Striving for thoughtful travel

I am feeling infinitely humbled. My three eyes gaze out on Lake Atitlán, the name given for this powerful space where shimmering, calm water hums 'om' while its companion majestic mountains echo.
The sun beckoned me out early this morning, March 26, and led me down the narrow San Marcos de la Laguna streets to a large, sloping rock on the small cliff above the lake. As three fishermen set out, I sunk into my grateful heart in concurrent appreciation for the present moment and the beautiful inner movements happening in our ever-unifying Carpe Diem family.
Yesterday three students and I set out on a journey in search of a medical clinic. With at least three weeks of illness, on and off, we decided it best to balance out our preferred eastern or 'traditional' healing efforts with a bit of western. A 40-minute motor boat ride and 10-minute twisty public school bus ride later, we arrived to a small clinic where we gave samples as best able, and chatted out our woes of physical body churnings with the young woman doc. I chuckled at her depiction of Guatemala as 'cien por ciento parásito'. In other words, get used to the altered and troubled state of our traveling guts.
What I am in love with about this group of students is their positive, vibrant attitudes despite the pains. We laugh through our tears, in a hopeful space of thoughtful commitment to one another. And I appreciate how I am re-inspired by each unique persona.
Upon returning from our med quest, for example, I spiraled into conversation with several students about the roots of the troubled, mixed-up feelings we were experiencing from being vistors to this town. San Marcos is a space that has become everyday more inundated with 'western' developed-country travelers. We bring our powerful currencies, and likely in good faith and positive intentions arrive here in search of furthering spiritual quest-- via yoga, metaphysics classes, reiki, crystal healing, regression, etc...
but then what is it that generates in our students, as it does me, this sense of superficiality that pervades? Perhaps, as we pass by the Guatemalans posted up on the paths selling veggies and sweet breads, it´s that cyclical power dynamic that feels inescapable... money, one mask of power, allows me to freely saunter by while the other, at one level, at the 'mercy' of visitors' decisions to purchase or not.
How has this 'invasion' of travelers affected the fabric of this lakeside community? What types of conflict has the infusion of more money brought to this sacred land? The US once supported with weapons and military training; is this another, albeit much more subtle, form of violence?
We struggle with being children of a nation whose decisions have devastated many lives here... we struggle with how we can best be agents of thoughtful change as we travel, rather than mere perpetuators of a status quo which has brought our madre tierra to a state of tears.
And then into my life flows Amanda, a Guatemalan woman working at a thatched-roof cafe, where I wandered in for breakfast. I had been there previously, and was impressed with the messages of environmental awareness posted in the composting toilets. Sensing more to learn there, I wandered back, and opened conversation with her about the issues our group pondered over the previous night (and layers and layers of my thoughts on this from Honduras through Peace Corps).
Amanda shared passionately about her husband, the owner of the restaurant, who has US roots. With over twenty years living here, he lives guided by a vision for building awareness and community, and caring for water, land and plants that sustain life around Atitlán. As Amanda shared about her husband´s love affair with the earth and the seeds that find home there, I am reminded that ultimately we are not defined by our nationhood, but by the choices we each make in relation to the context of our lives... in relation to our relations- our ancestors- and how that colors the questions that lay deep at our core.
Within each, by breath, we arrive at these questions and bring them forefront as guides, true and pure guides, that assist us in our persistence as warriors of justice, of reconciliation, of joy and healing and positive movement.

Shortly we'll be moving on to Nicaragua. It tugs my heart to part this land which has sung to me from the moment we landed. I take moments to bow, and then rise to a new sun...

Meanwhile, I carry concerns for our flux nation at home and all lives affected by the uncertainties aflight. I often wear my Obama shirt here and pray on healing transformation born from the storms raging there, ultimately nestling down in faith.

Grappling

Cycles, cycles. A child cries two stories below this Quetzaltenango apartment as I gaze out the bedroom window across the tin rooftops spanning the horizon-- a boy riding his bicycle there, clothes drying in the breeze over there. Rolling hills stand guard in the distance as I grab hold of my racing heart.
Six Carpe Diem students and myself have been engaged in one-on-one Spanish classes throughout the week in this southwestern department of Guatemala. My 27-year old teacher has brought this old, narrow cobblestreeted city alive for me by sharing stories through her lens—meandering through town to where her parents fell in love over hot chocolate and Holy Week bread; a Mennonite bakery and then an outdoor market where she helps me find three herbs- hierba buena, limoncillo, and sabia santa- to soothe my parasite-ridden gut; a visit to the cemetery where my teacher is reminded of the kidnap and murder of an old girlfriend, and where I´m invited to graffiti the tomb of a broken-hearted Vanushca who will grant my wishes for love.
Today, after flipping through pictures of my teacher´s two year-old son during morning session, two of my Carpe Diem students and our teachers came together to watch Voces Inocentes. Through the life of an 11 year-old boy, the movie depicts the agony of the twelve year-long civil war in El Salvador (1980-1992)… the violence between the national military, equipped and trained by the US and its tax dollars, and the guerrilla, fighting for a society with more equitable distribution of resources… and the innocent lives caught in the crossfire.
This was my second viewing, and hotter than tears, I burned anger and annoyance born out of how small-minded we can be—to get so carried away with the greed, power, weaponry, bloodshed. What waste. Seems so blaringly obvious how childish it all is, this minority of men and their games, that my head heavily shakes and eyes roll up in exhaustion.
From the video room, I briefly hop onto email and read a message from home. Worlds collide as my eyes roll over mom´s message about the Catholic Church in Flagstaff and their advice to undocumented families: have your documents in order and identify someone you trust to take care of your kids in case of deportation. Again, innocents suffering in the mucky gap between economies and psychologies ripped apart by war and global economics of free trade agreements and the promise of the multiplying power of the US dollar.
And in mom´s email as well, she relays her conversation with a friend who laments the brutalities of the narcotraffic war in Mexico, creating layers of fear, mistrust and innocent bloodshed which is also rippling down through Guatemala, every day more present and generative of the same tired and exasperated look of worried mothers.
Documentaries tend to depict these instances of civil war as slices of history come to an end—¨a 12-year civil war¨ but hmm, how blurry those lines become, how quickly they curve into themselves to become but cycles of the same ego-consumed war games that destroy potentials of young lives to grow, explore and experience.
As in Voces Inocentes, in this budding millennium there are intermittently so many uplifting moments of music, laughter, connection, creativity and choosing of peaceful resolution over violence… aka ´cycle transformers´. Our Carpe Diem team of eight seekers sat down for two and half hours last night over cups of thick hot chocolate to discuss our journeys of self-awareness and self-growth after countless adventures over the past month that have pushed each one far beyond his or her comfort zone… and in these priceless moments I saw faces of bliss and heard words of ¨wow, this never happens… why can´t people speak with each other more often with such authenticity about our deeper experiences of living?¨ These cycle-transforming moments create great torrents of energy… I pray for wisdom to thoughtfully, humbly and gently move into spaces inclined toward this… knowing you all, my friends,—my breath and body—, are budging the current similarly.
With you,