Guest Post: Mom & Dad's 'Hobbit' Adventure, Part 2

In Mom and Dad's 'Hobbit' Adventure, Part 1 Mom talked about their trip itinerary and the highlights of their trip. Here she addresses her "most memorable experience", as well as some of the challenges and lessons learned.

Hobbit Adventures in Guatemala, Part 2

My vote for most memorable experience: Steph’s birthday party, attended by approximately 100 of her friends, colleagues, and neighbors. It was an overwhelming, exhilarating and Monty Python-esque introduction to her town, including:

-- Steph’s posse of energetic and enthusiastic neighborhood kids, who appeared en masse the moment we arrived and who unloaded rental chairs, swept the floors, and made decorations for the walls.

-- Our introduction to Oliver the cat: the “gifts” he left strategically placed around the house, apparently as a token of his displeasure at being left alone for several days.

-- The thick cloud of smoke that filled the house when Steph’s friends decided to heat a large pot of water for tea on the woodstove (never before used by Steph), and discovered too late that the flue was not working properly.

-- Awkward but wonderful conversations in a mix of beginner English and phrase book Spanish.

-- Songs and speeches - a standard feature of any Guatemalan party. Don and I were called upon to make remarks, which Steph appropriately embellished while translating.

-- The ladies who, with no advance plan, seamlessly fed 100 people (including an inebriated fellow who wandered in off the street) in a room the size of a one car garage.

-- The hospitality and generosity of Steph’s friends, neighbors, and colleagues, who greeted us so warmly and who brought many gifts.


Guatemalan challenges:

o- Remembering not to use the tap water for teeth brushing.

o- Remembering not to eat raw/undercooked veggies (and the consequences of ignoring this rule).

o- The unavailability/unreliability of hot water, even in the fancier hotels.

o- It’s a noisy place! Traffic, thin walls, loud parrots/roosters/music

o- It’s a crowded place! People are used to cramming into small spaces – chicken busses, pickup trucks, markets, sidewalks, etc. North American concepts of personal space do not apply.

o- It’s a traffic free-for-all! As Mario pointed out, Guatemalans do what they want when they want, without much regard for traffic rules and the personal safety or comfort of others. There is no hostility or malice involved, no yelling at other drivers or pedestrians; it’s just an accepted fact of life.

Lessons learned:

-- Cleanliness is a relative concept. I now understand what Steph meant when she arrived home at Christmas and announced that she would eat off our kitchen floor.

-- Time to start studying Spanish! I had forgotten how frustrating it is not to have the words to express oneself. Communication is the key to understanding each other, and having the right words is the first step.

-- Having more options and more amenities does not necessarily translate into having more happiness. The people we met in Steph’s hometown seem very content and fulfilled, even though they live in what most Americans would consider “Third World” conditions. Since arriving home I have been struck by how the proliferation of choices and “conveniences” seems to increase stress, rather than reducing it.

-- It was humbling to realize how much I have taken for granted and how little I have understood about the lives of people in other countries. Experiencing another culture (even in the limited way that we did) opens the door to real understanding.


Thank you, dear Steph, for creating this amazing experience, and for your endless patience in guiding us through our Guatemalan adventure. As any true adventure should, this experience has changed the way we think and feel. My heart and my head are full of Guatemala, and I will never be the same.

Editor's final note: Seeing the impact it has on my parents, I see how direct, personal, human exchange between people of different cultures is crucial for the future of our increasingly connected species. It's true you have to be careful as a tourist in a country like Guatemala not to get over your head - but when you push yourself just a little bit out of your comfort zone, the lessons can be profound.

So take a day or a week or a month. Get to know the world from another culture's point of view. The lessons will almost certainly linger long after the adventure's finished!

Guest Post: Mom & Dad's 'Hobbit' Adventure, Part 1

A month ago my parents landed on my doorstep for an unforgettable two weeks of intercultural exchange, great coffee, and family bonding. Read on to hear from my mom about our itinerary and trip highlights.

Hobbit Adventures in Guatemala, Part 1

Those of you who read this blog know Steph as a person who seeks out new challenges and who embraces the adventures that come with traveling to new places and meeting new people. So it would be reasonable for you to assume that she learned her adventurous ways from her parents. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Don and I are hobbit-like in our devotion to the familiar and our anxiety about the unknown. The words of Bilbo Baggins (from Chapter 1 of The Hobbit) come to mind: “We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them.” Of course, we all know how that story turns out…

So imagine our amazement when in early June we found ourselves in Guatemala, having the biggest adventure of our lives. (Editor's Note: In case you are wondering, the picture above isn't an actual town. It's the "Mayan village" at La Azotea, a cultural center/coffee farm & museum outside of Antigua!)

