The final week was bittersweet. This was not a surprise. I've long grown accustomed to my sappy inability to say goodbye or transition without disproportional melancholy and emotion. So, I guess I knew what to expect.
On Monday, Ryan came in to school during break even though he no longer had class just so he could take a final hit of green crack (guacamole). Unfortunately, he'd eaten something bad earlier (we theorize unpasteurized milk from this really good coffee shop) and wasn't feeling totally whole. He saved his energy for lunch, however, when we took out Claudia (my old teacher) and Angelica (one of Claudia's friends with whom we'd also become close). These two ladies were really amusing. They spent most of their time making dirty jokes (especially Angelica) and suggesting innuendos. Pretty hilarious. We ate at Queso y Vino, probably my favorite spot in town. The lasagna was excellent. Saying goodbye to Claudia afterwards (she was at a different school this week so I wouldn't have another chance to say adios) was very sad but I mostly held myself together. In any case, I have her email address so I'll be staying touch.
That afternoon Ryan and I went shopping in various spots but, most significantly, in the fancy jade store where Hilda's daughter Raquel is the manager. I basically bankrupted myself, leaving only enough to get through the week and pay my Guatemala departure fee (even with the 10% discount we got as family friends). We walked home for dinner and then went out to meet folks for Ryan's Last Night at Los Arcos Reds. Before we went out, we took some photos with Hilda and Magno (her husband), her daughter Raquel and Andres, her son, and of Miriam (the hunchback servant) and Francesca (the other servant).
The night was a lot of fun. Everyone we'd met showed up for the most part: Luke, Aileen, Amy, Chris, Aja, Darryl, Chris, and Monica. Ed and Kennedy were already gone unfortunately. We stayed till the bar closed. I definitely teared up watching Ryan say goodbye to Chris and Aja. Ryan and I walked home and chatted mushily about how glad we were that we'd had our adventure together while he packed up his bag. I vaguely remember him patting me on the shoulder at 5 in the morning as he was leaving (did I mention that we had to share rooms for the last few days that he was around for various reasons?), and when I woke up he was gone. It was sad.
The first day sin Ryan was alright, but kind of melancholy. I went to class as usual, wrote up a bunch of blog posts that I'd been putting off, and went home for dinner. Eating alone at the big table, I missed him quite a bit, but Hilda came in to keep me company and compliment me on how far my spanish had come since day 1. Cold comfort but mi corazòn vacio and I appreciated the effort. That night, we hung out at Gaia for one last time. It was fun, but I think we were all sad not to have our guapo friend around.
The rest of the week went by kind of uneventfully, I guess. On Wednesday, I made arrangements to get a tour during lunch the next day of El Hospital de Hermano Pedro, an institution for disabled/sick/abandoned children run by Franciscans that I'd heard was a very interesting place to visit. Went home for dinner, out for drinks, home to sleep. Wednesday was more recuperative than anything else -- a preparation for Thursday night, my last.
The hospital was really interesting but (unsurprisingly) very upsetting. We saw a lot of conditions there that really just aren't issues in the US because we have enough money to either prevent or correct them. Very dramatic birth defects (I can't even describe how horribly deformed some of these children/adolescents were) and debilitating cleft lips/palates were everywhere. There were hundreds of children with cerebral palsy and other neurological ailments. They all seemed relatively happy and well-cared for, but it was upsetting to see nonetheless. I was also a little bit bothered by the fact that some non-trivial amount of time in every day was set aside for religious worship. It's hard to be critical of these monks and nuns (and doctors and nurses) who are dedicating their lives to alleviating the suffering of these poor kids, but is it really alright to be proselytizing to them with one hand while they feed them with the other? I don't know, to be honest. I guess it's better than nothing at all, but it does seem a little coercive to me. Missionary work in general (of which there's a ton in Central America) makes me very uncomfortable, not only because I have a problem with the inherent condescension of these people coming down into the Third World to "save the souls of savages," but because wherever missionary work is combined with charitable work, it seems to me that a degree of coercion or spiritual prostitution is kind of impossible to avoid. This concern was kind of starkly illustrated in the children's hospital. These kids had no other options. They *had* to be there if they wanted to receive any kind of care or attention to their needs. But, in order to be there, they had to submit to religious indoctrination. For me, it's a dilemma. In the end, I think I'd say better they receive care while being soul-raped by zealots than receive no care at all and be allowed to suffer and die in far flung villages. But, at the end of the day, it's not really my decision; it's theirs. And I doubt they've ever been given the option.
