That Means Welcome to Guatemala
And by welcome they mean, “Hey, come here, get sick as fuck, and basically don’t document the entire first week of your journey because you’re sporadically screaming ‘Why the hell did I decide it was a good idea for me to bring me and my 8-year-old daughter to Guatemala again?’ all while running to the bathroom seemingly nonstop”
It pretty much looked something like that. And this is where my coach would tell me “more here” because apparently you people really want the details.
And that conversation went something like this:
Her: “Just keep writing, don’t self-edit, and share more details! I want to know what color underwear the guy in the boat 500 feet away (that’s 152.4 meters for the rest of the world) looks like down to the thread count with your naked eye (okay, that pun was not intentional but it even made me laugh so now it stays).”
First, I have no clue how far 500 feet away is, but it sounded far so I went with it. Second, I find it a bit ridiculous that the United States insisted on avoiding the measuring system that pretty much the rest of the world uses. In my travels, that decision whoever made at whatever point in time has helped me exactly 0%. Third, I am really diverting us from the original topic of my first week in Guatemala, but we are going to roll with it.
So where were we? Oh right, my coach recommended I go into more detail. Share all the things. Paint the picture. Explain, share, elaborate, etc.
My response: “You want me to do what? I’m sitting here thinking nobody is even going to want to read this shit and you want me to explain what my hot tea tastes like, smells like, looks like, and feels like inside of my mouth? (For those curious, it’s a lemon ginger hot tea that is now cold, it feels uh… wet? A tea, by the way, that I am drinking due to being sick as fuck in Guatemala, which you still don’t know anything about because we have taken this tangent. You’re welcome.)
The thing is, I know she’s right. I do. Truly. At the same time, she may have her work cut out for her here for a couple of reasons outside of her control (well, and mostly mine).
Talking at the Speed of Light
By the time I was in college, it became abundantly clear to me that I talked too fast. But it was many years later before I realized that the reason I talk too fast is because I lived in a household where I would have my parent’s undivided attention so seldom that when I did have a few minutes of time to share I would talk as fast as possible to make sure I could share something (anything) before they got distracted or cut me off.
This is another time when I would just leave it here and move on with my story but since I really hate editing my own stuff I am going to go ahead and assume the “more here” is incoming and tell you more of the details you’re all dying to know (that sounded more dramatic in my head).
It wasn’t cell phones that were distracting them because those didn’t exist. I mean technically those huge ass car phones did exist but we surely didn’t have one. I vaguely remember their focus was on various other things from car shows and soap operas to the latest gossip. Hell, I don’t know. All I know is we sure the heck weren’t sitting around talking about kid-appropriate things or our feelings. And to make matters worse, anytime my opinion differed from theirs I was told “Because I said so” and “One day you’ll understand.” Here I am many decades later and I can attest that I truly do understand now, but something tells me it is not in the way that they had hoped.
Or better yet, I would get in trouble, which looked like being yelled at, spanked, or grounded for “talking back.” How fucking dare I, right? Even the term “talking back” shows the only clear answer is to literally accept whatever is said and keep your mouth shut. Opinions? Nope, not wanted here. So of course I internalized that sharing my views and opinions was completely not desired. And in the rare moments that my views and opinions were actually allowed to be expressed (even if not truly heard), damn right I was talking as fast as I could because I knew that was a rare opportunity.
(On a serious note, I cannot even fathom telling my daughter not to talk back to me…I am trying so hard to teach her to learn to use her voice and that her opinions matter, but to speak them in a way that is kind and loving.)
For as long as I can remember, up until relatively recently (and sometimes it’s still a struggle) I have found myself in a really perplexing situation. I was trained to not have an opinion or voice my views and was forced to grow up way too fast for any child. But the thing is, I know things. Sometimes that means I am able to immediately see the answer to a problem that others cannot see. Furthermore, I am really damn good at taking complex topics and breaking them down into an easily digestible format. (Sometimes by putting visuals of the boxers of a half-naked man on a boat in your mind.)
The combination of these “gifts” (except when they aren’t) is that I can only wait so long to hear other people try to figure something out before I get impatient and just share what I knew to be true from the beginning and in a way that everyone understands. And this is what made me the president of the Student Governors Association (SGA), both of my social clubs (it was a small school, and we had basically 2 actual Greek organizations on campus), and numerous other organizations in college.
Other times my “knowing” is that sometimes I truly just know things to be true. Call it intuition, call it psychic, call it a weird generational defect in my DNA that crosses some wires, I don’t know.
