I'm starting this post from the dining room area of the Yoga Forest. I hear the ubiquitous flap-flap-flap-flap as Victoriana makes corn tortillas, shaping the bicycle ground corn into delicious discs between her adept hands. The flap-flap-flap-flap stands out this afternoon, because it's...
... quiet. Sweet, satisfying silence.
Sure, I can still hear the street dogs barking all the way down in San Marcos. Sure, the fireworks still go off every half hour or so. Sure, there's still the occasional guest who huffs and puffs their way up the hill to ask about the four pm yoga class...
... but both retreats have departed. The students of the 300 hour training were awarded their certificates, packed their bags, and glided down the mountain on Tuesday (most yogis glide. It's only the occasional dysfunctional yogi such as myself who "bumbles"). The students of the 200 hour training were awarded their certificates, packed their bags, and glided down the mountain on Thursday.
So now The Yoga is populated by a couple of guests and a myriad of volunteers. And it feels like family again.
It's so much nicer when we can all fit around one table for meals. When I know everyone's name and all the faces are familiar.
All the teacher trainees were wonderful people, but most were caught up in their own intense journey into the world of yoga, and were somewhat difficult to connect with. Because when they weren't in class (which wasn't often), they were studying. When they weren't studying, they were contacting family down at Circles Cafe. Other than that, they were sleeping. So they'd have enough energy for the classes, the studying, the hiking up and down the mountain.
With the teacher trainees, there was such a distinct separation between them and the volunteers. But it never feels that way with guests. Which I love.
My last few days have felt... funky. I've been out of sorts. Discombobulated. Frustrated. My mornings usually start out beautifully... because, well, with this kind of sunrise, how can my morning not be beautiful?
Communication has been unreasonably difficult for me, as of late. My Spanish classes proceed at an exceptionally sluggish pace, as I bashfully struggle to construct the simplest of sentences. Gigi (my Spanish teacher) smiles and laughs and tells me for the seventeenth time that "caballo" is "horse" and "cabEllo" is "hair." So I probably don't brush my caballo every morning.
...
If it was simply Spanish that I struggled with, I'd be slightly less disconsolate about the whole scenario. But the bits and pieces of Spanish collide with the bits and pieces of French, Italian, and Turkish all floating around in my head, like garbage in outer space. Mix this with the fact that every time I sit down to dinner, I hear German, Australian, New Zealand, South African, American, French, and British accents, and you might begin to grasp the depths of my conundrum.
My brain desperately tries to attach meaning to anything and everything it can. And it reaches to the first piece of floating space trash it can get its grubby little neurons on.
"Where's Taylor?"a guest asked about his girlfriend.
"Oh, Kayla's working out in the cave," my brain misheard.
"I want to stay in this same constellation," Jonas said around the dinner table the other night as we discussed our Christmas plans.
"What do you mean?" another volunteer asked.
And my poor, addled brain heard the word, "disconsolate" instead of "constellation." So I spent the next two minutes helpfully explaining the definition of disconsolate to the non-native English speakers. Before Jonas kindly interrupted me.
"Umm... I said constellation."
".... oh."
I was waiting in line to use the toilet the other day, and one of the local women cut in front of me, holding a towel.
Fuck. She's gonna clean the bathroom. And I have to pee so badly. Blurgh.
"Umm..." I scanned my brain for pieces of my miniscule Spanish vocabulary. "Por favor," I motioned to the toilet. "Yo...uh... muy rapido..."
"Solo necesito poner esta toalla en el baño," the Mayan woman patiently responded.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???
"Ach. Por favor," I tried my best to look desperate. Which wasn't hard.
The poor lady just smiled helplessly, understanding the total futility of the situation.
The Scotsman in the bathroom emerged a couple of minutes later, the awkward smile on his face letting me know he'd overheard the whole exchange.
"Eh.... it's all yours."
The Guatemalan woman strode into the bathroom, quickly hung the towel on the towel rod, and then walked out.
She didn't want to clean the bathroom. She just wanted to put a new towel in there.
These are times I hate not being able to understand.
"Oh... uh.... gracias," I hung my head in embarrassment as I closed the toilet door behind me.
I try to speak less these days. Speak less and listen more and better. But this approach doesn't appear to be helping much. The time I spend not speaking, I usually spend beating myself up for all my communication failures.
Which isn't very productive.
Try to be patient with yourself, Bourget. See if you can smile and laugh at all this silliness the way Gigi does.
When I'm not grappling with humiliating communication blunders, I'm finding ways to incorporate my passions into my work exchange at The Forest. To find ways wherein what I want and love to give is what The Forest wants and needs to receive.
The Forest needs help with social media. So I've been taking pictures.
After six years of on again, off again traveling/on again, off again volunteering, I've become much more set in my passions. Much less open to work I don't find meaningful. I want to make art, teach yoga, practice massage therapy, cook, and maybe do the occasional exchange which involves horsemanship.
I want to minimize, as much as possible, whatever falls outside of these categories. Part of me feels selfish for thinking this way. But most of me feels like I'm simply, you know, maturing. Understanding what kind of footprint I want to leave in this world, and actively trying to leave that kind of footprint.
And the moment I discover that what I want and need to give is not what The Forest wants and needs to receive, I'll leave. I'll go somewhere else where I can find more harmony. I'll be super sensitive and make sure I don't become a drain on this place. That I'm meeting needs that genuinely must be met. Oscar Wilde says that selfishness isn't living how one wants to live -- it's asking others to live as one wishes to live.
I won't ask anyone here at The Forest to live how I want to live. But I will unabashedly focus my energy on the passions I have that contribute to this place.
I'm finishing this post from Circles Cafe. The WiFi is experiencing a rare, fleeting moment of not being absolute shit, and it's the one day I don't have a skype date scheduled.
Aimee. The universe is not against you.
Life is just hilarious. Like your Spanish. That's all.
We hosted a devotional concert at The Forest last night, after which all the volunteers and guests built a fire, drank alcohol, and ate junk food.
And my body is now in balance.
I kept quiet around the bonfire, not wanting to mishear and misspeak for the twentieth time that day. But I did ask if I could open the wine.
"When I buy my own wine, I get the cheap kind with the screw top. Because that's all I can afford. So that's what I know how to open. When other people buy wine, they buy the nice kind with the cork. And they open it. So I suck at opening wine with corks. Regardless of how much I love wine with corks. I need to get better at opening them."
"Oh, I can show you!" Anna beamed from across the flames. "I'm a sommelier."
"What?" I said, sure I'd misheard for the twentieth time.
"I'm a sommelier!" Anna beamed again.
"You took the test?" I asked incredulously.
"Well, of course I did!" Anna briskly replied, as if just about everyone takes the sommelier test on Tuesday after coffee.
"Holy bananas," I had nothing else to say.
I took photos of kirtan this morning, and it felt good to slide into the role of photographer again.
 | ||
| Mollie and Anna. The display looked lovely, and I complimented the ladies. "Oh, I was an event manager in Austria!" Anna beamed. I now think Anna's done everything. |
I've been in Guatemala a month and a half now. I'm finding enjoyable ways to contribute to the Yoga Forest and really feel at home here.
Awesome.
Next goal: stop saying "I'm brushing my horse".
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