ask for help before I become a burden to others? Who is safe to ask for help, and who will shame me for it? I know that suffering quietly is not the answer if I need something, but it will be such unfamiliar territory that I will need a lot of guidance.





Thankfully, even though I will be staying on my own with my host family, I know I will not be there alone. If I am experiencing frustration, homesickness, fatigue, or stress, there will most certainly be others in the group who are going through the same thing. Maybe we will be able to support each other, so that no one has to go through feeling that alone.