So this knowing is great, right? Well, not when your childhood experiences basically showed continuous confirmation for 18 years (you know, my entire life up until that point) that people don’t want to hear what I have to say. The result? Delivering the graduation speech my senior year in college in about 90 seconds flat. Okay, my massive fear of public speaking (likely also rooted in the same place as talking faster than someone on 2.0 playback speed) probably played a role here, too.
That same belief system, pattern, and trend of course continued as they all do until you unexpectedly meet them face-to-face in a dark alley as you’re searching for the long-lost parts of your soul. But we will have to save that for another chapter.
And now I don’t even remember how we got to this point from a chapter about my first week’s experience in Guatemala. Oh right! Details. I’m supposed to share details and now you know a bit more about why I quite frankly am not convinced you actually do want the details because that’s something I’m still working on in this journey called life.
Yes, I’m still human, but I also may be able to somewhat read your mind. Right now you’re thinking “Maybe her coach should have let her give us the cliff notes version.” (okay okay I’m kidding. Fine. I’ll give you the bloody details. I have a new English friend in Guatemala so that was “bloody hell” and not like actual red blood because that stuff makes me throw up and there’s been enough of that this week in the country that has the weirdest welcoming gift that I’ve ever experienced.)
Writing for “Marketing” is Different
The second aspect of my training to not give you all the juicy details is that my career is in marketing (well, kind of is in marketing… used to be? Hell, I don’t know. Ask me again in a few months). Therefore, my writing tends to be direct, to the point, precise, and a bit witty when I can get away with it (which doesn’t fly when you’re writing healthcare blogs apparently). I could go into more detail here but let me just spare you the pain of explaining why you have to be a direct (and boring) writer when you have a Ph.D. in marketing and are taught to write to fit within the page limits of academic journals and cram your entire research into a 5-10 minute conference presentation. Let’s just say I am not cut out to write fiction novels that have you somehow start using the word “glistening” in everyday conversation and declaring if you’re team Edward or Jacob.
Now you know why this “painting the picture with your words” thing is maybe not going to be the easiest task. Yet, here we are and if you’ve gotten this far in this book I’m proud of both of us for very different reasons. Myself for actually writing in a way that helps you realize you’re at least in a freaking room even if you’re unsure what type of room it is or if the room has windows or is a dungeon. And I’m proud of you for having the patience of a saint, for being a supportive friend, or because you have a similar sense of humor as me that means you’ve been through some really hard shit in life and therefore you deserve a cookie (unless you’re diabetic or you’re gluten-free…okay maybe just choose a treat of your liking that fits within your dietary restrictions. In hindsight maybe I should have just said you deserve a high five as it would require a lot less explaining, but what person would choose a high five over a delicious diet-appropriate dessert? Not me and my coach told me to be a bit selfish in going into the details and I’d prefer a cookie so we’re sticking with cookie, dangit).
Hello Toilets and Hating Food
So back to Guatemala! The first week was a blur. Adapting to a third-world country where there is a clear language barrier with an 8-year-old in tow is not for the faint of heart. It was a week where I quite honestly didn’t know where the heck my own oxygen mask was, if it made it on the plane at all, or if it had refused to enter the country the second it realized we would be smelling dog poop on the streets for the rest of our lives. Instead, I was focused on keeping us both alive and helping get her settled into some sort of routine that involved her meeting friends so we wouldn’t be 5 days in and her begging me to take her back to the United States. One of us had to be enjoying being in Guatemala because if both of us were screaming “Why did we come here again?” then we weren’t going to make it very far.
Then something tried to kill me, which I assumed was something I ate that likely was cross-contaminated with the water. You know, that beautiful welcome gift I told you about? Well, it had me puking in my new friend’s toilet while our kids played soccer outside her house. I also was thankful that they randomly had a toilet with a bidet (I wasn’t expecting that in Guatemala and no it’s not the norm) so I could clean my butt from all the diarrhea that day. (And in the middle of writing that sentence we just had an earthquake – another gift? I think I need to be more clear about which types of gifts I am here to receive. Maybe it’s the language barrier?)
Also while battling the parasites that were trying to overtake my body, we moved from one house (which we were only in for 4 days and were completely unpacked in as we expected to be there for a month) to another house. Let me tell you, friends (I can call you friends now right? Because at this point it feels like we’ve been through some legit experiences together, including surviving that earthquake 10 minutes ago and discussing my bowel movements) there is nothing like moving houses in a third-world country, with a kid, on roads that I am confident would be illegal in the United States, with a language barrier, and wondering if that feeling in your stomach is going to result in allowing a bit of gas to pass or something much, much worse.
Welcome to Guatemala!
