Right now we’re stuck in Guatemala City, just waiting to go home. We have bits and pieces of work to wrap up, but it’s not enough to absorb me. We planned to do fun stuff over this time, and we have, but I’m really no good at vacationing. I need people, activities, work. Just hanging out, going to the next fun thing, gets dull super quick. Plus, doing all that while in the middle of transition—with no place and purpose to anchor me—makes me whiny: There’s nothing to doooooo. I’m boooorrrreeeed.

In my present state, I should probably be banned from the internets.

Okay. So. We have done some stuff. We spent the first two days in the city getting wildly and hopelessly and UNBELIEVABLY STRESSFULLY lost and having meetings. It sounds kind of funny now, but it was on the other side of awful. Good news: we survived.

One afternoon we went to the zoo. (Our original destination was the children’s museum, but when we finally arrived, after driving in circles for 35 minutes, we discovered it was rented out for some private event. Cue mighty Anti-Guatemala City Feelings and a few choice words.)

Yesterday we went to Antigua.

Today we went to some thermal hot springs.

Vacationing on a budget in a rough-it-out place is a thrill (albeit an exhausting one), but vacationing in rich places on a budget is a real killjoy. Not in Antigua—that little city was delightful—but at today’s outing, we sat in hot-to-the-point-of-nausea pools and watched the elite with their armbands that granted them access to the private pools, attendants that delivered their smoothies poolside, fancy rooms with couches, and the saunas with the soothing music. When the kids had we-are-starving meltdowns, we splurged and bought hotdogs and three waters.

(Elite being relative, of course. We were at the hot springs, after all.)

(Also, didn’t someone just write about the dump?)

I’m not complaining. The children had fun; we had fun. We had a private truck to drive there in (and we didn’t get lost). I just wonder sometimes what it’s like to go on a vacation and not even think about the cost. To make decisions sans the ever present internal “is it worth it” debate. Is it okay to jump for the cappuccino instead of the lower-priced café con leche? Can we spend an extra five bucks for towel service? “Hey, I wanna massage, so heck yeah!” You know, that sort of thing.

When I think about it longer than two seconds (as I am doing right now), I realize that I really don’t have any desire to actually live the sort of life in which money isn’t a factor. I’ve happily made some intentional choices that keep me on the café con leche side of things. I’m mostly cool with my plastic armband-free wrist and staying on the outside of the gated thermal pools.

Just sometimes I get lustful.

(To be clear: we have had The Family Trip of a Lifetime, traveling all through Central America and learning Spanish and making friends with all sorts of wonderful people. I have no right, absolutely no right, to fuss about what side of the gate I’m on. I am grateful. Truly, deeply, profoundly grateful for this incredible, wild, fabulous adventure we have had. So I take back all my fussing. I really didn’t mean it.)

(Actually, I even considered deleting those last couple paragraphs but decided against it. Because my fussy truth is as real as my grateful truth.) 

Anyways, this afternoon my husband took the kids to the fancy mall to watch a (dumb) cartoon movie in the theater. (We ate supper in that mall the other night. I kept looking around at everyone and thinking, WestgateWestgateWestgate.) I’m sitting on a hard wooden bench in the corridor outside our SEMILLA apartment, enjoying the cool late afternoon and the buzz from my afternoon Coke (that tasted like soap—what’s up with that?) while trying to keep the computer from sliding off my lap and crashing to the tile floor.

Tomorrow we pack (and re-pack) and tie up loose ends. Then Tuesday morning, Raul the MCC driver picks us up in the big van and we drive to the airport.

