It wasn't like that, though. It was terrifying. After eventually forcing myself to walk off the platform (after numerous knock-kneed false starts), I felt the initial terror and whooshing in the ears-- and expected to be in the water. But after a few moments, I was still falling, and, looking around with increasing panic, still falling... After hitting the water, swimming up to the surface, and getting my bearings, I had the expected adrenaline-and-relief rush, but I was still shaky, and still, in some ways, scared. After a few minutes, I decided to force myself to jump again, figuring that it would be more fun the second time around.
It wasn't. The second jump was just as unpleasant and just as scary, and though I'm glad I did it— twice— I really have no plans to do it again, because it just wasn't fun. The experience did indeed teach me a valuable lesson, though not the all-scary-things-are-worth-doing one I expected to learn; instead, I realized that some things that seem like they have the potential to be scary and unpleasant turn out to be... scary and unpleasant, and just aren't worth it.
That experience— coupled with the fact that I've been in the U.S. for the past two weeks (and am at the moment sitting in a Starbucks in Brookline, Massachusetts, instead of— as was planned but disrupted by crazy weather that dumped a foot of snow and dropped temperatures to eleven below last night— on a plane that would have been at this very moment somewhere over Mexico)— has taught me that in my experiences in Guatemala thus far, I have been very, very lucky.
Moving alone to a small town in a developing country which doesn't speak my native language— and which, let's face it, has a lot of very big problems that can't be simply attributed to cultural differences— could have been lonely, uncomfortable, scary, unsafe, and just plain not fun. Instead— aside from smaller problems like spiders, a not-ideal diet, and frustrations about my inability to get ahold of certain material goods I sometimes miss dearly, and bigger problems like corruption and big-league ineptitude in various institutions with which I interact daily— my life in this random country I'd never previously given more than a few minutes' thought is pretty darn great. I have friends and community in two different parts of the country, I feel safe and culturally moored, I have lots of adventures, I don't work myself to the bone, and I enjoy teaching (even with the fairly considerable limitations, such as a lack of resources and absolutely nothing in terms of curriculum or guidance) and adore my hilarious, lovable, never-endingly interesting students.
(When family and friends ask what I'm planning for next year— which is one of the most common questions, along with "So, like, what do you eat there?" [to which my answer, "Usually cabbage," doesn't seem to impress much]— all of these things come to mind. Though I'd like to earn a livable salary and have a certain yen to explore other parts of the world, I don't want to take what I have in Guatemala— which is considerable!— for granted.)
I am looking forward to jumping off the cliff again, to going back to a situation which is appealing no longer because of its total novelty but because I know that I will be going back to a known and endeared existence. (Though I continue to have near-daily Oh-My-God-I'm-In-Guatemala!!! realizations, for good and for bad... Additionally, being in the U.S. has made me miss the daily triumphs and struggles of interacting in a language in which I feel I've overcome the hump of being overwhelmed to a sense of feeling like I'm fine-tuning my ability to understand and express increasingly nuanced phenomena— which is a terribly exciting place to be!)
Being back home— in the Bay Area and in Boston— has been bittersweet. It has been very difficult seeing people I cherish all-too-briefly, not knowing when I'll see them again. I will miss drinking tap water, flushing toilets, and eating a wide range of foods. And, perhaps somewhat strangely, I've found myself redeveloping fears about Guatemala (such as the very real danger inherent to traveling in seatbelt-less old shuttles on notoriously ill-maintained roads) that I mostly successfully repress while there. (Though I am realizing anew that everything is so relative: in early December, I went to Guatemala City— for a bridal shower at which Evangelical middle-aged Guatemalan women proffered explicit sex advice in their toasts to the bride— and saw how Guatemalans ice skate: on a man-made, artifically frozen rink [surrounded on all sides by bleachers full of spectators], shuffling along slowly while holding on to the railing for dear life, wearing helmets. In a country in which people regularly stand on top of buses [loaded at 300% capacity] going 80mph on curvy mountain roads and ride their motorcycles with zero protective gear through treacherous city streets, people wear helmets in order to shuffle, toddler-like, while "ice" skating... Additionally, upon hearing that an American teacher from my school got in a serious car accident while visiting family in the U.S., a local teacher, after praying fervently to the Virgin of Guadalupe, expressed the hope that the American teacher would come back quickly from "that very dangerous country.")
And so though the prospect of going back on Monday (at 7am... unfortunately, despite rising early every day to teach, I have learned while being here that left to my own devices I am still very much a night owl) is not without some sadness and some trepidation, I am excited to go back. Living there is— as everything is— a mixed bag, but it has been on the whole a very positive experience, and one that I have been trying to not take for granted. Being in the city I decided to leave, I realize with renewed certainty that going somewhere else was very much the right decision. And it turns out— though I couldn't have known this while making the decision— that Panajachel, Guatemala, was the right place to go. The first jump could have gone badly, but it didn't; now I'm excited for the second.
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