Last week the boys and I spent our afternoons studying Spanish in Cobán. The whole schedule was rather grueling.

Like they do every other weekday morning, the boys left home for school at 6:45. At 10:00, they’d hand their pass to the gun-wielding guard at the school’s gate, catch a bus back to town, and then walk the 20 minutes to our house. The next couple hours were spent resting, eating lunch, and doing chores.

At 1:15 we’d tromp back into town together, catch the bus for Cobán, and then walk over a bridge and down the road to the school where, for the next four hours, we had one-on-one Spanish instruction with our respective instructors.

After thinking so hard our brains shriveled up, we’d do the whole travel thing in reverse, though since it was dark we’d take a taxi for the last little stretch. We’d arrive home at 7 pm, or a little before if we were lucky, and after a quick S&S (supper and shower), the boys tumbled into bed and zonked out. Five-thirty the next morning, we’d wake up and do it all over again.

Like I said, grueling.

By day two the boys were threatening to revolt. But we made it through the meltdowns and the crammed buses and the zany wiggles (my younger son’s teacher held up admirably well) and the groggy mornings and sloggy afternoons and it’s all over now.

Except this week my husband gets to do the whole jig, but this time with the girls. Wish him luck!

Ps. Got a hankering for some Spanish study? Here’s what you do: buy yourself a plane ticket and zip on down here. Stay with us (hard bed, cheap housing, good food, loud housemates), and for 100 bucks a week at this school, you can get 20 hours of hardcore language study. It’s totally worth it. 

Tayuyos: stuffed tortillas

This is the Guatemalan version of the Big Mac. In fact, people call them MacTayuyos.

In the Chamelco market, there is a woman who makes fresh tayuyos. She’s there every day (except Sunday, maybe?) patting stuffing the masa with cheese, potatoes, pork, or refried beans and then patting them into tortillas. They cost one quetzal each, except for the pork ones which cost a little more. She puts the hot tayuyos into a plastic bag and then ladles chili sauce directly onto them. I like mine a little less soggy and spicy, so I always ask for my chili in a separate bag. A bit of sour cream with the potato tayuyos is absolutely divine.

Churrascos: grilled beef

One Sunday on our way home from church, we stopped at a food cart in Chamelco. The guy was selling grilled liver and onions. Because no one but me likes liver, I ordered one meal, just to try it. Back home, we opened the bag and promptly devoured every last morsel. The next Sunday I was all eager to buy six liver and onion lunches, but the guy wasn’t there. So we bought churrascos instead.

For ten quetzales, less than a dollar and a half, we get a styrofoam plate of grilled beef (marinated in a parsley-garlic-oil type sauce) with slaw, refried beans, lots of onions (the best part), and three tortillas layered across the top in lid-like fashion, hot sauce on the side.

While I wait for our order, I sit on one of the little stools by the cart. The women are in constant motion, cutting more onions, scooping mounds of raw meat out of a kettle and slapping it on the grill, basting, filling plates, fanning the coals, adding another bag of charcoal to the fire (literally: they burn the plastic, too), turning the meat, etc. The raw meat touches the cooked meat and they never wash their hands. The food is delicious.

The liver-and-onion guy has yet to reappear, but we’re pretty content with our Sunday churrascos. They’ve become such an integral part of our weekend that last Sunday when we didn’t go to church, I hiked into town for the sole purpose of fetching lunch.

Elote Loco: crazy corn (i.e. field corn on a stick)

‘Tis the season for fresh corn, and this delicacy is everywhere. My kids have been begging me to buy them some, so the morning of the race, I did.

It’s simply (field) corn-on-the-cob, smeared with mayonnaise, squirted with red ketchup and green hot sauce (which my kids said no thank you to), and then sprinkled with salty cheese. It’s surprisingly good, and very filling.

“Fifteen more weeks!” my daughter shouted from her bedroom. “We go home in 15 weeks!”