Oh. One more thing. This morning I clicked over to The Washington Post food section and read a whole bunch of articles. I never read the Post’s food section (thus proving I’m not a true food blogger), and it was so much fun. While here, I’ve (mostly) turned a blind eye to food publications because no cream. But this morning? Reading those recipes was a thrill-me-to-my-toes experience. In only a couple days I could actually, really, IF I WANTED, make them! The prospect makes my stomach knot with exuberant excitement. On my list: apple soup, roasted cauliflower, curry, sourdough bread, whipped cream (WHIPPED CREAM), cookies just because, and everything cheese. If you see me stumbling around, a glazed look in my eyes, you’ll know it’s because I O.D.’d … on cream.

The last day we were in Chamelco, we took a truckload of stuff to the dump. (We had borrowed the MCC truck for the purpose of moving.) Along with the pure trash, we had a bunch of worn-out clothing, as well as clothing that was still nice but didn’t fit (or nobody ever wore). We had thought about just dropping off the bags at a used clothing store, but decided on the dump. A little gift for the people there, maybe?

This is the same dump I talked about back in the beginning. The one that’s a little beyond Bezaleel. Despite always wanting to go get close-up photos of the place, I had never taken the time (or found the opportunity) to do so.

This time, my husband pulled into the driveway and drove up into the dump (despite my concern that the trash would puncture the truck’s tires). Some teenage boys were playing soccer with a deflated ball, but as soon as it was clear we were there to make a drop off, they crowded around and started grabbing. My husband yelled at them to wait—we weren’t getting rid of everything back there!—and they did.

Once parked, my husband hopped out and unloaded the bags. A man picked one up and started walking away, but one of the teens ran up behind him, grabbed the side of the bag and, laughing, ripped it wide open. The clothes bulged out like the innards of a wounded animal.

As my husband backed the MCC truck down the driveway, we watched through the dark tinted windows in stunned sadness while the boys tore open the other bags, spilling our clothes across the garbage. One boy scrutinized our shredded hammock. They lifted high a sheet to examine it. Another boy tried on my son’s sneakers.

It’s no joke—people really do live in the dump.

This morning I woke up at four o’clock, tingling with excitement because it was not yesterday anymore.

Bad analogy: yesterday was a beater semi truck and today is a dancing fairy in blue ballet slippers.

Translation: yesterday was rough and tough and today is not.

I hate packing. And being weak and woozy from four days in bed didn’t help matters. Normally, we are helter-skelter and frantic when packing (is anyone not this way? never mind. don’t answer that), but yesterday was off-the-charts bad. We did everything backwards. Like getting rid of the furniture before we packed up the clothes.

My husband had a bizarre method for coping with our crazy. He swept the mess from room to room and then from side to side. For hours. I alternated between 1) pacing, wringing my hands, and whimpering and 2) blaming him for not getting everything done sooner (you know, while I was busy being sick and he was just whiling away the time taking care of the house, four kids, errands, etc.) And then—miraculously—everything was packed!

We’re such a team.

But then came the loading-the-truck part. There was no way, absolutely no way, it would all fit.

I watched my husband jiggle and juggle, push and shove, and then I offered an astute observation.

“Honey, you know that feeling you get when you’re watching a sport team that you really, really love and you can see that there’s no way they can possibly win? That’s how I feel about you packing this truck. I’d rather not watch.”

He got everything in, though (humph), and soon after the sun set, we squished into the truck and bounced down the driveway.

The nighttime ride to the city was mostly uneventful…except for our older daughter getting carsick and puking out the window. Upon finishing retching, she sat back and declared, “Wow! I’ve never thrown up from a moving car before! That was awesome!”

And then, “Um, it’s all over the side of the truck…”

Her sister: “Well, it’s good you didn’t throw up facing forward because it would’ve hit you in the face. I tried to spit forward once and it got all over me.”

Also, at one particularly desolate stretch of road, I inconveniently recalled that sometimes whole buses got pulled over by gangs and we were just a little truck barreling down the road all by our lonesomes. I kept my useless thoughts to myself and no one stuck a gun in our window.

Now we are at the guesthouse in the city, resting, shaking off the dregs of the illness, letting the dust settle, and trying to get our bearings.