It’s been two weeks now since I’ve moved to Guatemala and found a place to call “home.” Hauled up and in roughly 250 pounds of luggage, found a spider the size of my hand and politely screamed at him to pay rent in mosquitoes and never show his face again, washed my face for the first time in water that smells like eggs, took a “suicide shower,” and learned how to order gas tanks and water tanks and light a stove with a match and a knob twist and a prayer for luck. 

we love a cemetery.

Two weeks since I started navigating the roads and unmarked alleys built in haphazard combinations of smooth concrete, stone, brick, grates, potholes, dog shit, and speed bumps (my address doesn’t exist – it’s “the blue house down the alley behind the Shaddai church in the northern hood. Second floor.”). 

Two weeks since I went an hour without hearing a rooster deliriously crowing all day against his internal clock or a parrot scream “MOM!” over and over or a pentecostal church service sing worship songs with great enthusiasm but quite out of tune. Two weeks since I nearly died by tuk-tuk, without some sort of questionable rumble in my tummy, without flushing toilet paper. Two weeks since I could drink tap water, shower with my mouth open, do any mouth hygiene without hyper awareness. 

loading up produce to go to another local market . . . quite common to see people riding hanging off the back of trucks, twenty people in the back of a truck, whole families on a moto, etc.

Moving to a new country is wild, to put it mildly. We all have things that culturally we think are quite normal. We often don’t realize our blessings or economic status until we spend a long time in other places.

I came to Guatemala 15 years ago as a backpacker and loved it deeply in the two months I spent here, but it’s obviously changed in a million ways since then. However, the essential things that pulled my spirit back here are still here. Because . . . 

It’s been two since I was able to go ten feet without someone smiling at me and wishing me a good day. Since afternoon rainstorms cleared the day away and gave me a good excuse for reading on the sofa. Since fireworks celebrated something, since I saw three volcanos a day, kept a rainforest on my left side to guide me home, walked along a huge lake at sunset. Two weeks without making a new friend, declaring a certain shop my “plastic” shop or similar, without being invited to a different event that night. Without someone insisting I eat this or that and more and take some to go with me, without a dog trying to walk me home.

What a gift that I’m single, financially stable, adventurous, speak Spanish, and so can come here and do this thing I’m doing.

There’s some major improvements in my life in terms of the human construct that is time – unlike being a whole day ahead in HK, here, I was able to watch the DNC live and text with my bestie the entire time our tears and hopes and fears and observations, and feel a lot closer to hope than I have in years. I can text and facetime with my family in almost real time.  

just me watching every single minute all week and cry-texting my bestie about it all and processing all our post-2016 trauma.

Food quality has improved – in Hong Kong, nothing was really grown there in that concrete jungle, so nothing was fresh. We were warned that the fruits and veg from Japan were full of nuclear waste and that pesticides from China weren’t regulated, so grocery shopping was a bit of a gamble, although we had a Michelin star resto life. But I’m cheap and love to be home, so I always preferred my own simple fare. Cottage cheese out of the tub with hot sauce and chips instead of a spoon (so I don’t have to wash anything! Always thinking!) is a full meal for me. 

I love the markets of Mayan women with baskets of the freshest produce from their own farms, avocados the size of my face for less than a dollar, a dozen varieties of bananas and lettuce and squash, calling bargains out to me on my walks home.

we’re powered up, at least.

I’ve met everyone I will work with and we’ve had eight days of inservice, so I can say . . . a quirky bunch. I go by Raquel as there is another Rachel, and it feels so nice. We’ve done karaoke and a trivia night, had lunches and walking tours and sat at a pub daring each other to tell the worst stories of ourselves we could remember. (The first time I ever used a tampon coinciding with a bomb threat to our high school which inspired an all-day evacuation to the football field at DVC and ended with me in the emergency room won the unofficial “OMG” award.)

here’s the view of the playground from outside my classroom, after a storm, neighbor’s laundry on the line, chickens squawking, more fog rolling in.

There’s a certain kind of person who goes into international teaching, and it’s an even more niche group who decide to live at poverty level just to teach in a place they want to live. And that’s where we are here. In Guatemala, most boys quit school after sixth grade, and girls usually only complete third grade. So I feel quite the calling to make a dent in those numbers, to fundraise, to make education more accessible, to help even just a few kids beat the odds by making learning important and somehow raising money to make it feasible for the families we can reach here. 

and im still not working as hard as this guy.

My neurons are so happy to be firing again at work, and doing their best to help make tangible improvements in a challenging environment at the small and trying-to-find-its-feet school I’m at. About 90% of our students are on scholarship, there is a lot of food insecurity, inadequate clothing, kids working on farms after school, etc. I’ve already spent my not-coming-until-the-end-of-September stipend on school supplies because there is a whole lot of nothing to work with, besides some discarded English curriculum teachers manuals from 2014. No pencils, lined paper, or cute post-its. It’s a stark change to the Hong Kong world I was in previously. 

walking over to the next town takes over an hour.

I am getting a lot of answered prayers here – my Spanish improves daily, I’m closer to home (six hour flight to my sister!), and in a culture I understand. I double-majored in Latin American Socioeconomics and Politics and in Spanish Language and Literature! So we are coming full circle, folks, putting those expensive degrees to work. And I love that my local staff coworkers all think I’m Mexican because of my accent, which is from amazing teachers and professors and summers and winter breaks spent on mission trips to Ensenada. I also found beans in a bag! My old backpacking food staple. 

Being a traveling teacher also came in quite handy last night at trivia, when I was able to absolutely crush the geography and general knowledge categories for our team. (And the food origin category. It was really quite the night for a chubby nerd.) There is a beautiful cemetery to visit, it’s delightfully warm all day but I can wear a hoodie at night, I finally meet my students on Friday. Independence Day is coming so there are fireworks on the regular and a Monday off within the first few weeks of teaching is *chef’s kiss.*

view from my terrace <3

Even if there have been two earthquakes, I’m going broke, and the quick tour of the town included phrases like “this is the best clinic to go to check for parasites” remind me that we’re not in Kansas anymore . . . I think I’m really glad to be here. 

I hope you’ll join me on the journey.