I am awakened by orchestrated bird song, an aching hip, a constant awareness of an uneasy earth and the rumbling of trucks down the cobblestone roads outside our room at the Hotel Porta Antigua, Guatemala. My stomach flips. I hurry to the bathroom. Traveler’s diarrhea stalks me here. I eat chalky pink Pepto Bismol tablets and soft ginger chews as if they are candy.

            We are a few days into a weeklong trip to Guatemala. It is summer, 2023, exactly 25 years since our first trip to Central America and the fifth time my husband and I have been here. We are the parents of four young adult children through adoption – the oldest born in the United States and the other three in Guatemala. Our two youngest kids are with us this time.

 On Sunday my husband and I attend Catholic Mass at the Cathedral. I cling to the few words I know from my Duolingo Spanish “lessons”: familia, hombre, dia, amore, señor, domingo, procesión. The priest talks for 30 minutes, he wipes sweat from his forehead; the people fan themselves, nod as he preaches. Passionate people are everywhere in Guatemala: on the chicken buses where locals crowd (sometimes with live animals) into old United States school buses painted a rainbow of color – they  ramble through the crowded streets, the driver’s helper yelling the bus’s destination while hanging off the bottom step of the bus; in the deep maze of markets that sit on the outside of town, a rambling city unto itself with tin roofs, dirt floors, stalls filled with raw meat, dog food in big barrels, pinata candy lining walls and counters, fruits and vegetables scrubbed clean and stacked in artistic displays, yards and yards of intricate weaving; in the motorized tuk tuks where drivers with names like “The Devil” careen over bumpy roads at breakneck speed, creating their own lanes between buses and cars – the motorcycles, sometimes with four family members, take similar paths.

            It is a country where the government doesn’t protect its people but has declared numerous Guatemalan recipes protected, and encourages families to continue to hand down the methods for these intensive dishes to their children – like the pepian stew served at celebrations with its nutty, spicy, rich brown sauce served in a big pot from which each person is expected to take one piece of chicken, one potato, one carrot, one green bean and pour it over rice, sop it up with a corn tortilla.

            It is a place where life hangs precariously, where danger lurks despite the official end of the 36-year civil war in which thousands of indigenous people were killed. Fragility comes from the lack of preservation and a danger from: active volcanoes, earthquakes, mud slides, hurricanes; the blatant deficit of safety protocols – things as simple as car seats, life jackets, traffic rules; the threat of cartels, police who turn the other way, untreated water and sewage that contaminates streams and rivers, immigration officials who won’t approve travel visas for fear their people will never return. We mourned the loss of our two youngest kids’ Guatemalan brother a few years ago but his death by motorcycle accident is not surprising.

We reunite again with their birthmother and family members; her kind gentle manner resides in my children. Through a translator, we laugh and cry with her, witness the pain of poverty, extreme humility, and lack of all things we take for granted every single day – dental care, health care, abundant food, clean water, a “stable” government, a public education system through grade 12, and most significantly a freedom that is not bought, bartered, bargained, or stolen.

            She gave me two pieces of my heart, two of her greatest treasures became two reasons my life is worth living. I cannot stop looking at this woman, my own age, 58, who looks so much like them, who carries the same genes, who loves them but cannot be with them. She sent them across the border “for a better life” she has told us, when so many other Guatemalans have tried, are trying, have died on the way or have been sent back. What would their life have been had they stayed? Who would they be now? Would they too be trying to leave, hopping the tops of trains, hiring a coyote to guide them across the Sonoran Desert? Some say adoption is an act of mercy but maybe it is an act of circumstance.

            Guatemala is a place where people wear the colors of the produce in the markets, where smiles are face art, handshakes and hugs are more valuable than money exchanged, life has pride and vigor despite the lack of material things, where the compassion of the poor outweighs the injustices caused by the powerful. So much of this land that attracts tourists is a façade for the desperation that underlies the beauty. We lie in our air-conditioned hotel rooms, eat a banquet for breakfast, sip cocktails by the pool while a man dressed in faded denim pants and a baggy gray shirt lies on his side on the concrete outside Nuestra Señora de le Merced in Antigua. A sombrero covers his face. His hands are curled up to his chest in tight fists. He is soaked in urine, passed out, maybe left for dead while indigenous women sell tamales, water, and frozen snacks in the food carts only feet away in the courtyard of this church which means “Our Lady of Mercy.” We join other tourists lining the street between La Parque Central and the Catedral de San José to watch the procession for Corpus Christi while a tiny girl no more than 4 years old dressed in a red woven traditional dress taps our legs. We investigate her tiny face. She holds out bags of bird seed, begging silently for us to buy it. We walk toward cold beers and tortilla chips with meat and salsa at a trendy brewery in central Antigua while a skeletal dog follows us on the hot concrete sidewalks grazing my bare leg, stopping when I stop, looking into my eyes, searching for kindness. We sip cold drinks by the pool at La Porta, anxious to get to our chocolate making class while a couple and their 3-year-old daughter drive for seven hours to retrieve two pairs of shoes, cheap headphones, a few shirts, and some oversized water thermoses we have brought them from the United States. The father, fit and tall for a Guatemalan, is dressed like an American in khaki shorts and a gray Under Armour tech T. The mom and daughter are dressed in matching pink t-shirts their dark hair smooth and styled, the mother’s shirt pulled tight against her small pregnant belly. The mother is an attorney, her husband a government employee. We brought the supplies on the plane, gifts from her brother, who left Guatemala illegally 22 years ago. We live on opposite sides of a border that dictates who has access to a free market society, who must drive seven hours for a large bag of items Americans can buy in one trip to Target. To be in this country for a week is enough time to see the extreme differences but not enough time to make a difference. We go from this visit to the chocolate bar making class and just like we do all week we move from bitter to sweet, from reality to decorated truth.

My heart is conflicted when I am in Guatemala. I am smitten by this Mayan land of deep cultural and natural beauty, but I miss the foods of home, my grand girls, my other adult kids, my parents, all that is home, all that seems safe. Guatemala bleeds into my soul, gives my heart a stronger beat, but I like it in small inoculations.

When the week is over, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to stay. I say goodbye to Guatemala, land that birthed three of our four children, land that frightens yet fascinates me, land that holds the most ancient of history and the most tenuous of possibilities for the future, land of gracious hospitality, land of the deepest lake and daunting volcanoes, land that will forever have a hold on me.  Farewell Antigua with your firecrackers, concrete and stucco, burnt red metal roofs and ancient Spanish ruins where pigeons and mourning doves roost in crumbling walls. Adios former capital of Guatemala, where tourists relax in courtyard coffee shops while native women swat flies as they fry tortillas, churros, tamales, and corn at their small umbrella stands. My American life will blunt the memories again, but your colors will ooze into my psyche until we are back again.

Carlow University
MFA in Creative Writing
20^th Anniversary Anthology