Our Itinerary:

June 1 and 2: Arrived at the Guatemala City airport, where Steph met us and arranged for a taxi to the lovely resort town of Antigua, about an hour away, where we spent two days and nights.

June 3 and 4: Took a four hour shuttle bus ride from Antigua to the city of Xela (also known as Xelajuj, also known as Quetzaltenango) in the highlands. It was like traveling to the top of the world! Spent two days exploring Xela and visiting with the family of Steph’s sweetheart (fiancé?).

June 5, 6, and 7: Arrived in Steph’s town about a half hour drive from Xela. Met 100 of her friends and colleagues at her birthday party (see more on this below!). Stayed at Steph’s apartment, visited her worksites and got an up-close look at her day-to-day life in Guatemala.

June 8, 9, and 10: Returned to Xela where we met up with Mario, our host and guide for our stay in the Boca Costa (Pacific Slope) region of Retalhuleu. We stayed at Mario’s beautiful nature preserve and coffee farm, Reserva Patrocinio. We visited Comunidad Nueva Alianza (a coffee and macadamia cooperative where one of Steph’s fellow Peace Corps volunteers lives and works) and a Mayan archeological site, Tak’alik’ Ab’aj. Mario drove us back to Xela on Friday, where we celebrated Steph’s birthday with family at her favorite restaurants and cafes.

June 11-12: Returned to Antigua by shuttle and spent an afternoon and evening enjoying the town, before bidding a reluctant farewell to Steph and Guatemala.


Here are a few of the many highlights from our trip:

o- The shuttle van ride from Antigua to Xela over breathtaking mountain heights, with some interesting young adventurers as our fellow passengers.

o- The birthday party for Steph’s future mother-in-law in her postage stamp -sized living/dining room in Xela, with 8 adults, three children, four birthday cakes, and a riotous mix of Spanish, German, and English conversation.

o- The striking beauty of the volcanoes and the tropical forest at Reserva Patrocinio.

o- Getting to know Mario, owner of Reserva Patrocinio, who is the antithesis of “business as usual” in Guatemala. (In other words, his goals are ambitious but realistic, and he has the skills, focus, and resources to accomplish them.)

o- Spending so much uninterrupted quality time with our accomplished, intelligent, resourceful, perceptive, fun-loving, and compassionate daughter. [parents are required to say these things!]

Look forward to Part 2 to hear about the lessons that ultimately came out of the experience for my parents!

Balance

Mom and Dad’s visit went off pretty much without a hitch. I’ve been back to work for about two weeks now, and I’ll be excited to put up a guest post from them soon!

In the meanwhile, I’ve been reflecting a lot about balance. Over the past year, I’ve often felt like I was ricocheting from one thing to the next – work to dinner to binging on the Internet to sleep to work to the bare necessary housework to lunch to the bare necessary social interaction to work to dinner, and so on and so forth. It’s so easy to become addicted to repetitive, meaningless thought and action – and so hard to break those patterns.

Unlike my first six months in Guatemala, having a laptop has made me feel like I have to be “on” 100% of the time. The only problem is that’s just not realistic in terms of mental energy.

So getting home, numbly standing around for 5 minutes thinking "What am I doing?", putting on the computer and vegging out on blogs and Facebook until my boyfriend comes on Skype, feeling guilty about it, and falling asleep the minute we hung up, has become the norm.

Last week, I finally struck more balance than I’ve experienced in at least a year of living here. Part of it was surely Mom and Dad’s visit - almost 10 days of hot showers, clean hotel rooms, parental coddling, being the boss of your own schedule, and no cooking, cleaning, or work, will leave a psyche somewhat rejuvenated. Their trip was something I had been planning for awhile and I was also just psyched that it all turned out so well.

Immediately following that I had a crazy week with a day of food poisoning, a handicrafts workshop, a meeting of the local economic development commission, finishing our SPA proposal for the sign project, and two walks up to the park in two days (about 13 miles and 3000 ft gained and lost - great exercise!)

After the second walk, I’m not sure what it was, but some small voice in my head told me to turn off the nagger inside me and focus on doing something cool, new, break out of the pattern, tackle some of the things on my to-do list that I always brush aside.

So the next day I bought, chopped, and over the next three days subsequently ate a full head of turnip leaves, something I’ve been meaning to do forever. I stayed away from the office (Trap of Distraction and Death to Productivity) for two afternoons and thought about my Masters’ project, something which has been needing attention.

