mountaintops

It’s weeks like these that I love. The good-kind-of-exhausting weeks. These past two have left me breathless and so alive all at once.

I returned yesterday evening from a few days traveling in the mountains of Quiché with the Doctor and two new friends, Alice and Ana from England! These girls are my age and in their final year of medical school. Incredibly, both their personalities added a whole new level of fun to our journey and the 4 of us got along so well—3 white girls and a Guatemalan doctor.  A great team, indeed. We spent a lot of time laughing at completely random jokes that you wouldn’t understand (I'm sorry, I always hated when I wasn’t included in an inside joke), learning about each other’s lives, and of course, seeing patients in the clinic located in La Perla—the farm community in the mountains I visited a couple months ago by airplane. I’ve got no pictures to show this time, as I’ve recently misplaced my camera charger! So very frustrating!!! Ah, well, it’s the memories that count.

Since I have no photos, I will try to describe La Perla to you in words.  It goes like this: sun-beating-down during the daytime and fresh mountain air at night. Also, beware the mosquitoes after the sun has set (and giant spiders, cockroaches, and crickets in your bedroom).  Muddy puddles and dusty trails leading to many different places, a simple wooden bridge to walk across over a stream, every farm animal you can imagine walking around wherever he wishes, and all kinds of heavy green plant life along the paths. The beautiful dark-skinned and shy-eyed children meet you along the roads, carrying bundles of sticks on their heads or taking a little brother or sister by the hand. Some dress in the traditional Quiché clothing, but not all. Like I said, they are quite shy (towards us visitors, at least) and you are usually the first one to say hello. If you look up, you’ll spot more children walking or playing in the paths that go up the mountainsides, and if you’ll wave they wave right back and shout hello; it’s not so intimidating to greet a foreigner from a further distance. J

I was very touched after we finished clinic the first day, as I ran into a girl about 10 years old who looked familiar to me. I knew I had probably had a brief interaction with her 2 months ago when I visited the first time in February, but I couldn’t remember it well since I saw so many kids that time. On this particular afternoon, we exchanged hellos and how’s it goings, and then she said my name aloud, “Cristina!” I was so surprised that she remembered my name! I mean, I know that white girls probably don’t come through La Perla too often, so it isn’t too crazy that she remembered, but still for some reason it totally made my day. And now I don’t want to forget her name:  Maylín. 

The way home was a lot of fun. We all came in a pick-up truck and not an airplane this time, so the ride home was pretttty long and bumpy. We girls wanted to ride in the back, and of course Dr. Rivera didn’t want to miss out on such an adventure, so he joined us too. The road is extremely rocky and very twisty through the mountainsides. Nobody got sick or too-battered (we are all sore, though!),we managed to just miss a slight landslide (phew), and upon reaching our destination we were all covered in a thin layer of powder from the dusty roads. The mountains were overwhelming and the views off the cliffs staggering. The Creation we witnessed was just breathtaking and I will never forget that experience! Was especially cool once we got further down and started going through some small villages and towns. I felt like I was in a National Geographic magazine. Whole families all dressed in their brightly colored skirts carrying loads of big sticks to use for fire at home, women carrying large buckets on their heads, men wearing their traditional hats, old wrinkly-faced men leading donkeys down the road. Most every time we passed people, they would do a double take and look our way again. Must have been a little strange to see some very smiley girls waving at them in the back of a truck. J

Adventures like these make me so thankful for my life and that I am part of this big world, even though there in those mountains I felt so very small. It is incredible the places God leads us sometimes. He doesn’t always lead us to the big and wild places like the highlands of some Central American country, but most of the time we do ordinary things in our ordinary lives like going to the grocery store or making a quick visit to Grandma’s house. It’s really anywhere we go that we can be surprised by whose lives we might touch, and more surprising yet, who might touch ours. That's why I love life, and especially life in Christ, because I know who all these good and precious gifts come from.

Happy weekend, brave ones!

Kristen