Thursday, August 22, 2013

I blame it on trying to look nice . . . deflecting from my own guilt

HELLO!!!!! After an extremely busy summer I was able to take a breath! This summer the HSP/AMA team, with the partnership of our Service Learning Teams, built a complete kitchen for a school, a drainage system, 220 stoves (WOW!!!!), and beautiful cultural exchanges. Knowing I would need a significant rest after this marathon of a summer I asked my boyfriend to come for a visit. Lucky me he said, "yes!". Unfortunately for him he had no idea what he was getting into.
After living in hiking boots, dirty jeans, and the same 4 t-shirts all summer I bought myself a skirt the day before he came in and put together an outfit very foreign to the Guatemala me. I mean I had to try and look nice, right?? He flew in the day the last group flew out. I had timed it perfectly and planned everything in great detail! His plane, coming in almost an hour late, finally arrived and I was THRILLED! The adventure began! We immediately got in a van shuttle so that we could hopefully make the last connection of the day to the lake where we would be meeting up with some of my friends for the weekend. Thankfully the traffic, although bad, allowed us to make it to our connection with 10 min to spare. Whew! Jumping right into the next micro-bus we had another 2 and half hours to go till relaxation could begin although the catch up time was wonderful before we met up with my friends. Once arriving to the most populated town on Lake Atitlan our next leg was to hop into one of the last boats that takes you across (time crunched again).
Now remember how I had planned everything to the tiniest detail? The hostel we were staying in with friends had a kitchen and since I was really trying to show off I had brought so many things to cook with. I'm talking a bottle of wine, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, 5 different bottles of seasoning, a bag of almonds, pasta, hot sauce, and a jar of olives. Excessive I know, but this wouldn't surprise you if you knew my mother at all. With this being said, my backpacking pack was too heavy for me to lift and with a skirt on it would have lifted my skirt. Hence John and I decided to make a luggage switch, I now in charge of his light weight backpack and duffel and he taking care of my pack. Now back to the boat.
We climb into the boat as quickly as possible. It was 5:30 in the evening and lake gets extremely choppy starting at 2:00. Our things were put in the front of the boat and a tarp was thrown over top of John's head to keep the lake off of him. The town we were travelling to was the 4th stop. Judging by the arrivals to all the other docks I concluded we had about 45 seconds to get our stuff together and get out of the boat. Everyone is trying to make a Q in Guatemala so when we got to our stop about 5 children about 6 to 12 year old jumped on to the boat, grabbing at our things so that we would have to tip them once they had hoisted our things out of the boat for us. Being a tightwad I refused help and kept trying, I have zero upper body strength, to lift our things to John on the dock. Mind you the boat is rising and falling at least 2 feet with how choppy the lake is, the sky is dark, and all these kids are yelling at me at once. We finally get ourselves and the things out of the boat and to the hostel. A lovely evening with each other and friends. It could not have been more fun!!! Plans were made for the adventures to be had the next day and then much needed sleep.
Beautiful next morning! Went and had breakfast, we all put on our swim suits and John asks me where I put his backpack so that he could put his passport in the safety box. "I didn't put it anywhere. You don't have it?" . . . We made it through 12 wonderful hours of lake time without even realizing that I had left it on the boat. On the boat!!!!!
Needless to say it was not to be found, but the actual backpack was not so much the problem. It was what was inside; passport, copies of the passport (lock and key in the same place), credit and debit cards, driver's liscence, and car keys. I am awesome!!! Instead of the swimming and rock jumping we had planned we spent the whole day town hoping and grilling every boat driver hoping to come up with the location. Deciding we had done all we could do we spent the next day, our last full day at the lake not thinking about it, as best we could.
Then we had a day. Caught a shuttle at 9:00 am. Two transfers later and by 2:00 pm made it to the US embassy in Guatemala city. By 4:45 we walked out with a temporary passport and a letter from the embassy validating the story. Grabbed a sandwich and we're on a bus heading for Xela by 5:30. Arrived to the station and with a short cab ride we're finally to the comfort of my house! Finally we could have the rest of the time together without stress and responsibility!
We had so much fun! I got to show him where I live, he got to meet my friends, and eat at the same restaurants I go to often. We went to the hot springs, bakeries, inside beautiful churches, to markets, and salsa dancing. I mean we had a blast despite the fiasco.
Last day came said goodbyes with talk of him coming to see me again and I left him at the airport as I had a bus to catch and he needed to get through security. The next morning I heard the whole story, and I will keep this brief.
Due to the lack of entry stamp on the passport (we had a letter from the embassy saying the original passport had been stolen) the Guatemalan security gaurds gave him a hard time for about an hour before finally letting him go through. Made it to Houston. Going through customs, the stupid passport literally having all his information on a sticker stuck into the passport, had the hardest time scanning the passport. Finally going through, he made it to his connection flight 15 min before the plane was to take off, hence the doors being shut and missing his flight. Only other option was to Newark, NJ. Very different then Dulles. Arriving around 3:00 in the morning and without a wallet, his wonderful, amazing, awesome brother came to get him and drive him back to Richmond. When I called at 8:00 the next morning, mind you I had left him around 11:30 am the day before, he was about half an hour away from home.
The lesson in all this?? 1. Don't dress nicely because you can't lift your own things and you never take as strong of ownership of other people's things as you would your own. 2. Don't lose your passport. The consequences are intense!
Picture taken after the passport was lost, before he had the awful trip back home.

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