Suffering is subjective: shedding my layers

Three weeks have passed since I arrived on the shores of Lake Atitlan.  Last night I was in San Pedro, a town close to the farm, and when I looked into the mirror at one of the hostels, I realized how much I had changed.  There was a calmness to my face, my hair wasn't perfectly in place, my eyes glowed with a sense of peace they had never before experienced, there was dirt under my fingernails as I gently brushed my hand against my oily complexion; there was a spring to my step, a lightness, I had no where to be but there, right there, in that moment, nothing else mattered.  I smiled to myself in the mirror.  The journey had only just begun, but I didn't exactly know who was looking back at me.

My eyes didn't recognize this person, this man.  The little boy inside of me laughed.  "It's you silly," he said.  "Your eyes might need more time to adjust, but your heart already knows this person."  I laughed back at my inner child, so young, yet so wise.  You brought me here, I thought.  I had shed so many layers so quickly, that it was hard to even recognize myself.  That night, as I laid my head gently onto my pillow, I began to think about all the people and events that had influenced this transformation.  At the heart of the transformation were the Guatemalan natives, always smiling, hard at work, enjoying each moment of their lives, never taking it for granted.   Suffering is subjective, I thought.  When I first arrived here, I looked at these people with pity and wondered how they dealt with this suffering.  But now I look up to them.  They're not suffering at all.  They're in total bliss.  Allow me to paint this picture for you.

The town of Santiago lacks the abundance, wealth, and convenience you would find in most US cities.  With it's unpaved, rocky roads and minimalistic architecture, the small town exhibits a mysterious charm, which can only be found well below its surface.  A small boat (lancha) drops you off at the main dock, where the lake water has risen so high that you can barely make it off the dock without getting your shoes a little wet.  10-15 boatmen of all ages usually greet you with a nod or "buenas dias" as you step off the dock and onto the muddy puddles covered in different types of debris.  As you begin to make your way up the steep hill to the city center, you realize that everyone knows you are a tourist and wants to sell you something.  In fact, almost everyone is a businessman/woman here in Santiago.  And their daily purpose everyday is to sell, sell, sell.

There's a man selling coconuts to your right,  two woman (probably mother and daughter) selling handmade jewelry, a young boy around 7 tugging at your pant leg, a huge smile across his face, carrying a big basket of nuts.  "Do you want some nuts?  They're the best," he tells you in Spanish.  Out of sheer pity you give him 5 quetzales (about $.75) for a small bag of nuts and continue your way up the 'road."  There are no traffic lights, no shopping centers, and definitely no McDonald's here.  A stray dog or two come running down the hill, as you are almost hit by a Tuc-Tuc (a three wheeled minicar and the only form of transportation), as it comes whizzing up the hill.  Sorry, but pedestrians don't have the right of way here.  In fact, no one really knows who has the right of way.

Small stores and fruit/vegetable stands flood the streets.  Everywhere you turn you see someone selling something or a hungry, stray dog wandering aimlessly around, hoping it can find enough food to get it through the day.  You see children running around barefoot, their faces and hands gently colored with dirt.  Everyday is 'bring your kids to work day.'  An old woman around 80 walks by you with a large bag of goods balancing on her head.  She's moving so slowly, yet she seems like she is flying somehow; her skin is a bright, sunburnt orange, and her face looks like it was crafted by a two-year old playing with play-do for the first time.

You find it hard to look into people's eyes, because they immediately think you want to buy something from them."Tomates...manzanas....queso...aguacates...patayas...." A cacophony of music fills your ears as they desperately try to bring you to their corner of the street market .  Most of them are sitting and have one or two items they specialize in.  Their faces light up as they see they have your attention; they smile at you with missing teeth, while the more fortunate ones sport shiny, golden veneers that look like they put-in themselves.   As you decide to buy a couple apples from the poor-looking, old woman with no teeth, a strong wind comes through and blows sand from the streets into your frightened eyes.  You can't see anything for a couple seconds as you help your eyes recover.  When you're finally able to open them again, you quickly grab an apple and find that most of them are pretty rotten.  A shrug of the shoulders and a pity smile help you get past the old lady and into the main market.

Finally!  You breathe a sigh of relief.  You can find everything you need here, you think.  The food must be fresher in here.  But as you make your way into the heart of the market, you are stunned to find that the cement floors are covered in dirt and many of the same people on the streets are in this so-called market.  Stray dogs are everywhere.  The "aisles" are so narrow that you can barely get passed anyone else with your bags, and you are constantly being rubbed up against by these filthy, soulless dogs who look to you desperately, pity engulfing their big, sad eyes.  

Flies are all over this market, zipping from one fruit to the other.  The butcher has his meats lined up, trying to shoo away these flies that are trying to get to his precious slabs of beef.  A woman puts out a large bowl with many different, raw chicken parts.  She grabs one of the chicken heads, delicately chops off the beak, and throws it into the bowl with the other 7 chicken heads.  She also has chicken feet, which is surprisingly very popular with the locals, bones and all.  The bowl is infested with flies, blood stains the counter she is cutting on, and the front of the counter is covered in blood stains from months ago.  The FDA would shut down this place in a second.  Actually, they wouldn't even come into this market.

But the people just go about their business.  This is all vey normal to them.  You begin to feel deep sorrow for these people and the way they have to live.  Part of you is very disgusted by everything around you.  You don't want to touch anything and wonder how you are possibly going to get some clean food to eat.  I'm in a third world country, you think to yourself.  THIS is what suffering is all about.    How lucky have I been all my life?!  I couldn't possibly live like this.  But as you continue to look around, you realize that not only is no one else fazed by this.... but they are actually smiling.  These poor, dirty people are happy.  You try to understand it, but your mind is not yet capable.

