stoopid today.

“The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens — but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it’s love and love alone that really matters.”-Tom Robbins

I love Guatemala, some days I think leaving here will be one of the hardest things I will ever have to do; today however, is not one of those days.

Today was a day of epic shittiness (well, for my day to day life pretty epic, anyway). My first activity of the day was a children’s graduation field day-thing. I am actually still quite unclear about the details, in part because when Patrick invited me he said “free lunch” and I pretty much stopped listening after that. I wish I could describe what ridiculous lengths volunteers will go to in order to obtain free food. It is actually pretty shameful, but it’s an unspoken rule of sorts, never pass up a free meal, and this might be one of the few rules that I perpetually abide by. 

Anyway, so we meet up at this event, kids are preparing yada yada, and we move our stuff and I notice my phone is missing. The town’s folk must think I am possessed, or maybe just deranged from how often I stop, search through all of my things, then grab my chest, and walk away looking relieved (generally shaking my head). Today however, after my normal thorough search of backpack and bra I still could not find my phone. To make a long story short some bastard little kid took it (I know I probably shouldn’t refer to this child as a bastard, but given that I too am a bastard I use it quite liberally, maybe he or she wasn’t a child had out of wedlock, though that is nary the point, which is this: he or she is a little jerk thief person). After copious amounts of cursing, searching, and cursing I decide to call, have the phone cancelled and go home and cry, because fuck today, and napping makes everything better. Somewhere between my walk home, lost in my own thoughts and mumbling of hateful words (again deranged) and making it home I realize I have many an incriminating text on that phone. When I say incriminating I don’t mean that I wrote about that one time when I murdered someone or something, but instead I have conversations between myself and a lovely lady and well, big gay things. This at first makes me laugh, oh those kids, they are going to learn some new terms and blab la, then it hits me, oh. Shit. They will also learn that these things are happening between two women and then they will tell everyone, and I will be ostracized in my town, or things will escalate to violence etc etc. by the time I made it home I was already having visions of people gathering at my door with pitch forks and torches in hand (though torches would be quite superfluous since it was only 9 am and quite bright out).

After another two hours of hurriedly messaging friends, plotting my grand escape, and finally being able to contact someone at PC (not having a phone makes calling people very difficult), oh and crying, lots and lots of crying, I finally decided that there really was nothing to do but wait. See if a rumor starts, if I get weird looks at the market, if people hug their children a little closer when I pass by. At this point it’s been 12 hours and I have yet to see an angry mob coming towards my window (though I imagine the scene from Beauty and the Beast every time I imagine people showing up, and have each time been mentally surprised at Gaston’s presence). 

A little later in the afternoon, when I was coming back home from free lunch (yes, even after having a meltdown for hours, I still returned for the food) I heard  this crying noise and weird yells. When I turned the corner to walk down the street I live on I passed a house down a small alley way with a man pulling a woman by her arms, the woman fighting him and crying in K’iche. Peace corps has a very strict policy on this: do NOT intervene. Though they preach bystander intervention in other cases, very tricky. Any way, thinking of that session and my What Would JMR bracelet and immediately reach down, scoop up Pond and gently toss her through the air down the alley (she in no way got hurt, calm down), but calling after her, Pond, what are you doing, come back here, in a voice entirely too loud, just hoping that the presence of another person will dissuade the man from keeping his hands on this woman a second longer.  This somehow, magically seemed to work, and as I walked back home, turning the corner down my own creepy alley way I heard the woman start crying again.

There is a sign as you enter our town that sounds “solo el pueblo puede salvar el pueblo”(Only the village can save the village).  What is the right answer in moments like this? Straddling the boundary between extranjero y community member. I am not here to save anyone, I am fully aware of that, but does that mean that I have to indolently sit by while domestic abuse ensues? Apparently the answer is yes, and the best I can do is educate and be a resource to people in whatever way they choose, if they choose to seek me out at all. 

Today was a hard day full of no good answers, just reminders of privilege, and lack thereof, of helplessness, and the persistent power struggles that exists between the sexes, and that sometimes the most dangerous thing I can be is myself.  Today I miss Bloomington and our Pride film fest, of holding my lover’s hand without a thought in the world about my well-being. I miss the security that comes with being a white America who lives in a safe, cozy environment, and I miss being able to express such a huge part of my personal identity. So it goes. 

Also thank you to Pam, Jackie, Maggie, and Lore for calming me while I flipped my shit a little (completely) earlier. You guys are life savers and I love and appreciate you all very much <3