I started adding other little tasks to the day – deleting a few emails every day to break up the big task of cleaning my Gmail box – setting a bedtime regardless of the boyfriend – giving myself 5 minutes for Facebook and my favorite blogs, no more - doing whatever dishes are in the sink nightly, just to have it off my mind.

I'm realizing that changing habits for the better is all about breaking big jobs down into smaller jobs, and then making these smaller jobs daily habits. Chab'aku, poco a poco, little by little, as they say here. The sense of accomplishment becomes this self-reinforcing thing: cool, we've got that one thing pretty under control, now let's take on that other little thing in the back burner.

Rather than being overwhelmed, you begin to strike a balance between wanting to control everything and wanting to control nothing.

Raising Oliver: 6 Lessons Learned

AKA: Everything I know about parenting I learned from my Peace Corps pet^

(^I know my mother is sarcastically thinking, “Oh, great! What skills you have. Maybe my grandkids will pee all over the house, too!” – Don’t worry, Mom! I promise we’ll get it together before then.)

I’ll put it out there that for better at times and worse at times, I might be a bit sensitive and a worry-wart (especially when it comes to cute fuzzy things, e.g. I distinctly remember getting a chocolate bunny for Easter when I was 4 and crying my eyes out over the idea of eating it.)

So having a pet in Guatemala has been a great training ground for me for the emotional challenges of larger life including, I would think, actual parenthood. While the stakes are a lot lower here (pet versus human child), the risks are, I'd argue, a bit higher (callous neighbors! poison! millions of ferocious street dogs! flash floods! i could go on...) So it is a legitimate "training-ground", in its own way.

So, what am I in process of learning about parenting?:

(1) If you love them, you have to give them some degree of freedom.

This is obvious, right? But not something that comes to me instinctively. I would love nothing more than to keep Oliver locked up inside my house all day, and in fact tried for quite some time. The problem is that he is clearly not meant to be an indoor cat. He gets antsy, whiny, and poops in my bed. So it doesn't work for me, and it doesn't work for him.

This clearly applies to humans, too. We've got to get out and face the real world, to some degree, at some point. A life with good health, positive relationships, and material security, but with no freedom, variety, or adventure, is probably not a truly happy one.

(2) Related to #1, You can’t protect them from everything, and maybe that's a good thing.

My heart got torn out of my chest one night when Oliver was wandering outside at my old house and got into a fight that left him shaken, with a deep wound on his arm. But he probably learned a good thing or two about street fights, I'd imagine.

(3) Enjoy them while you can!
It seems just yesterday Oliver was a tiny 3 lb. bean bag curled up under my arm, pawing my stocken feet, living contentedly enclosed in a 150 sq. ft room, and rabidly chasing anything that moved. I could cut his nails, put him in a 10" x 10" box and carry him to the moon and back, wear him as a mitten, etc. Now he's about 20 times that size, eats like a horse, and would rather see me bleed than play good-naturedly or let me pick a measly flea off his neck.

(4) You're not going to win all the battles.

OK. So Oliver wants to pee in the corner of the bathroom while I'm peeing? That's fine. At least we're restricting it a little bit. The kitchen and my bedroom are still sacred, pup.

(5) Sometimes you have to make them do things they don’t like, for their own good.

Antibiotics via that gross powder suspension. Vaccinations. Bus rides to the vet. Nail clippings. Bathing. Flea combing. Not all that controversial until you're on the sharp end of 10 claws powered by an irrational dragon-cat. Or, I imagine, an irrational screaming toddler.

(6) Let's hope my kid doesn't have discipline issues, because I am not going to be the one to solve them.
See #4. Really doesn't bother me enough to do anything about it. At all. I'm unfortunately prone to slow reaction times and forgetting to enforce the household rules. Maybe when the time comes we can work out some sort of good-cop compensates for spacey-cop routine with my boyfriend.

At the end, though, what can I say? Perhaps like real parenting, having Oliver in my life has been totally worth every stress. Thanks, my little love!


This post is particularly time-appropriate, since my own parents will be setting foot down in Guatemala for the first time this Wednesday, for 12 days of vacation (including my 25th birthday!). Having your kid in Peace Corps must feel at least a little bit - or way worse - than letting your cat roam the Guatemalan streets; so thanks, Mom and Dad, for supporting my decision to join Peace Corps! I'll look forward to posting about our trip, and perhaps we'll see a snazzy guest post from each of them about our adventures.