Cafecito con Leche

I have been travelling and exploring for the last ten years. I was twenty-one when I left the States for the first time. I never knew then that the next decade would see me spending around four years combined in other countries. It is a little hard to believe. I tasted the unknown on a trip to Costa Rica in the summer of 2001 to study Spanish. My eyes were so wide and it was hard to believe that so much was going on outside the small reality I had known for the previous twenty-one years.

It is hard to shed the layers upon layers to find myself naked of the experiences; difficult to remember what it was like that first month in an unknown land.It has become so much a part of who I am and the very rhythm that I step to. Who would I be or where would I be if I hadn’t hopped on that flight from Memphis, Tennessee to San Jose, Costa Rica in 2001? The thoughts flood me as I am in the midst of opening the eyes of a dear friend who is twenty-one. She is out of the States for the first time and I want her to be infected by the magic that new experiences in foreign lands can bring.

Julissa was a student of mine in Montana on a 25 day adventure education program in the summer of 2007. She had just graduated high school and I quickly learned of the harsh family life she was coming from. Poverty, alcohol and drugs, homelessness, hunger, the death of her father three weeks before, were all things she had endured. Over the couse of the program, there were many firsts: backpacking, canoeing, horse riding, rock climbing, living with 11 other, pretty crazy, strangers (me and my best friend Ally included). On the high peaks of Yellowstone National Park and canoeing down the Yellowstone River I like to think she had moments of clarity and I am certain at the end, she had a little more faith in herself and her world was opened in a positive direction. We connected and over the last four years kept in touch. I have tried to be a supportive friend and an admiring mentor as she persevered through college against the odds.  When I decided to come to Guatemala, I knew she had to come. It never was a question. It just was. I don’t know why really. Since she was graduating college this next fall, my gift to her would be to help make travel abroad a reality. Not just anywhere, but where her father was from. Julissa’s father was from Guatemalan and her mother is from El Salvador but she had never left the USA. It was time. 

She arrived to a land where people look like her and have the same dialect as her father had. I can only imagine what it feels like. She is learning the sad realities of a country overrun with problems- a country she is half from. Through cultural classes with my Spanish teacher and cooking time with my former host mom, she is learning about her roots and identifying with a culture she knows almost nothing about. I wonder sometimes who she will be when she leaves here.

I have been waiting five months for Julissa to arrive and she is here now. Her eyes are so wide and that makes me feel really content and proud. I am struggling with my role in her journey. I want her to have all the wonderful, sometimes painful, experiences that a newcomer has in a foreign land. I want her to make choices, discover, process, be confused, look silly; but I am ten years in. It is hard to just let those things happen without stepping in or saying something. That is my challenge to myself. She is learning how to use a Lonely Planet guide book, bargain, pick a destination because it sounds amazing, and just travel.

Her reality is so different from anything I have experienced and this whole concept of travel is surely somewhat mind boggling. She lives in a one roomed apartment in a bad part of Los Angeles with her boyfriend. It is a busy, loud street that breathes violence, prostitution and drugs. They don’t have a fridge or stove and usually can only afford to eat once a day because money is tight and they are limited in the cooking department. She hopes he will have bought both items upon her return and she can start cooking.

As the layers of her life unfold before me, I listen and hope my words are valid or useful. Her life has been tough, is tough, but no matter what, I love her and will always be proud of her.  Sometimes it makes me sad because I just want it to be easier or less complicated. I want to take some of her struggle, make a trade, anything. We make each other laugh, in fact we always have, and laughter it seems can be the cure for whatever ails you. As we walk arm in arm on the streets of Xela, Guatemala or down from a volcano, I am reminded that for some reason, our paths crossed. Being with her makes me happy and happiness is life.

Julissa and I climbed her first volcano and swam in its crater lagoon. We slept aboard a friend’s sailboat at anchor and jumped from its deck into the Rio Dulce and spent hours swimming in its waters. It makes me really happy how much she enjoys the water. She only learned how to swim five or so years ago after joining a swim team because she wanted to learn. I look forward to more plunges in the days to come. We will journey towards the ruins of Tikal tomorrow.

Cafecito con Leche