My Google Calendar vs. Guatemala

Hello Lumos community! I have been on the ground in Antigua, Guatemala for two weeks now. It’s usually about this time, the two-week mark, when I’d be packing up to go home. Instead of packing my bags, I’m processing the fact that I’m not just visiting, I’m staying. And that’s the best, most challenging feeling. 

Thus far, my time has consisted of Spanish classes, long days at the medical clinic, exploring, overcoming a cold, joining a gym, finding a church home, and learning how to dance salsa. But the biggest lessons I’m learning don’t have anything to do with any of these things. 

I’m actively learning (and practicing!) how to let go of control. 

For anyone who knows me, this is probably a little funny. I love a plan. I like knowing what I need to accomplish and what the rest of my week looks like (preferably hour by hour). Between my work here, Spanish classes, and studying for the MCAT, I arrived in Guatemala with a carefully organized Google Calendar and the expectation that I could somehow fit this entire experience neatly inside of it. Everyone reading this is probably laughing and saying, “that’s not really how it works.” 

One of the biggest adjustments so far has been learning to become more flexible. Life within the community I am living and working in often feels much more spontaneous than what I am used to. There have been mornings when I walk downstairs ready for Spanish class only to find out that something else has come up and I’m needed somewhere else instead. My first instinct is immediately to start doing mental gymnastics and say, “Okay, if Spanish moves to the afternoon, when am I going to study for the MCAT? If I study later, when am I going to do everything else?” Two weeks in, I’m beginning to realize that those moments are teaching me as much as my Spanish classes.

Leading trips to Honduras and Guatemala throughout my undergraduate experience at Belmont taught me one of the most important lessons I know about service, which is that you cannot show up in a community assuming you already know what that community needs. You have to listen and learn first. I thought I understood that lesson pretty well. What I didn’t realize was that cultural humility doesn’t end when you leave the clinic. Now, I’m learning what it looks like to wake up and practice it every day in my routine life. It’s harder than I thought.

That has been one of the most humbling parts of living here. I have been so lucky to have traveled quite a bit, and I even lived abroad in Spain for several months during my Global Honors study abroad program. Because of that, I think a part of me assumed I already knew what it felt like to live in another culture. Guatemala is quickly teaching me how much I still have to learn.

For so much of my life, I have lived in environments where I understood the social cues and expectations without having to think much about them. Here, I’m the one searching for the right words in a conversation and stumbling my way through social interactions. I’m still learning where it’s socially acceptable to cross the street, when pulling out my computer to get some work done might not be appropriate, and all of the little unspoken rules that you only notice when you no longer automatically know them. I’m sure I will get some of those things wrong along the way. But there is something super humbling, but also really special, about being the one who has to listen and learn how to live within a culture different from my own.

All this being said, I didn’t expect this experience to be easy. And I’m grateful that it’s not! That’s the point. I didn’t come to Guatemala for four months to stay comfortable or to experience my life exactly as I already know it. I came to grow and learn! And I am so grateful to the people who have welcomed me into their culture with patience. Two weeks in, I already know that some of the most meaningful lessons I take home won’t be the ones I planned for, and they definitely won’t be scheduled in my Google Calendar. And that’s the best feeling.