This was my experience the first time I went to Santiago.

Now that I've painted the picture for you, I'd like to tell you two stories that I will never forget.  These two events are a few of many that have helped change my perspective about suffering and happiness over the last few weeks.  The first story is below; the second one will start my next blog.

Precious Coconuts
On many occasions, I was asked to go into Santiago and buy fruits/vegetables for the farm.  Most of these eye-opening trips I took with Nick, one of the coolest people on the farm and a great friend.  He's been one of my biggest teachers.  Considering there are no grocery stores or shopping centers in Santiago, you basically have to go from store to store, stand to stand, until you find everything that you need (and most of the time you can't find everything... brown sugar in Santiago?  Forget it).    These trips usually took 5-6 hours beginning to end.  Crazy, I know.

So towards the end of our 5 hour shopping spree, we were tired and needed to just sit down and have a cold drink.  Luckily, a man close to us had a coconut stand!  Man, I love coconut water.  One of my favorite things to buy in the states were coconuts.  But this guy was a one-stop shop.  He actually cuts the coconut for you and gives you a straw.  Very cool, I thought.

As we get closer to the stand, I realize the man is not alone.  In fact, his entire family is there with him.  His wife comes out of this small hut behind the stand with his two little children, probably 3 and 6 respectively.  The children are not wearing shoes and their clothes look like they haven't been washed in a long time.  The man sits down on his chair, which is actually a large tree stump, and grabs his small boy and places him gently on his lap.  He smiles at us and asks us to pick out our coconut.  But I can't take my eyes off the boy, his eyes beaming with life and joy, the biggest smile I've ever seen beautifully decorating his small face.

Nick breaks me out of it and tells me to pick out a coconut.  They all look the same to me, I thought.  I pick one and hand it to the man.  Then he goes back to the hut and brings out two small plastic bins, turns them upside down and tells us to have a seat.  At first, I felt uncomfortable as I looked at his barefoot family standing, looking at us. Shouldn't they be sitting down?  They look more tired than I do. But he was so happy to have us there that I knew it would be rude not to take a seat.

Then he pulled out a machete (which almost every man carries, as most of them work on farms or in the forest).  He scraped the machete against the tree stump, and I couldn't help but notice that it was pretty tarnished and looked unsanitary.  Wait... he's going to cut MY coconut with THAT thing?  It's definitely not clean, I thought.  I looked at Nick to see if he was thinking the same thing, but he only looked on, eager to taste the sweet juice that awaited him.  Well, I guess this is okay, I thought.  After all, the knife wouldn't be touching the coconut water and I would be able to use a straw.

As he cut the tops off our coconuts, I looked down at my hands, and realized how dirty they were.  We had been running all over town, God only knows what I had been touching the last few hours.  I reminded myself that I get to use a straw, so no worries.

The kind man finished cutting our coconuts and as he began reaching for the straws, I saw that his hands were dirtier than mine.  Much dirtier;  his fingernails lovingly protecting a few layers of dirt.  As he touched the top of my straw, my heart & stomach sank.  I was going to have to put my lips around the part of the straw that his thick, filthy fingers just caressed.  Another look back at Nick was met with another blank stare, his thirst aching to be quenched.  I'll just wipe it off real quick with my shirt, I thought.  No biggie.

So, there we sat.  Enjoying our delicious coconuts.  Well, he was enjoying his, but all I kept envisioning was bacteria from those stubby little hands engulfing my stomach.  I had heard so much about how common it was to get a parasite in this country.  I was just about convinced that I was swallowing one up right there and then.  I quickly finished mine and patiently waited for Nick to finish his.  He enjoyed every second of it, his dirty, long, thin fingers wrapped around the straw.  I was anxiously waiting for this all to be over.

But little did I know, this was only the beginning.  Nick finished sipping his coconut and handed it back to the man.  Next thing I knew, the man began cutting into the coconut shell, one precise cut at a time.  "What is he doing?" I asked Nick.  "I want to eat the actual coconut.  It's the best part." Nick replied.  I couldn't really believe what was happening.  I was obviously impressed by the coconut man's cutting skills, but he was cutting the coconut with a freakin' dirty-ass machete.  And as he got closer to the inside, my eyes got bigger and bigger.

Before I knew it, the entire shell was gone and all you could see was the beautiful, white fruit.  He put down his big, filthy knife, and handed the unprotected, pretty fruit to Nick with his fat little fingers.  "He is NOT going to eat that?!"  I yelled in my mind.  Not only did he eat it, but he used his own blackened fingers to rip the fruit apart before inserting it into his mouth.  I was trying so hard not to let him see how appalled I was.  He looked at me with that silly grin on his face and told me to give mine to the man so that I could join him in this bliss.  I looked right at him and said, "I don't think I'm ready for this."  At first he didn't understand, but soon began chuckling to himself.  Where the hell am I?!  I thought.  He's not from here and this is okay with him?

After he ate half of the fruit, he licked a few of his fingers.  I was getting nauseous at this point. "Time to get going again," he said.  I was more than ready to get out of there.  We thanked the nice man and started back up the hill towards the market.

With half the fruit still dangling from his fingers, he looked at me with a smile and said, "Dude, I can't finish this, you want the rest?"   I laughed as he realized how disgusted I was.  A few moments later, two boys came running past us.  "I'm gonna offer this to them" he said.  "What?  They're definitely not going to take it from you," I told him.  Unfazed by my comment, he walked back and offered the last precious pieces of the coconut to these boys.  To my amazement, their faces lit up, as they grabbed it out of his hand and began playfully fighting for it.  I stood there... stunned.  What I had found utterly appalling, they saw as a beautiful, delicious piece of fruit.  My disgust was their miracle.