Thoughts originally thought on Monday, June 29th

I woke up this morning not really thinking about how everything had changed, despite all the discombobulated piles of recently-arrived things and new furniture everywhere. I went to the window, as I usually do in the morning, and looked down the valley over the city of Totonicapán, where the clouds were clinging like thick broth at the bottom of a bowl, as they usually do in the morning. I thought about how this might be one of those days when Kate, getting up in her apartment in town, might be fooled into thinking that today would be cloudy and rainy, when actually up here in the mountains it’s clear and bright.
And then I remembered that there’s no Kate living in Toto to ponder the weather anymore. Yesterday my best friend in Toto left to go back home!
More than anything else, what’s been on my mind through this process of Kate wrapping up her life here, is that I am not looking forward to the day when I have to find closure to my life here too. It started with meetings to wrap up her projects and introduce me to key people she worked with; then it was me scrambling to plan a few surprise going-away parties for her; then we were planning when and how to move all the stuff she had in her apartment that she planned to bequeath to me up the mountain to my house, since I decided to continue living with my host family (hence all the new things and furniture in my room referenced earlier). And while my head was still spinning from all that, at the end I had to think of how to tell her how thankful I am for how much she´s helped and guided me.
We moved everything up the mountain on Saturday, and since her apartment was no longer furnished she would be staying with friends up here in the village that night. And so the community organized themselves and invited us to a big prayer service in the church, where the outpouring of goodwill was almost tangible. After rosaries and a Gospel reading, Don Nico called Kate forward to stand in front to receive the line of those waiting to give goodbye-hugs – as is the custom here for birthdays, despedidas, etc. It apparently works for welcome ceremonies too: Don Nico then asked me to come up and stand a few feet away from her to receive the same line of huggers, only they were welcome-hugs instead, I guess. This, and the speech I was asked to give afterwards, certainly took me by surprise! I knew the names of maybe half the people who were hugging me (so of course I thought it a good idea, after graciously thanking him or her for the kind words of bienvenida, to ask “And what’s your name?” and try like hell to remember them all). Everyone in that church had something kind and thankful to say to Kate as they hugged goodbye – talk about having an impact in the community! Several were taking advantage of the moment and asking her how to get copies of the bird guide book and the endemic species láminas, which seemed like the perfect culmination of her Peace Corps service… there they were, wanting to know more and actually use the documents the volunteer generated!
In the end, I felt very much in her shadow. She has accomplished so much and is beloved in the village. Can you imagine a small town in rural Minnesota throwing a going away party for a foreigner who’s been living and working there for two years, and at the same time throwing a welcome party for the next foreigner coming to take their place? Hm, when was the last time immigrants in the US were given that kind of welcome, or that kind of farewell? There were a few men present at that prayer service who I know have spent considerable time and experienced considerable discrimination as illegal immigrants in the United States, and I couldn’t help but think of how incredibly gracious it was of them to come to this prayer service for two gringas in their village when they received nothing of the sort those years they spent on our soil.
Kate left on Sunday morning, and there were no tears but much sorrow. She will be missed, and I will undoubtedly be the main conduit of news between her and the community for the next year and nine months!
There was another traveler in town that weekend, actually: a friend of mine from my former work in Alaska, Jennifer, was touring Guatemala and fit two days in Toto into her itinerary. Now, Jen doesn’t speak much Spanish, so after being rescued from the rain in Central Park by my host mom, Emiliana (as Jen was sitting on a park bench thinking she would have to wait another several hours of this before my workshop in a different community was over and I could come get her), being whisked spur-of-the-moment to lunch at Aunt Margarita’s house, and then going with Emiliana as her guide up the mountain in the crowded back of a pick-up to our house… I think Jen can vouch for how kind most Totonicapánians are! They just took her right under their wings, though a stranger and unable to communicate with them. When I arrived at the house that afternoon, she had just come back from a nice mountaintop walk with Hugo, my 8-yr-old host brother, so it was obvious that she’d get along fine. I learned that it’s surprisingly stressful for me having guests who don’t speak much Spanish, but at the same time I think their capacity to learn and get a lot out of the experience is greater.
Plus she was a great help on Moving Day! Haha, “hay que aprovechar!” (gotta take advantage!)
But now I’m my own source of ideas, projects, successes and failures! Time to get the lead out. In a sense I’ve been resting on Kate’s laurels these first three months of my service in Totonicapán, since her work was an easy source of something to do and a way to feel like I was contributing. Now I’m looking forward to initiating environmental education lessons in some of the Totonicapán schools, creating a working library of ecological resources in my park, installing interactive ecological exhibits in our park museum, working with the Community Council of my village to improve their communal meeting space infrastructure through a grant application, and working with our Directorate (CDRO) toward developing a community tourism network in my village in coordination with CDRO’s other income-generation projects and initiatives. And yes, I am aware that that’s an awfully big to-do list! It’s good to have high hopes, right?
So that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, folks… or, well, you know what I mean. (I hear Garrison had a recent show from Avon, MN – woot woot! Wish I could’ve been there for that one, the show coming home…) In any case, wishing you well and a happy belated 4th of July!