“We dared to leave our family, our friends, our cozy life. We dared to stay, not just days but one year. Working, living and laughing with this community in the Western Highlands of Guatemala has challenged every fiber of our beings.
We’ve been here for almost 7 months now and much of our pain and frustration has melted into deep affection. We just get up, eat, work in the sun, walk with people, relax, and do what makes sense in that moment of that day. We feel so free... Free from family obligations. Free from answering the phone. Free from working 40 hours a week. Free from needing to make money. Free from needing to spend money. Free from all obligations........even the enjoyable ones. Sometimes we feel so peaceful.......so clean. Nothing really matters here except the day that we are living in.”
—Mary and Ryan
“I remember coming home to our double-wide trailer after a wrestling match. I was 11, my sister 7, my single mother 36. The house was frigid and the wood box was empty. A foot of snow had fallen throughout the day and the flakes continued to fall at 10 that night while I pushed the wheelbarrow out toward the woodshed. I split just enough kindling to light the fire, piled the wheelbarrow with just enough wood to get us through the night and began to slog through the deep white stuff back to the house to build a fire, brush my teeth and head to bed. This picture always seems to wander in when I am on the last leg up the road and into the community with 70lbs of wood on my back attached to the necapal stretched across my forehead.....realizing that my childhood, in some ways, was not so different from this campesino life in the Western Highlands of Guatemala.”
—Ryan
“The hardest thing for me is that this is what we came here to do.......to live in community......to work in community. But sometimes it’s just so damn hard to make myself stay here. Knowing that I can leave. Knowing.....as I sweat and itch and eat the same food day in and day out that I can slink back to the coffee houses, foreign films, restaurants, and hot showers of San Cristobal. We could stay there—work with an organization—do good things—be comfortable. But here I am. I am here. There is no doubt about that. And in infinite ways I love it here........and need to be here. But every last fiber of my cultural conditioning is being challenged. And sometimes I want to run—wayway—very far away.”
—Mary
“but Guatemala is so lovely and ironic. green, greeeeeen......almost unbearably eternally green. jungles, slopes, waterfalls, volcanos, coffee plantations, maiz, windy roads, valleys, crazy bus drivers. rich in resources. poor people. work and suffering. family. i have much to learn. to grow. to know. to forget. to be. to become.”
“The sun is coming up and the dawn sky fires are a deep rose. Grabbed my machete, coffee picking basket, water, and raincoat. We have spent the last couple weeks working in the coffee—pruning and picking. Working in the jungle is growing on me. I am slowly developing a new relationship with nature—with plants, insects, spiders, snakes, heat. I’m living more within it......moving within it. Climbing up the dense green sun sweaty hillsides, hacking through green life. Every step I take causes a thousand pieces of life to move, jump, slither, fly, dive, crawl, flit, run — a constant buzzing in the still air that surrounds me. I hardly bother to swat the bugs away anymore. As I move through the thigh deep tangle I accept the sticky webs that grab at my pants and eyelashes. And it’s precarious pushing up the hillsides toward the next tree. I can’t see where my feet are landing. It’s wet, and hot, and slippery in places. I’m pulling the web off my face. Lugging a basket of ripe coffee. Peaceful and exciting work.”
—Mary
“
Life for me has slowed to a pace where moment to
moment is recognizable. My glare has been softened.
My gaze cleansed, not by the fabricated detergents our
society offers and demands, but by the soil, sweat,
and simplicity of my labors. I’ve begun to encounter
something that has always remained distant and almost
inconceivable. That inexplicable something I’ve been
toiling toward for so many years. And now.....now here
it lies before me...waiting patiently as it forever
has.....listening for my reply and softly smiling while
I struggle to hear the melody of our every moment.”
—Ryan
If you would like to learn more about our travels you can visit our blog. We also have more pictures available on our flickr pages. Thanks for visiting.