You're not in the jungle anymore, Bourget.
"How do you feel about leaving The Forest?" I was asked by my co-volunteers.
"I feel ready," I responded. With alacrity and certainty. "It's time. I'm ready to live in a home again, not a tent. I'm ready for a kitchen and just a bit more food autonomy. And honestly, I'm ready to live in a place that offers a more diverse community. In San Marcos, it's just hippies and locals whose economy revolves around catering to hippies. And neither really fits me."
Girl wants a city. Just more choices.
My final week at The Forest was tough. In order to not burden the other volunteers with my shifts/yoga classes, I found myself in a situation wherein I needed to take on four morning shifts in a row, followed by teaching four afternoon yoga classes.
Which basically meant working from 7:00 am to 5:30 pm with a two hour break. Which, when put in writing, seems a bit silly to complain about. I mean, it's pretty much what the rest of the western world does, yes? Work 7-9 hours a day?
Well... Bourget, you might not be a San Marcos level hippie, but neither are you the finest exemplar of the western world.
Right. Because the western world gets paid cash money for their 7-9 hours, and you get a circus tent and three vegetarian, belly-combusting meals a day.
Shut up, Bourget. You're jaded again. With volunteering and work exchanges and such. Give yourself a few months to process this, distance yourself from it, and then maybe you'll find more softness for this experience.
...
There have been beautiful moments. And lots of them. That day you got to make everyone omelettes for breakfast. New Year's Eve up at Lakshmi with the view of the lake and the fireworks. When we all went to Cafe El Artesano for an afternoon of drunkenness and cheese. The San Pedro ceremony with Jaya and Saraswati. Every single pizza night when you hid a beer in your water bottle and sliced pizza after pizza that Tammo popped in and out of the clay oven.
Most nights in the circus tent. Looking up at the solar powered Christmas lights, lighting a candle, listening to either wind, rain, or a cacophony of critters. And the church + bombs. Always the church + bombs.
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday went smoothly. I finished my space holding shifts, taught my yoga classes, and even threw a massage or two into the mix.
It feels good to end so strongly. To be healthy enough to finish my time here giving massages and teaching yoga. I... I think I've succeeded in not checking out before I actually check out. Which... which means a lot for me. I think I can leave the Forest much more gracefully than I've left other work exchanges that turned from healthy to unhealthy for me.
Tuesday was a bit nuts. Tuesday was one of those days wherein I wasn't really sure if Tuesday was real life or some manner of realistic, interminable dream.
Tuesday started off normal enough. As Tuesdays generally do. I sliced two pineapples, two papayas, prepared a batch of hibiscus, ginger, mint, pineapple tea, and prepped cacao for that afternoon's sound ceremony.
Tuesday was hot. Sweltering, really. And as morning listlessly lagged into afternoon, the heat reached an oppressive, stifling level that drove me to the shower after my shift ended at two pm.
You are not a creature of the jungle, Bourget.
Somewhat refreshed, I skipped down the stairs to the Submarine, hoping my tent wouldn't be a total sauna and that I could rest/ practice pack Fat Ellie for a few minutes before teaching my afternoon yoga class.
What's that sound? I paused from rummaging through my things. It's almost like firecrackers. But tons of them. And close. Is it... no, it can't be. We've had way too much rain lately. But still... that sound...
I rushed from the Submarine to the gate of the Yoga Forest and stared at the gigantic plumes of smoke billowing up from the neighboring hillside.
FUCK.
"FUEGO, FUEGO, FUEGO!" I heard the guard yelling into his radio. Moments later, the kitchen ladies came careening down the stairs, balancing giant jugs of water and chatting nervously to each other. Then Tammo raced down with a shovel. Several other workers followed him to the fire, all carrying water or machetes or shovels.
I... don't know what to do...
So I walked up the stairs and found my manager.
"Noelle, what do you want me to do? Should I still teach the afternoon yoga class?"
"No, the only people who came up asked for their money back and ran away," she responded, balancing a jug of water on her hip.
"Can I help with the fire?"
"You can find the rest of the workers and get them to come help," she continued her precarious journey down the stairs.
Gotcha. Good thing I've been studying Spanish.
I found the rest of the workers and told them to abandon their projects and fight the fire.
"Cinco minutos," some of them responded to my urgent request.
"No, ahora," I insisted.
Are you kidding? Five minutes? Like, let me finish my tea first, then I'll be with you? Ahorita? I guess when forest fires are just a part of your dry season reality, it's too exhausting to get your panties in a twist every time one breaks out. Even if it's close enough to hear it crackle. The fire. Not the panties.
Two of Tammo's climbing buddies had shown up for an afternoon of climbing, but they gamely switched activities to an afternoon of fire fighting. I helped them find the Forest's supply of shovels and picks, and they carried them down to the fire and joined the fray.
I need to do SOMETHING, I thought as I gazed at the greedy red flames, licking the dry hillside and leaving a charred, smoking wake.
Blurgh. Something. If I'm close to that smoke, my sinus infection will come back and will torment me for weeks. But. I can't just stand here. Agh.
I filled a giant red bucket with water and ran down the stairs towards the flames, spilling an embarrassing amount of the precious water on my person in the process.
This is impossible.
I gave what was left of the water to some locals, who used it to extinguish glowing embers that the wind could reignite into full-blown blazes.
"We've got it under control down here, but it's still out of control higher up," Noelle told me.
Higher up. Into the smoke. Gotcha.