Fortunately, I'm shallow enough that I was able to put these oh-so-deep thoughts out of my head in preparation for Jake's Last Night. After saying goodbye to Salome and Angelica at school (which involved tears streaming down my face freely in my most masculine fashion), I ate dinner at home (it seemed appropriate) and went out to meet folks at Los Arcos Reds (fittingly) for my last hurrah (this sentence needs one more parenthetical aside and this is it). Again, the whole crew showed up. We took TONS of pictures, which I'll post as soon as I can. It was a lot of fun...one of my most fun nights in Antigua, though I wish Ryan had been with us. We got very drunk and stumbled out at 1, when the bar closed down. Saying goodbye to Luke and Aileen was sad but not wrenching since I knew I'd see them again soon at school and, in the end, I was so happy to have gotten to know them so well. Ryan and I were buddies in school, but we didn't really know Luke and Aileen that well. I consider getting to know them to be one of the highlights of the summer and I feel lucky that we had them around. I'm excited to spend time with them in New York, so it was easy for me not to sob in bidding them farewell (though I did cry....because I'm a huge pussy). Chris and Monica (the Iowans) will be in NYC in October so that too was a goodbye that I handled relatively gracefully. It was a real pleasure to meet the two of them; they're very genuine and interesting people and I'm looking forward to evangelizing New York to them when they come. Darryl (the Christian-Republican-Texan-who-despite-my-better-judgment-I-couldn't-help-but-like) was a hard goodbye, but I suspect I'll see him soon too. We hugged and I watched him walk down the street wistfully.
I walked most of the way home with Chris and Aja whose farewell I was desperately putting off. I don't know when we'll see them again. They say that there's a chance of coming to the states in six months or so, but even that is a long way off, and to be perfectly honest, I'd gotten very used to having them around. They were really a surprise; I had counted on making new friends in Guatemala, but I wasn't anticipating meeting two people who I'd come to care about quite so much. They're a special pair and I'll miss them profoundly. I'll just have to make time to get to Australia somehow sometime soon. Anyway, when we got the corner where I had to bid my farewell and turn, we hugged a bunch and drunkenly told each other how great it was to meet and get to know each other and everything. It was very sad, but, though I teared up, I held myself together. I was biting my lip as I walked up the dark street away from them, but managed to forestall sobs. It was only when I heard Aja call out from behind me "Look after your nocha!" (see later post How To Speak Australian) that I really broke down. Fortunately, by that point, I was all alone and there was no one to witness my dissolution.
I got home and packed sadly before going to bed. The next morning, I had breakfast with Miguel and Albert, exchanged email addresses with the same (really top-notch guys who I hope to see again soon. Albert, in particular, will be in NYC this year with his class [he's a teacher], so I'm hoping to see him), showered, finished packing and caught my cab to the Guatemala City airport. Saying goodbye to Hilda and her husband Magno was really sad. They said very nice things to me and we all agreed that I should return soon. It makes me sad to think that by the time I do find a chance to come back, one or both of them might not be around (they're both in their mid-seventies). I was especially touched by the fact that Magno came out just to say goodbye to me and to say that I would always have a home in Guatemala; he wasn't the most involved with the houseguests usually, and I was never really sure where I stood with him. In one month, I really grew attached to Hilda. I'll always have a deep affection for her. She's really a wonderful lady and she cares immensely about the students who live with her. I will try to write them, but I'm tearing up even writing this because I know that, in all likelihood, I'll never see or hear from her again.
Alone in the taxi, we bounced over Antigua's cobblestone streets one last time, past the indigenous markets and earthquake-ruined churches and manor houses, past the groups of children in catholic school uniforms being led sternly to class by nuns, past the gringo students with their notebooks and backpacks heading toward various spanish schools, past the colorfully-dressed women balancing improbably large bags of textiles and homemade tamales atop their heads, past the cops and soldiers brandishing shotguns and assault rifles, past the groups of stray dogs who oscillate between adorable/sad and intimidating/ominous, and out of the city into the surrounding mountains. As we made our way across the city, I looked out over the buildings at the three volcanos: smoking Fuego who had erupted the day before, lava pouring down its bare, craggy sides dramatically; stately Acatenango, most difficult of the three to climb, whose peak is almost always shrouded in clouds, mist, and the smoke of its irritable neighbor Fuego; and, finally, lonely, majestic Agua, separate from the others, always visible looming over Antigua, whose moods are as varied and capricious as the region's weather -- bathed in brilliant sunshine, haunting mists, flashing stormclouds, or spectral sunsets, Agua had been the olympian backdrop to our experience in Antigua, a constant reminder of the wildness and undomesticated power of the land in which we were living. I knew I had left Antigua when, with a bump, the taxi was suddenly driving smoothly on paved road, the ancient, colonial cobblestone streets left behind. With a last look at Agua and the colorful boulevards of the city out of the car's rear window, I took a deep breath and, tearing up again, turned to look out the windshield. Forward. Toward Mexico. The sun had set on my summer's first stage.
