Polochik!

I don't know how I did this, but I forgot to tell a very important story from our touristy walkabout in Coban. In the afternoon, we went to a market that sold fruits, clothing, purses, and stuff like that. There were four or five of us walking around, looking very not-Guatemalan, and we had to have stuck out majorly. All of the sudden, out of nowhere, this little boy jumped out at us. He must have been four or five and was just adorable. We were eating some fruit we'd bought at the market and he held out a grubby little hand, asking for one. We gave him one, and he was delighted when he realized that some of us spoke Spanish. He started showing off, dancing around, and jumping out at us when we thought we'd lost him. But my favorite moment was when he started crawling toward us on the ground on his fingertips and the tips of his toes. He shouted, "Yo soy el Hombrearaña!" "I am Spiderman!" I was so surprised and thrilled that I couldn't help but laugh and give him some more fruit, so he followed us around as long as we were there. It turned out that his grandmother ran one of the stalls, but he was allowed to basically run free in the market, so everyone knew him and thought he was super cute. I think he was too:

After our amazing concert in Coban, we got a good night's sleep and then got up early the next morning to have breakfast before hitting the road. Although I loved the opportunity to spend some time in Coban, I was really excited to head out. I hadn't really ever known Coban as a missionary, and had no particular sentimental attachement to the place (although I certainly do now!). But today we'd make our first stop in the Polochik Valley. We'd be leaving the cool, foggy hills of Coban and dropping down into the hot, dirty, dusty, humid towns along the road.

When I entered the mission field in August of 2010, I was assigned to El Estor. If I had to describe El Estor, I would use one word: HOT. And I would spell it out in capital letters, too. I'm going to belabor this point, because if you haven't been there, you have no idea what this kind of tropical heat is like. I've lived in Texas and Arizona, and I have never felt such debilitating heat as I endured the first few months of my mission. The air is so thick and muggy that you can feel it tangibly if you wave your hand around. It's so hot that when it rains and hits the ground, it steams and you always feel like you're breathing out of a humidifier. You go to sleep sweating and you wake up sweating, and even if there were a heater on the running water, you wouldn't want to use it because the only time you're not sweating is when you're in a cold shower. It's so hot that one time, when I burned my hand as a missionary, we couldn't find any running water that ran cool enough to do me any good.

That's how hot it is. I just wanted to make that clear.

So when I think of Qeqchi people, I think of HOT. I think of being sunburned and sweating, and little kids with dark, dark skin but sun-bleached hair. The heat had everything to do with our missionary work. We had to plan to be in lessons during the hottest part of the day, and we had to recognize that if it was too hot people would be sleeping in hammocks or bathing to try to cool off.

I guess that's why Coban didn't really connect with me. There was no heat. But now we'd be leaving Coban and heading toward Tucuru. And I knew what would happen, and I have to admit I was eager to see how all the non-return-missionaries would react. We'd head out, and as we left Coban behind, we'd start to feel the temperature go up, and then the dust from the road would kick up. The further down the road we got, we'd start to feel the closeness of the buses. We'd all be shocked at how rapidly things would go from temperate to horrifying.

It happened pretty much like that. Except that right as we left the nice paved road and hit the crazy dirt roads, it started to sprinkle. Tender mercies, because we had perfect driving conditions. When it's not raining, the road gets so dusty you can't see much in front of you, and you arrive at your destination covered in grime. When it rains, the dirt roads become potholed, slippery, and sticky, so that you're constantly smashing up and down in your seat. But with a gentle sprinkle, the road was clear and the dust was down, leaving everyone free to admire the spectacular scenery. Here's an example:

And here's another:

And one more. I guess at some point, sweeping green views all start to look the same, but still. :)

It was actually pretty cool to get to watch everyone freak out over how amazing everything looked. I'd seen it so many times before that I had kind of lost my ability to be impressed by it all. Plus, most of the times that I had made that trip, I hadn't been in a nice air conditioned bus. I'd been plastered into a tiny microbus with a 10 person capacity carrying at least 25 people. I had been almost always carsick and just dying to get out. Four hours of that kinda takes away the awe at the spectacular views. But seeing it through fresh eyes was so fun! People from the group were going crazy, taking tons of pictures, hanging out the windows, asking the drivers to stop so they could get a better look. It made me smile.

When we got to Tucuru, we found that we would be performing in a half-finished community center made up of basically scaffolding and bare cinderblock. It had been raining off and on all day, but when we arrived the sun was out for a few minutes. You can see the building in the background:

Right after we got there, it started to pour down rain like you wouldn't believe. The locals had built us a stage out of cinderblock bricks, and we moved them around a little bit to make a little stand for our director to put her music on. When one of the guys dropped one of the cinderblocks, about a thousand cockroaches skittered out of it. In another, someone found a very large tarantula. Fortunately, the guys didn't tell us this before we got settled on the stage. They reserved these facts for after the concert. 

The concert went off pretty well, though we were disappointed that the attendance was so low. We figured the rain had probably slowed people down, since most members would have to walk. We were even more disappointed to learn that two branches had tried to come down the mountain to see us, but had gotten stuck in the mud. Even though attendance was minimal, we did have a few people who braved the rain and mud to come see us, including a few investigators that the missionaries had brought, and the shoe shine kids.

In virtually every town in Guatemala, you can find little boys who will shine your shoes for a few Quetzales. They're usually between about 8 and 14 years old, and these kids are amazing experts. They can whip a pair of shoes into shape in just a few minutes, and they do a great job. Since missionaries area always in need of a good shoe shine, the kids have some sort of missionary super power. They see white shirts and ties from a distance and they will track those elders down. So I imagine that when they saw our buses pull up they must have been ecstatic! Here were all these guys in shirts and ties, and what's more, they were clearly American and probably wouldn't know that a shoe shine was only a couple of Quetz. The RMs didn't get fooled, but some of the other guys wound up paying an inflated price (although I think some of them paid extra just to be charitable), and the shoe shine boys followed us around all day, shouting, "Lustre! Lustre!" even though virtually every member of the group had had their shoes shined. Some more than once.

It was kind of okay though, since they followed us right to the concert. They stayed all the way through it and even cheered a few times. :) We sent them home with pass along cards and introduced them to the elders in Tucuru.

While it wasn't our most successful fireside, we were grateful to have reached those who were there.