I followed Eric and Tammo towards the out-of-control-fire. But my lungs didn't let me go very far. I hit the first bit of smoke and keeled over in a coughing fit.
"Aimee, go down," Tammo told me, face covered in soot and sweating like, well, like a northern German fighting a bush fire in Guatemala.
So I regretfully, reluctantly (gratefully), made my way back to The Forest. Where I sat on the porch underneath Shakti Shalla with some of the other guests, as Saraswati and Jaya continued their Sound Ceremony above us. I saw Tammo, Eric, Klervi, Noelle, and other workers throwing dirt onto the flames, and noticed that the wind was pushing the fire up the hill and away from the Forest.
Well... I mean, that's good for us. But there's probably someone on the other side of that hill.
The fire crew would get the flames under control, nearly put the fire out, and then a new burst of ambitious red would appear on the harassed hillside.
Some guests left the Forest that night.
"My grandmother died in a fire," one said as she grabbed her backpack and headed into town. "I can't be here."
"The workers said, "mañana,"" Tammo told me when he finally trudged back up the Forest stairs. "So I guess they think that it'll be fine for tonight."
It is VERY unsettling to be going to bed with a fire that close.
But we did. We all went to bed. And woke up to the crackling of fire.
"I'm taking Fat Ellie into the office," I told Tammo as I prepared some coffee for sunrise trip to the lakefront. "I know everything will be fine, but I'd just feel better knowing she wasn't in the tent. Especially since we're going to be out most of the day."
Fat Ellie stored safely in the office, Tammo and I grabbed our coffee and trotted into town. Just in time for a cloudy sunrise over Lake Atitlan.
What will I miss about leaving the Lake?
Moments like this. Of course. Just having such spectacular nature so accessible.
These peaceful mornings by the water. With someone who has become a dear, dear friend.
Because sure, I'm going to live in a home in Antigua, but it'll be amongst strangers. Again.
I would like a home with friends.
Then you'll have to make some serious changes in your life, Bourget. Because the one you're living right now doesn't leave heaps of space for a home with friends.
So make the most of the final couple weeks of friend-time, and then make the most out of the home you'll have in Antigua. And then (eventually) change things so that you have more space in your life for friends AND home. Together.
You know what's best for you. You know what you need. Now don't just do what's easy. Don't just let life carry you from one experience to another, from one country to the next, from one couchsurfing host to someone else. Actively work on pursuing what's best. Actively work on pursuing what you need.
Sometimes it's nice to float. Sometimes it's better to pay attention to life and stroll through doors already opened.
And sometimes you have to work to build doors. And create opportunities. And it's hard work. And it's struggle. And that's okay too.
And you're nearing that time, Bourget. You're nearing the time you will probably have to build doors. Or kick them down, you know. Either or. You're nearing the time when you will have to stop avoiding the hard things in favor of "what flows naturally."
You know you want to go back to university. You know it's what you need. You know it's what's best.
Frankly, the reason you've been avoiding it for the past couple of years?
You hate paperwork. It gives you anxiety. You're afraid of taking entrance exams and failing. You're not in school studying psychology right now because the application process scares the bananas out of you.
You know Colorado isn't best for you. You know it's unhealthy. But you keep going back there because it's easy. Because you have connections. Because you have friends and family to support you. Because you can easily find work doing what you love, if only for a few months.
The reason you haven't made a home in Montreal or another city that would be WAY better for you in the long run, is because you're afraid of starting over. And, I mean, you start over every week or so on the road, but that's different. That's easy, low-pressure, low-stakes. You're afraid of starting over in a place you want to develop new connections, a place you want to call home. A place that will really matter.
You're scared because you know that even though Montreal would make a much better home, you might have to start off working a job that drains you. That doesn't fulfill you. A job in which you struggle to find meaning and contentment.
But that doesn't mean it wouldn't be BEST. And you should stop avoiding it just because it will probably be hard.
I think that's one of the lessons I'm going to take from here. One of the many.
After our cloudy sunrise, Tammo and I scampered back to the Forest in time for breakfast. Then I led a three hour Thai Massage workshop (which felt fabulous), after which we ran back into town and hopped on a boat bound for San Juan. Where we shared a lunch of gourmet pizza and gelato at Pequeños Pecados (little sins).
After eating way too much pizza far too quickly, we stumbled back to the dock and continued to San Pedro. Where I received another haircut from Ross, we bought snacks for a volunteer campfire, ordered final smoothies from Da Juice Girls, and then returned to San Marcos.
We closed the day with a share circle around a campfire (which felt just a wee bit odd, given how much trouble we'd gone through to extinguish a fire the day before).
I am going to miss nights like these. I am going to miss the security of routine. I am going to miss the view from the composting toilet and the shower. I am going to miss living with friends.
But it's time to go. It's time to focus on my health, my Spanish, my art.
I'm grateful for what I've learned here. About myself, about others, about life and things and such and such. But I'm also grateful to be moving on. I want different hard things in my life. I don't want going to the toilet to be a hard thing. Or dealing with difficult guests. Or worrying about giardia. Or charging my laptop. Or confusion over who reserved which space for a massage. Or teaching yoga to twenty rambunctious Israelis who've never done yoga before and just came up to the Forest because they wanted a picture of themselves doing Tree Pose in a pretty yoga studio with a view of a volcano.
I'm ready for new adventures. New challenges. I want the act of actually learning Spanish to be hard, not having a charged computer/wifi to be hard.
I am so fascinated reading you,your adventures and talents you are really special Aimee,I admire you and hope that you will find a niche where you belong!
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