Little Things, Big Deals, & Seeing What You Wish Were Not There

What a week I had. I started the week going to the NGO’s office for the monthly meeting. The meetings were not that much more successful than the last ones.

Learning from my past experience, I arrived 40 minutes early just in case they were more whims of leaving early. Unfortunately, instead of beginning at 8:00am and only waiting 40 minutes, we began at 10:00am. The topics started out interesting; they were on sustainable agriculture and gender situations in Guatemala. The meeting, though, too quickly moved from this into analyzing each region’s project expectations, goals, and plans. This certainly can be a good thing, but we spent hours upon hours discussing tiny miniscule thing. Things were repeated over and over. And I was bewildered that after a 7:30pm dinner, we quickly returned to the meeting til 10pm! Although it is not custom in Guatemala to criticize a boss, I let him know how I felt (after all, I needed to tell him to get out my frustrations so that I could at least sleep the few hours I had).

The next day was the same chatter, but at least we got done at 5pm.

I have asked others if they experience the same thing. Unanimously, I am told that Guatemalan meetings endure for countless hours and involve long discussions, but rarely get much done. I am sure it is not true for all cases, but as for mine, I feel it is true right now.

On Wednesday when I was returning to my site, I had something happen to me that would be frightening in just about anyone’s life. It will probably be something I won’t forget; I will probably see the scene in my head clearly for years. It may have an effect on me or it may not. Really though, I believe that real change, that of mind and heart, comes over time from the small things we do and the small efforts that we make in our lives that build up to something meaningful and impactful. No one has any idea the impact that we have and will have on people through our day-to-day little things. So I guess there is not much to this in itself, but either way, it is something that is affecting me right now on the surface of things.

I was on the bus which I caught just as it was leaving. I quickly went to reading since I had early on trained my stomach and mind to be able to read to occupy the usually long bus rides. About 45 minutes into the trip well into my NY Times section, my favorite section which comes in the Sunday paper here, I heard a loud popping noise coming from the front of the bus. I lowered my paper and raised my head to see something that right now is engrained in my brain. I saw a gun and someone who was firing it repeatedly at the bus driver. I can see over and over again in my mind the bus setting and the gun, as though it were a still frame. I realize I would be a horrible witness because I have no idea neither what the shooter nor his accomplices looked like. I was just shocked. It was not real for me at first. It was as though I had fallen asleep or were watching a movie. I happened so fast that in that entire time, I did not even blink let alone move.

Once the person left with the 2 others who were driving the motorcycle (that is how the shooter got on the bus while we were moving along the highway), someone quickly took control of the bus which was still moving downward on the highway. I am ever thankful that the bus kept moving straight and that no curves were coming up on the highway. The bus was stopped and everyone quickly fled the bus. As I passed the front, I saw the driver hunched over with blood all over. I wanted just to run, but I had not where to go since we were not near a city from what I could see and were stuck in a part of the highway between a wall of mountain and a drop. Furthermore, I had the fear that if I ran away, that there was the chance of running into the assailants. So I stayed with the rest waiting for the police and ambulance. I was trembling and in a state of shock.

Then the bus driver started to move. He was still alive. With a shot in the head and the chest and probably elsewhere since he received 5-6 shots, he was sat down. After seeing this and gaining a little composure, I looked at some of his wounds and tried to tell him and the person helping him to put pressure on the wounds. The advice was not really heeded, but the ambulance arrived soon after while he was still alive.

I reported the incident to Peace Corps who offered me whatever they could: someone could pick me up, I could talk to a counselor or another person from the staff, I could stay at the office or Antigua, etc. With everything they offered, I just took the next bus out; I feel safe in my site and there was little chance I was going to turn around heading back toward the capital city from where the violence stems.

I took a Pullman, which is an older coach bus, back to Jalapa. It was the first time that a bus I had been on had a TV and played a DVD. I cannot tell you how much this little things helped calm myself. It’s another reason one of those things that, I believe, is more than just a coincidence.

I got back to my site just fine and spent the week with the women’s group making a fence for our group compost (a fence is needed because pigs run freely through the area and eat and destroy everything) and with the schools planning how I would world with them throughout the year.

I later learned that the shooting was the cause of businesses fighting against the mafia/gangs here. The mafia, or whatever they are, impost taxes or dues on all the businesses that operate in the capital. The tax paid is to insure that the business wont be “bothered” by the mafia. Well this bus company along with others stopped paying so this mafia started to shoot bus workers like the ones on my bus (They were 2 workers. I was told the bus helper who collects the money was killed first.) and most were killed.

To me, I am happy it was a big deal for the newspapers which meant to me that this level of violence in the 2nd most violent nation in all of the Americas was not normal.

On a lighter note after having a bit of a stomach ache yesterday, I was served stomach soup – just cow stomach and broth. What better way to get rid of stomach pains! The stomach looked like a morel mushroom on one side. Since the family rarely serves meat, I certainly could not pass it down. It was a bit like eating a thick rubber glove. I did not eat that much of the stomach though and asked for more of my staple saying “¿Puedo tener más frijoles, por favor?”