The rest of the kids started yipping and hollering and doing out loud (everything is out LOUD in this house) calculations about what fifteen weeks means exactly. As I listened to them jittering away, I found myself growing increasingly irritated and annoyed. My children haven’t transformed into the cultural chameleons I want them to be, dagnabbit. Why can’t they relax into the experience and savor this special time that we have away from It All, together, in an exotic, foreign land? Why must they always be hankering after our same old boring routines? Aren’t they enjoying this at all? I
mean, come on kids! Be bold, be brave, be strong, CONQUER!

But mostly, I’m irritated at myself because I feel exactly the same way. More and more, my mind is occupied with thoughts of home and all the things I miss. It’s not classy to wallow and whine, and I’m aware that doing so only highlights my inability to adapt well, but whatever. I’m not classy.

Things I Miss: my kitchen, netflix, my bed, dress boots, a real haircut, the van, fresh strawberries, the public library, phone conversations, amazon, sourdough bread, a spacious house, two bathrooms, a toilet that doesn’t plug up with just one small poo, soft chairs and sofas, the fireplace, the yellow-green of new spring, not wearing a backpack, bagels, sausage, salads, homeschooling, knowing what’s going on, church, the five-o’clock glass of wine, screened windows, central vac, etc, etc, etc (for pages). But most of all I miss ease, convenience, freedom, connection, belonging, friends and family, and Being With My People.

Sundays are hardest. It’s the day when everyone hangs out with their friends and family and since we don’t have friends and family to hang out with, it kind of stinks. Plus, there’s nothing to do. Schools are closed, market is mostly shut down, nobody’s online, and there is nowhere to go. It’s the perfect opportunity to fall into the pit of despair and splash about, and I’m not one to pass up a perfect opportunity, no matter how depressing, woe is me.

Of course, no one excepts anyone to go to a foreign country for a few short months and develop life-long friendships and a profound love and acceptance of a place that’s so wildly different from home, least of all me.

Except, I kind of expect that of myself. Or at least I wish it for myself. I wish I was the type of traveler who made instant connections and wrote home glowing reports about making tamales while  having life-altering conversations with the locals. Because the people who can bridge the cultural gap with such ease are the ones who are really good at their work, obviously. Anyone less than that is just an imposter. An overseas worker wannabe.

The thing is, thanks to personality, skills, temperament, something, fitting into Central American culture is, for me, clumsy and awkward. I knew this about myself after living in Nicaragua for three years, and I’m grappling with the boring reality that I haven’t changed one whit since then. One part of me knew this all along and is genuinely okay with the fact that I do my deepest connecting on home territory, but another part can’t shake this crazy hope that I’ll somehow, someway, someday start to feel like I belong here (or in any Spanish-speaking country, for that matter).

One of my friends—a woman I’ve looked up to ever since the very first chapel of my college career in which she seared into my brain the importance of keeping the Sabbath—has spent a fair bit of her life in Central America. She and her husband met while working in Nicaragua. They raised their family in both Central America and the States. They host study tours to Central America. They sing their mealtime prayers in Spanish and eat lots of beans and rice. Heck, they even adopted a child from Central America! By all appearances, they are The Real Deal Workers. The ones who fit in, make connections, belong. They have successfully bridged the gap.

At the beginning of our term, in a delightful turn of events, they were able to visit us in our home. We were lingering at the table (after the pancake breakfast, maybe?) when I admitted my insecurities, my sneaking suspicion that I’m not cut out for this type of work. My proof: I have never made deep friendships. I’ve never felt like I belong.

Her swift response sent me reeling: AND YOU THINK I DO?

Ever since that conversation, I’ve been gentler with myself. I still wish being overseas felt more natural. But just because I don’t want to call Guatemala my home until I’m a shriveled up prune doesn’t mean I don’t have an ability to work here. If my friend can rock the international living thing and feel the same way I do, then guess what: I can (try to) rock this business, too.

The only problem is, most days it doesn’t feel like I’m rocking any business, least of all mine.

But maybe that’s beside the point? I sure am hoping so.