Riding (Writing) through Guatemala: Tangents

I’m in the protected bubble of this minibus. It is a white bus and very different from the large local buses that squeeze through the narrow streets of Guatemala. Those buses are infinitely more colorful and typically tout a feminine name such as Santa Lucia or Josephina. Our bus is not like those. Our bus is nameless, smaller, and blander than the local buses, marking us as tourists.

We’re heading to a malnutrition center that is somewhere outside of Antigua. I’m not sure what the name of the town is, but what I do know is that I’m mystified (and ever-so-slightly terrified) at the way the drivers navigate these tiny streets in such huge vehicles. We are currently behind one of the local buses, which is essentially a painted up school bus (you remember the yellow bluebird buses from grade school?). The other great thing about these buses is that they choke out black smoke from their exhaust (especially when they’re trying to get up steep hills), so we all close up the windows of our little bus to try to keep out the fumes. This only further completes our bubbled presence.

In this bus, I feel like both spectacle and spectator. Both the object of attention and consumer of the images and street scenes that blur past the lens of my camera. I take pictures throughout the drives in the bus. I take pictures of mountainsides, buildings with Tigo and Orange Crush logos, dusty roadsides, cornstalk and sheet metal homes. Occasionally, I capture people living their daily lives. I take the pictures to remember, to try to hold on to something about those journeys, but I do wonder about my visual invasion of the lives of the people and the geography of this country.

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My hair is blowing all over the place in the back of this truck as we head up the Guatemalan mountainside.

I haven’t ridden in the back of a pick-up truck since I was a little girl riding in my dad’s blue International Scout—we called it Tree Rat, a nickname for my dad. My dad’s friend, Butch, even painted a cartoon version of a tree rat the back of the truck. The Scout took us all over the place. We went camping in it along the Feather River in California. I vividly remember my dad yelling at us to get in the truck while he went to kill a rattlesnake that invaded our campsite. He wore the rattle on his floppy hat for years after.

We also drove through the Mojave Desert in it. I remember my mom wetting bandanas for my sister and I to wear around our necks to keep us cool in the ridiculous heat.

I remember one time we used it to move from Missouri to California (or was it California to Missouri?—it's hard to recall, the trek back and forth was frequent during my childhood) when I was maybe 4 years old. My sister and I shared the back of the truck with Toto, our little dog.

We would also go to drive-in movies in the Scout. One time in particular, I remember sitting on the wood bench in the bed of the truck with the neighbor boys and my sister as we headed to the movie. My hair was blowing and hitting one of the boys in the face. He wasn't pleased.

I think my hair hit Maia in the face as we were zooming up the smooth paved mountainside road. My hair is completely out of control. Soon, though, we turn off the wide road and start bumping around narrow and steep dirt roads. We’re surrounded by homes of a variety of sorts. Some made of cornstalks, some made of cement bricks, some hidden behind foliage. The houses cluster up the hills and I watch women walking up steep hills with large baskets balanced on their heads. They seem unconcerned about dropping their baskets or losing their balance. As we drive by, we receive curious stares. Certainly, a pick-up truck full of white people is not typical. Here I feel exposed, vulnerable, entirely out of place.

After finishing one of the service trip stops, we headed back to the truck. As we reached the truck, we could see a number of women and children surrounding the truck. The children were sitting in the bed of the truck and one of the women went up to the social workers to ask about assistance from The God’s Child Project—or at least that is what I interpreted was going on. They seemed curious about our presence and wanted to know more about what the social workers were doing. It was an amazing moment to witness. The project-- and its outreach--seems filled with moments like these.

*****

We’re in our white bus heading up through the mountains to Lake Atitlan. I’m feeling nauseous and have a headache. All the signs of being carsick. Usually I can handle mountain drives, but I am plagued with carsickness on every trip through the mountains in Guatemala. It could be the fumes from buses and trucks in front of us choking up the mountains. Or it could be the sheer number of hairpin turns that we take up the hill. Or it could be my incessant need to take pictures as we drive. Focusing through the camera lens seems to add to all the other elements at work on the drive.

At one point along the drive, I saw these colorful structures clustered together. They were aesthetically lovely. I started taking pictures of the area and then the driver told us that those buildings constituted a cemetery. I had—well have—gorgeous pictures of the cemetery. It seems a little disconcerting to have taken pictures of a cemetery, but then I think about all the cemeteries I have taken pictures of over my travels. Like churches, I seem fascinated with the history and ritual embedded in these locations, even if I don’t entirely understand them.

I went to Germany when I was 26. It was my first time out of the country. While there I spent more time in churches, temples, and cemeteries than I ever had in my life until that point. Being a spectator of these markers of history is a comfortable place for me. In Prague, I spent time in the old Jewish ghetto. The Jewish cemetery there was layered with tombs. The walk through it was a solitary refuge. I could write and think without interruption. I believe it was Kafka who wrote that he frequented cemeteries for the solitude they afforded him from the hustle and bustle of the city.

The sole purpose for my visit to Paris was to go to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. It is there that Jim Morrison is buried. I went there and spent time at his grave and then walked the solitary paths, finding a number of renowned artists (including Lyotard and Proust). It was that time in Europe that started my affinity for cemeteries.

My grandfather is buried in one of the most beautiful places in the world. He is buried at Skylawn Memorial Park in Skyline—a mountain area that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It’s discomforting to visit, because from his grave (on a day without fog) you can see the ocean. Picturesque. And the ocean is the great love of my life. But, there, I must look at it from one of the saddest places I know. My grandfather’s death marked the end of many things—not just him. And that memory is hard to handle wrapped in the majesty of the ocean.

So I'm looking at the photos of the cemetery that are now on my computer. It is beautiful. The colors, the shapes, the location. What do I do with the photograph? How do I talk about it? I didn’t get to go to the cemetery. I didn’t get to ask questions as to why the markers are so colorful. I don’t know if the people in Guatemala deal with death better than we do in the United States. I just know I have this picture.

The protective bubble of the bus is limited. My vulnerability in the back of the truck is limited. My views are limited. My camera lens is even more limited. My memories and imagination are really all I have to fill in the spaces.