Teaching Yoga with Giardia -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from Cafe Kitsch (German Bakery) in Panajachel, Guatemala. It's Sunday morning and my one day off, so I'm splurging on a peanut butter cookie, a rather large cup of coffee and a friend date.

With my pupusa buddy.

Pupusa.

Pupusa.

....

Pupusa.

I've officially completed my first week of teaching at the Yoga Forest. And now that my intestines have somewhat calmed the hell down and I'm not spending a goodly portion of my time whimpering in the composting toilet, I've discovered something rather startling.

I really, really love it here. Like, a lot. Like, I've never been so happy before in a residential yoga environment. I've had three unfortunate experiences with yoga retreats, wherein making money was prioritized well above health, and spirituality is turned into a kind of tourism. At these retreat centers, we were never fed enough, facilities were lacking, and there was just a general vibe of scarcity due to all the penny pinching. And when guests and staff aren't even being fed properly, the complaining starts. And continues. And becomes the appetizer, main course and dessert of every conversation.

All that said, I really love the Yoga Forest. And so does everyone I met who's been there. The environment is laid-back and friendly. The grounds are breathtaking. Guests are fed three nutritious, enormous meals every day. There is coffee in the morning and an endless supply of tea.

There is also an endless supply of peanut butter.

Which is reason enough for me to love The Yoga Forest.

Each morning starts off with me heading down forty stone steps and taking a sharp right towards the composting toilet (it's a blessing when this trek only occurs in the morning and not all night). I spend a moment appreciating the view of Lake Atitlan from the toilet seat, cover my poo with  two scoops of sawdust and then wash my hands with ash.

It's truly amazing how quickly the human body/mind/thing can adapt to radically different situations.

It was less than three weeks ago that I was living with Cathy. Where I had my own bathroom with a shower and a magically deep tub... and this light that came on automatically whenever I entered the toilet area. And now I stumble down forty stairs with my headlamp to get to the toilet, cover my poo with sawdust and wash my hands with ash. 

Wow. 

Then I amble along a narrow ledge over to the Yoga Shalla. The first few times I walked this path, I experienced moments of brief panic looking down -- my mind going back to that one time I fell off the side of the road in San Jose del Pacifico. But I've since discovered that it's much more useful to be looking up when in places like this. Due to the prodigious amount of rain this area receives, mudslides aren't a rare occurrence. Whilst trotting to the shall this morning, a clump of hill dissolved right above me, plopping a rock the size of a football literally right in front of my toes.

Meditation starts at 6:15. There are a vast array of bells and Tibetan bowl things to clang on, and sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by choice that I just skip the intro music and go straight into, "and begin to focus on the sensation of your breath..." For the most part, my meditations are guided. But today I just led a mind dump (twenty minutes stream of consciousness writing) followed by a vipassana meditation.

After meditation, I lead whoever's had the willpower to rouse themselves from bed in a 90 minute vinyasa flow practice. Which is really where I come alive as a teacher (when I'm not dying of plague, that is). I've never practiced yoga in such an idyllic place before. The yoga shalla is constructed almost entirely out of bamboo, is located right next to a waterfall and has a view of the lake and volcanoes in the distance. So we practice to the sound of birds chirping, water pouring into the pool and then bubbling down the hillside in little brooks beside the shalla.

I told you it was idyllic.

Then we all gather around the outdoor kitchen table, join hands and bless the food with the meal chant. I don't quite have it memorized yet, but there's a lot of "Om," Brahma," and "Shanti" going on in there. I'll probably get it down pat the day before I leave.

Because I'm efficient like that.

But I approve of this chanting business. In fact, I'll probably create one of my own when I leave here. Except substitute ever other "Brahma" with "Bacon".

Because I'm obsessive like that.

Breakfast is always papaya, pineapple, oatmeal, bread, PEANUT BUTTER and honey. Eggs are thrown into the mix every now and then (lovingly donated by the several chickens who live in The Yoga Forest), and this morning we were all in rapture over some manner of plantain mash fried in coconut oil.

We wash our dishes with either ash or soap, give them a quick rinse in filtered water and then a dip in filtered water avec kombucha vinegar (to finish off all the nasty bacteria). Then the guests break out their books or guitars, and I grab a bowl and go off on my merry way to gather salad greens for lunch. I also sweep the yoga shalla, place new flowers  (offerings) on the altar and upload a photo or two to the Yoga Forest's instagram account.

In the afternoon, I either mosey down the hillside into San Marcos to Skype Boy, or I spend the entire time confined to my bed. All depending on how my intestines are treating me.

I teach the afternoon yin yoga class at four o'clock and usually follow it with an hour of acro yoga.

Again, all depending on how my intestines are treating me.

The best night for dinner at the Yoga Forest is Friday. Because Friday night is pizza night.

Enough said.

Friday night, the table of the outdoor kitchen positively brims, bursts, American Thanksgiving style with vegetables and cheese. The two Guatemalan women in charge of the kitchen toss out pizza crust after pizza crust with admirable alacrity (tossing out a couple gluten-free, here and there), and we slather them with pesto, tomato sauce, vegetables and cheese to our heart's content.

