Mountain climbs and meditation baths

Yesterday was an interesting day... in the random entertaining way that days can be interesting here.

About two weeks previously, a group of girls from the Institute shyly approached me and asked if I had a climbed up the mountain ridge above our town yet. I hadn't, and they invited me to go with them two Sundays from that day. Of course I was enthralled, for several reasons-- because it is my dream to start a girls´group as a secondary project (though I'm still trying to figure out exacly what it will entail), because these girls will be my students, because I'm trying to ¨integrate into the community¨, and because I love hiking, duh! (And I´ve also been told that it is not safe to climb alone, so I´ve been impatiently tapping my feet, just waiting for someone to invite me.)

So this Sunday finally arrived, and I met them in the square. We of course got off to a late start, it being Guatemala and all, and on the way we stopped by at a tienda where the girls dropped 50Q to buy gatoraides and muffins for all of us (a lot of money for young Guatemalan girls) and would not accept my contribution.

It felt amazing, rising on the trail above the town, and I felt like I could be in Montana, with the breeze moving the pine trees around me and the taste of the clean cool air. Also, although the girls talked in K´iche´ mostly at first, more and more we got to talking.

I of course was wearing my new Keen hiking boots, pants, and an Underarmor T shirt. The girls were of course wearing the beautiful hand-woven trajes and little high heeled plastic sandals that the women here always wear. Yet, of course, I (the experienced hiker-mountain climber) was the one slipping around on the hard rain-slicked trail. At the top, we sat for a while and chatted, and played an impromptu tag-like game among the pines. The view was breathtaking-- you could see the whole valley below lined with soft hills and even in the distance where the plateau drops off. We walked to the other side of the ridge where we could look down on another valley housing another aldea. This valley was so covered in milpas (corn fields) that it looked like someone had tried to carpet it with plastic mini golf grass but hadn't quite finished, because there were still patches of the softer-colored natural grass. It was a lovely morning. They taught me their secret handshake and some greetings in K´iche´.

On the way down I (of course) slipped and fell on my butt. The girls all fluttered around me in concern and rushed to help me up. We continued for a bit, and then they decided they had better go back to the place where I had fallen to retrieve my heart, because I had left it there. (It is a Mayan belief that if a person is startled, they leave a part of their soul and as a result will fall ill.) It´s remarkable how powerful these beliefs are, even for girls who want be astronauts, models, or business managers, like these. So they went back and did a quick ceremony to retrieve my heart, then we continued.

They sounded interested in going again some time. My girls´ group may still just be a half-baked idea, but this feels like a start. If anything, it's nice to have a few new friends in town.




Then that afternoon, I headed back to the house and got ready to go with my host family to some hot springs. They had invited me to ¨bathe¨ at the hot springs with them. I of course did not have a clear idea of what this meant (swimming? taking baths? hot tubbing?), nor what was appropriate dress for an outing with an Indigenous Guatemalan family where water would be involved in some way (a family where the women always wear traje and never reaveal so much as a shoulder). So in preparation, I put on my bathing suite (without much hope), under a skirt and t shirt (in case we'd just be wading) and packed my back pack with a large t shirt (in case a bathing suite with a t shirt cover-up was the appropriate attire), along with my soap (they did say bathing!) and of course towel and jeans to change into (in the case I´d actually be taking anything off). I felt that if at that point I didn't have the appropriate attire, then it really wasn't my fault... this was the best I could do.

We all (mom, dad, sister, grandma, grandpa, great grandpa, plus 2 babies, a two year old and a 5 year old and me) piled into a borrowed Ford truck (the kind with a hatch back), and immediately there was something so assuringly familiar about the family-road-trip feel to it (such as when Dad couldn´t open the back door, or we had to stop after 5 seconds of driving to properly close Grandpa´s door, or the little girl asking many times before we even hit the highway if we were there yet), that I felt very at home... despite the fact that there were twice as many people as seat belts.

We drove for a long while and finally arrived at a series of buildings besides a strong-flowing river. The Grandma was suddenly ask me if it would be best if I had my own room, and I (still unsure of what ¨bathing¨ meant) awkwardly said I could go with them (assuming just the women) or have my own room, whatever they thought was best, putting the ball in their court. It was decided that it would be ¨safer¨ for me to have my own room. So a man led me (past small, steaming pools where men were sitting in swimming trunks) to a small room with a very large tile-lined bath (almost a small pool) where a faucet was streaming hot water. Host dad told me to come find them in a hour. I couldn´t believe my luck! I locked the door, stripped to my bathing suite (there was a large hole in the door that prevented me from stipping compeltely) and slid into the hot water. After craving privacy and quiet, it was like an answered prayer, and the water was so deliciously hot and wonderful. I even meditated for a while (if there´s ever a time to take up meditation, it´s in the Peace Corps, especially if you´ve been presented with a room with your private hot-springs bath to yourself for an hour).

On the long ride home in the dark, I dozed a little between Grandpa, Mom, and the newborn baby boy. If I was in a foreign land, it certainly didn´t feel that way.