Dear Reader,
While yesterday was full of hard work and determination, today was a day of relaxation. Kit and I went to Las Fuentes Georginas, a natural spa of sorts in Guatemala. We woke up at the pleasing hour of 8 a.m. and got dressed for the day before eating breakfast with the family. After breakfast we proceeded to the stop sign just a block beyond our host family's house to wait for the bus that would pick us up and take us to Las Fuentes Georginas. We waited for about 15 minutes until the bus arrived. The bus then picked up a few more people before heading for the hot spring.
The drive was an hour long on....you guessed it: twisty mountain roads. My favorite! I was lucky this time. I didn't get motion sickness. Luckily I've learned that if I listen to music and control my breathing then I can avoid getting motion sickness over a certain amount of time. Not having motion sickness gave me the chance to actually enjoy the view. As I talked about in an earlier post, agriculture is an important industry in Guatemala and many farmers live in the mountains where the soil is more plentiful. On the way to the hot springs we encountered more then our fair share of farmers and crops. Also considering it was Sunday, many people were picking their crops and packaging them to sell in the local markets. In passing I saw farmers picking and sorting all sorts of vegetables such as carrots, onions, cabbages and tomatoes.
I couldn't help, but once again see the irony in how we (all the people on the bus were tourists, the only Guatemalan was our bus driver) were driving up the mountain to enjoy a luxury, but these other people were coming to make their living. It was one of those moments when I thought about how I'd previously vacationed in other countries and either ignored or was completely sheltered from lives of ordinary citizens or in some cases the impoverished lives of ordinary citizens. For a moment I felt like an intruder, the American tourist who comes only to see the beauty and illusion and ignores the ugly reality. Not to say that being a farmer is an ugly reality; it's not, it's these people's livelihood. I'm not judging that, what I'm judging is myself and my own reluctance to actually explore culture I've been exposed to. I'm a little ashamed of the fact that I've never really taken the time to dig deeper and see beyond the tourist attractions and get to the core of the reality. This time I'm making a conscious effort to do just that, digging deeper, because I want to learn and understand. I didn't just come to Guatemala to just volunteer, but to learn Spanish, see the country and become active in a culture that is so rich and diversified from my own. And I guess for this reason in some ways after the excursion was over, I felt I enjoyed seeing the farmers and the livelihood of the people more than the actual hot springs.
The hot spring, however, was very nice, but it played out as more of a public pool than actual hot spring/spa (or so Kit told me considering I've never been to a spa). People came in droves to visit this place and enjoy the relaxing hot spring. I know I enjoyed it immensely considering most of my muscles were still sore after the mountain climb the day before. It was nice to soak and benefit from the pool's natural healing properties. There was only one thing that bothered me about being there: Kit and I stuck out like a sore thumb. No, it wasn't about race, although Kit and I are obviously not Guatemalan. It was about conservatism. Guatemala is a relatively conservative country in the sense all the women who attended the hot spring wore complete outfits to get in the water. I'm talking about wearing cargo shorts and cotton t-shirts and sporting them as swim wear. Considering the fact that Kit and I wore bikinis (well mine was a makeshift bikini from one of my bras and a pair of athletic shorts), we looked really promiscuous by Guatemalan standards which produced a lot of stares and unwanted attention from men and women alike. It was just another cultural error that I'd made and it served to give me a lot of attention that I didn't like. I felt like more of an outsider than I already was. It was an overwhelming sense that I just didn't belong and that bothered me immensely. After a 30 minute soak, Kit and I got out the pool, changed into some clean clothes and got some lunch. Before we knew it, it was time to leave Las Fuentes Georginas and return home.
Overall today was a good day and I most certainly learned more about what to do and what not to do in Guatemala. I guess there is a learning curve to understanding any culture and today I hit mine. My experiences might sound intense or over exaggerated, but that's how I felt in the moment. I still love this country and I'm glad that I came, it's just that I'm learning more and more that it's going to take a lot of patience and understanding on my part and that's something that I'm okay with.
Sincerely,
Journey White
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