How we blend tomato sauce for pizza. Blender bike. Amazing. 

You wish you had a machete with which to cut your pizza...

However, regardless of how delicious and nutritious dinner may be (or how many machetes are used to slice the pizza), we always devolve into discussing chocolate and cheese.

(I may or may not be a major contributor to these conversations)

Then I walk back up the hill and go to bed. If I'm feeling extra energetic, I'll stay up until nine o'clock reading a book I borrowed from Erin, but usually I just curl up in my cabin bed and pass out.

That's on a good day.

I'm finishing this post from Shamballa, a cafe I'm visiting due to the probiotics on the menu. Probiotics I now need because of the antibiotics I'm now taking. Antibiotics I'm now taking because I've managed to pick up a nasty case of giardia.

The pupusas never happened. I finished my cup of coffee and my gluten-free peanut butter cookie and immediately started feeling acute pain all over my body. Gas bubbles bulging my belly, creeping into my ribcage, even working their way into my armpits. I ran to the toilet, desperate to release some of the painful gas.

And discovered that my two days of respite from explosive diarrhea were only that -- two days of respite.

SHIT. I thought I was done. God, I was so ready to be done. I thought everyone said I could only get this thing once -- why is it back? I DIDN'T INVITE IT BACK. 

So instead of drinking rum, practicing yoga and eating pupusas (which was the original plan), Erin treated me to a smoothie, took me to her home, made me tea, gave me grapefruit seed extract, let me take a hot shower and use a real toilet (I wept tears of bliss), and told me that the sulphur burps I'd been experiencing were a telltale sign of giardia.

Which is fun.

After helping me buy the correct antibiotics, Erin and I parted ways. I was feeling two hundred percent miserable (now with a fever and a raging headache) and still had a forty-five minute boat ride back to San Marcos (in the rain) and a twenty-five minute walk up a steep hill (in the rain) ahead of me.

I may or may not have cried a little.

I ended up curling into a pathetic little ball in the side of the boat, head buried in my red daybag and flinching every time the water from the lake splashed up into the boat.

How can such a beautiful place be so damn toxic? 

Cyanobacteria Lyngbya exists all over the world, but has reached toxic levels in Lake Atitlan due to the fact that not many (if any) if the towns along the lake deal with their sewage properly. Erin told me that at least half of Panajachel's sewage goes straight into the lake. And since Cyanobacteria Lyngbya feeds off of human waste, it's having an absolute party here in the mountains of Guatemala.

In 2010, the Minister of Environmental Health in Guatemala said, "There is evidence that a low percentage of cyanobacteria has produced a toxin that causes liver damage, diarrhea, skin problems and hepatic encephalopathy, among other diseases."

Delicious.

The woman sitting next to me on the bumpy boat asked if I was feeling okay.

"No. No, I'm not. I have giardia and feel terrible."

"Oh no... you know, I have a friend who sells some natural medicine that --"

"I just bought antibiotics, though..."

"Oh, well you better take those, then. And take good care of yourself. Eat lots of bananas. And don't drink water from cups that have cracks in them -- that's how you can get hepatitis."

This total stranger was so motherly and friendly that I burst into tears. I cried about how my birthday wish this year was for a solid poo. I cried about the distance from my room to the loo. I cried about how I've never been sick like this before whilst vagabonding and just had no idea what to do.

The kind lady listened and empathized. Told me that she'd had the same thing years back and nearly died from it -- went all the way down to eighty-nine pounds.

"I've already lost five," I moaned.

The kind lady ended up giving me a hundred quetzals (which I will use to buy probiotics to help out my gut after the antibiotics finish wreaking their havoc) and bought me a banana, giving me her phone number and asking me to please call her if I wasn't feeling better in the morning.

What a beautiful human being. 

The walk back to The Yoga Forest wrecked me. The pain must have shown all over my body, because a total stranger looked at me and said, "I hope your stomach feels better."

Sunday night can easily be ranked as one of the most painful nights of my life thus far. Headache turned into migraine. Fever intensified. Excruciating gas bubbles continued to burble and gurgle and send me rushing down the forty stairs and to the toilet with frustrating regularity.

In the pouring rain.

And I have to teach yoga in the morning... 

Monday morning's yoga class wasn't the most vigorous I've ever taught... but it went smoothly and I was actually feeling chipper enough (god bless Metronidazol) to eat some of the morning's papaya and pineapple.

I spent the rest of the morning resting. My gut felt better, but my whole body felt completely drained. Totally exhausted. Sapped of energy.

I'm still happy to be here, even though my insides are less than pleased. It's still a wonderful opportunity, I'm still connected with gorgeous human beings and I still get to see this every morning when I wake up --

Girl's just so over diarrhea. Thankfully, the antibiotics are helping and I'm feeling significantly better than I felt on Sunday (and currently suffering no side-effects from the antibiotics).

Also, the resident kitties at The Yoga Forest are venturing out of their home upstairs, to the absolute delight of all the guests.

So things are looking up for this lady.