Yes, I say, I'm scared. In fact, I think to myself, I'm terrified. I've read the State Department warnings (according to one travel company, it "wouldn't be a bad idea" for Americans— especially young, single women— to carry a machete at all times), and I've heard the horror stories: rape, violent crime, theft, unsafe transportation, horrible diseases with unpronouncable names (and horrifying colloquial translations, like Bone Break Fever.) Don't travel alone, they say. Don't wear jewelry, don't look like you might have money: don't make yourself a target. Don't eat street food. Don't drink the water. Don't take local transportation, don't get involved in any sort of political demonstration, don't do anything without a plan, a back-up, and an emergency escape route. Don't trust too easily, or perhaps don't trust at all.
These warnings are all based in experience and practicality, a desire to protect. My brother, in a sweet attempt to dissuade me from going to Guatemala after reading about the alarmingly high rate of kidnappings there, told me that he refuses to pay a ransom. My family kept proposing alternate plans ("but you could practice your Spanish in California! Or travel to Central America on an organized tour sometime!") and directing me to various websites, some more official than others, pointing out some truly alarming statistics. After a while, though, as it became clear to them that I was going to go— and I would follow all practical advice to keep myself safe, and I wasn't going to go to Guatemala City, and I have no plans to join any drug rings (though I can't make any promises, for who knows, really, what the future may bring!)— their nerves began to subside, which made me calm down too.
The truth is, anything can happen. But the town I am going to live in in Guatemala is far safer than the neighborhoods I teach in in Boston, and— and this is truly what this is about, above all— you can't live your life in fear. You can take reasonable precautions, and you can do things like not wander around Guatemala City alone at night, wearing gold jewelry and sipping from a carafe of water drawn right from the local lake, but ultimately you must adopt a mindset that you will be fine. Because if you don't, you won't be— for even if the content of your anxieties doesn't bear into reality, the anxiety itself will turn the experience into a different kind of hell.
I have a friend who studied abroad in South Africa. "The rate of sexual assault— the rate of men who have admitted to sexual assault, that is— is one in four," she told me. "And that is astounding. While I was there, I knew that that could happen to me at any time, but I couldn't live in fear."
And I truly believe that she did not walk around each day, worrying if and when she would be attacked (which she ultimately was not). I do not think that I possess this degree of inner strength, but I know that moving to Guatemala will be a test and an on-the-ground lesson in this type of courage. In my experience, routine (or, perhaps, repeat exposure) lessens perceived danger, and I hope that the longer I live there without incident — or, perhaps, the longer I live there, and get through things that at this vantage point seem terrifying and potentially unendurable— the more secure I will feel. (This is why, too, reading the "USA Travel Advice" on the UK.gov website provides poignant perspective: "Violent crime, including gun crime, is not limited to the border areas," the site says. "Incidents rarely involve tourists, but you should take care when travelling in unfamiliar areas. Research your destination before travelling and seek local advice about areas with high levels of criminal activity." The site continues, "There is a general threat from terrorism. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by foreigners. You should monitor media reports and remain vigilant at all times. On 15 April 2013 two explosions took place close to the finishing line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 people and injuring over 200...")
To me, these statements (aside from that about the marathon bombings, which—both while its events were happening, and while reading about them on the British advisory now— underscores just how unpredictable and scary life is everywhere, all the time) highlight the apperception that the familiar becomes normalized, and its dangers cease to stand out. It is the unknown, even if the unknown is relatively safe, that terrifies.
When I was a kid, I traveled with my family to Jerusalem. One day, we stopped in a little jeweler's shop (where I bought the חי ring I wore for many years as a type of big girl security blanket, which I would twist around my finger when I felt anxious) and the man working there, clued in to our obvious foreignness, asked us where we were from. We replied "San Francisco," and a look of deep anxiety crossed his face. He looked at us for a moment, concerned, and then leaned in to whisper, "But it is so dangerous there!" We stared at him; this man lived in Jerusalem. He shook his head, and then confided, "I am always so scared about the earthquakes."
Ultimately, it is not about danger; it is about fear. When I think about my fears about living in Guatemala, I realize that what I am truly afraid of is not being attacked, as scary as that is; I am most afraid of being afraid that I will be attacked. Bad things will happen, or they won't. Most of our lives are out of our control, but what we can (at least try to) determine are our reactions— preemptively, during, and after-the-fact— to the uncontrollable events in our lives.
The summer before I went away to college, I went to see "Garden State" with a few friends at the local movie theater in my hometown. Twenty minutes into the movie, the ceiling collapsed. If we had sat in the seats one of my friends had originally wanted—we had to sit closer to the screen because I had forgotten my glasses— we would have been crushed by a table-sized chunk of cement.
I am not a carefree person; if someone had someone asked me that summer what I worried about, I would have been able, at a millisecond's notice, to spout off a long-considered list of daily anxieties, the degree of which ranged from successfully tempered to acute, the content from the existential to the mundane. Being killed by a falling piece of cement during a Monday matinee of a middling Zach Braff movie, however, was not one of them. What we fear seldom corresponds to played-out reality; I try, though almost always fail, to keep this in mind when confronted with a situation which scares me.
For better or for worse, danger and fear will be a part of this journey, and I hope that I can embrace them in a productive and emboldening way. I suspect that my thoughts on this topic will evolve over the course of my time in Guatemala— and, indeed, throughout my life— and that I grow stronger, even as I aim to remain sensitive to and aware of the world (as more and more of it becomes increasingly familiar, and thus— I hope, less scary, and more interesting.)
Though, as with everything I think, say, and write in these last few weeks before my departure, this could all prove naive, a totally unrealistic or inappropriate paradigm for my ever-closer lifestyle and environment. And so I say all this clutching a hunk of salt— which I gnaw away on, anxiously.
The summer before I went away to college, I went to see "Garden State" with a few friends at the local movie theater in my hometown. Twenty minutes into the movie, the ceiling collapsed. If we had sat in the seats one of my friends had originally wanted—we had to sit closer to the screen because I had forgotten my glasses— we would have been crushed by a table-sized chunk of cement.
I am not a carefree person; if someone had someone asked me that summer what I worried about, I would have been able, at a millisecond's notice, to spout off a long-considered list of daily anxieties, the degree of which ranged from successfully tempered to acute, the content from the existential to the mundane. Being killed by a falling piece of cement during a Monday matinee of a middling Zach Braff movie, however, was not one of them. What we fear seldom corresponds to played-out reality; I try, though almost always fail, to keep this in mind when confronted with a situation which scares me.
For better or for worse, danger and fear will be a part of this journey, and I hope that I can embrace them in a productive and emboldening way. I suspect that my thoughts on this topic will evolve over the course of my time in Guatemala— and, indeed, throughout my life— and that I grow stronger, even as I aim to remain sensitive to and aware of the world (as more and more of it becomes increasingly familiar, and thus— I hope, less scary, and more interesting.)
Though, as with everything I think, say, and write in these last few weeks before my departure, this could all prove naive, a totally unrealistic or inappropriate paradigm for my ever-closer lifestyle and environment. And so I say all this clutching a hunk of salt— which I gnaw away on, anxiously.
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