Descending the hair-pin turns entering Lago Atitlan, the
rain was flowing in a steady muddied stream over the road and cascading down
the hillside. Freddie, an older man from Vancouver who said, “we’re going to be
family for the next few hours” keeps up
a lively banter with the driver while I sit up straighter and straighter to peer
out the windshield (I am thinking of what I will cling to when we go careening
off because there are no seat belts). We
have been sharing this bus with five other students headed to San Pedro --
everyone is growing tense as it grows darker and the rain grows heavier. We worry about our deadlines (to catch other
buses, boats, meet our host families, or find a place to stay). I arranged to
be picked up at the airport but a miscommunication left me to the kindness of
strangers who lent me a phone and communicated with the school to make an
alternative plan. We arrive in the dark but everyone manages to get shuttled
off in the right direction. The clerk at the tourism office calls my host
family and I wait only a few minutes before Hector emerges with an umbrella and
leads me on a one minute walk to my new home.
I sleep almost immediately feeling a slight panic of aloneness, newness,
and stress.
In the morning, I wake up to a soft light through the sheet-strung-curtains
and open the window to the balcony. Past
the rooftops, the lake spreads out in a placid sheet of gun-metal gray beneath
the lush vertical slopes of the volcanic range.
I feel a bit of relief, though I am still having a strange fear of this
hillside town. Wide, flat spaces seem easier to comprehend. There is no map.
My host mom, Flores, walks me to the school’s office early
in the morning—it is a path through cobblestone streets and narrow alleyways. Before my first class, I explore a little,
stopping in an Israeli owned hotel for a smoothie. There are a lot of Israeli’s
in San Pedro—at the small juice stand near my house the menu is in Spanish and
Hebrew. I joke with my maestro, Clarita,
that I may not remember my way home. Turns out it’s not a joke. First I panic, then I just laugh. Another
student walking home says, “It happens.” After turning around a few times I
remember the sign for the “Burrito Factory” and find my way.
Yesterday walking home at night after a conferencia, all the
lights go out. This is a frequent occurrence during the rain and usually last
only half a minute before they flicker back on. I can’t see anything but the completeness of the
darkness is somehow calming. I continue
walking.
There is no map for my time here either and I remind myself
to be gentle with myself, to get lost, to ask questions, to walk in the darkness.
