by Fein, Judith
Shortly after I mentioned Sir Grenfell, Ed pressed a book about the doctor into my hands.
“I’m afraid I can’t get it back to you before I leave,” I told him.
“No worry,” he assured me. “You can read it during the water taxi crossing.”
Later that afternoon, I took a water taxi from Woody Point to Norris Point in scenic Gros Morne National Park. Although I loved looking at the little shoreline towns with their colorful clotheslines and white churches trimmed in black, I opened the book and damn if I didn’t finish it by the time the water taxi reached the shore. I’d been speed-reading for less than twenty minutes, and, as Ed had predicted, I’d completed the thin volume.
I was at the Lobster Cove Head lighthouse in Norris Point, waiting for Ed to pick me up after I’d attended a rug-hooking workshop, when I mentioned to a park ranger that I knew Ed and he was the most gonzo guy I had encountered in eons.
“The secret about Ed,” the ranger said, “is that he makes you believe you can do anything.”
That was it. She had articulated what it was about Ed that made me hike, climb, brave the elements, and read at lightning speed. He treated me as though there were no doubt I could do anything. No fuss. No discussion. He smiled, whistled, held out a hand. It was obvious I was going to do the things Ed suggested, and I did them.
A few months later, I was with a friend who had recently published a book and she was invited to speak about it and her life at a conference. She couldn’t sleep or eat; she’d worked herself into a frenzy of fear, inadequacy, and public performance panic.
“I know I’ll screw up,” she kept saying. “Even if I write it all out—and I hate it when other speakers do that—I’ll lose my place. I’ll look ridiculous. No one will want to buy my book.”
I smiled inwardly as I thought of Ed.
“When you told me about how you wrote plays as a kid and performed them for yourself in front of a mirror, I thought it was touching and charming,” I said.
“You did?”
“Of course. I especially loved the details about how you raided your mother’s and sister’s closets and dressed up for the show.”
“I almost strangled myself wrapping my sister’s boas around my neck. And I stuffed a pair of socks in my mother’s shoes because they were so big. Do you think I could start my talk with that?”
I grinned. She was off and running. And we never had to discuss whether she could or couldn’t do it. I had pulled an Ed English. Thank you, Ed.
The first time I went to San Antonio de Aguas Calientes in the Highlands of Guatemala, my heart ripped open as though it had been held shut by Velcro all my life.
I had hopped on a “chicken bus” in Antigua, Guatemala. If heaven were in Central America, the angels would hang out in Antigua. Nestled in the lap of Agua (water) and Fuego (fire) volcanoes, paved with cobblestones, dotted with churches that look like ornate and sugary wedding cakes, home to language schools, a posh hotel in a converted monastery, restaurants, and shop opps for the most meager to the most lavish budgets, Antigua is the languid dream of every traveler who wants to bathe in beauty while surrounded by bubbles of exotic and fascinating culture.
At the edge of town is a depot where gaily-painted old school buses wait for the onslaught of locals who drag groceries, vegetables, and live chickens on board to transport them to their villages.
I randomly selected a bus and found, to my delight, that it was packed with Maya people who were going home after a day of work, selling, trading, bartering, or shopping in Antigua.
A trained eye can tell which village a Maya person comes from by the clothing he wears. The women wear brilliantly colored, intricately woven and designed huipiles or sleeveless tops. According to a woman who sat on the bus with two chickens in a bag on her lap, the ones I found most appealing came from San Antonio de Aguas Calientes. Furthermore, she informed me, our bus was stopping there, and she’d be happy to tell me when we arrived.
We chatted for about half an hour as Maya people got on and off the bus. I loved the way they looked—small, with large eyes, mocha skin, thick, black hair and open faces. They had been through the horrors of colonialism, war, massacres, and violence of every stripe, yet they still were friendly and approachable.
I got off the chicken bus next to a seventeenth-century baroque church and saw a sign pointing to a shop that sold textiles. The door was closed and, when I knocked, it was opened by a diminutive woman. For me to call another person “diminutive” is no ordinary occurrence. When I stand up straight, I am five feet tall, so I would estimate that the woman was about four feet eight, give or take a few inches.
She greeted me in her native Cakchiquel and explained to me in Spanish (I understood a few word clusters here and there) that I was standing in a women’s textile cooperative. Most or all of the women were widowed and they survived by weaving the placemats, tablecloths, handbags, men’s and women’s clothes, belts, and huipiles I saw on the walls and display tables around me.
The woman, whose name was María Elena Godinez Lopez, showed me how the backstrap looms worked. She sat on the floor, a thick belt around her waist tied to a vertical wooden beam, her dexterous fingers weaving on the loom in front of her. The huipile, which she had been working on for several months, was woven on two sides and was adorned with dazzling fruits, trees, parrots, and flowers. When I asked how long the backstrap loom had been used by Maya people, she chopped through the air from left to right, indicating many, many generations.
María Elena showed me her kitchen (the textile showroom was part of her house); it was a small area with a dirt floor. Three stones on the floor formed the base of an open fire where she made corn tortillas for her family. She demonstrated her tortilla-making technique, and the little kitchen filled with an agreeable slapping sound as she transferred the corn dough from one hand to the other, shaping it into flat discs. Then she rapidly cooked them over the fire and handed me one to taste. She grinned broadly when I ran my tongue over my lips and made a “yum, yum” sound.
Before I left, María Elena said, “Tomorrow there will be a procession for Assumption Day. Why don’t you come back?” As soon as I exited her house cum workshop, a Maya family emerged from the baroque church, carefully laying down brightly colored flower petals and pine needles to form a carpet. They explained the carpet was for the procession for Assumption Day. I knew I had to return.
Late the next afternoon, I took a chicken bus back to San Antonio and alit near the church. I knocked on María Elena’s door, and she came out attired in a magnificent huipil. The procession had started inside the heart of the village at someone’s house, she said, and it hadn’t yet arrived at the church.
I walked with her down the town’s main artery and through side streets until I heard the rumble of drums, the blaring of trumpets, and the lilting sound of flutes. Then St. Anthony, the patron saint of the town, appeared in a thick cloud of incense smoke. Twelve Maya men, six on each side, were carrying a statue of the saint on a long litter, their shoulders wedged into scalloped openings in the wooden platform.
Behind them was another litter carried by eighteen Maya women. They were transporting the Virgin Mary; the festival commemorates the day God took her body and soul to heaven.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the Maya women. Convivial, resplendent in their woven clothing, they were concentrating on the important task of carrying and honoring their universal Mother. In San Antonio, as elsewhere in Guatemala, the Maya practice a syncretized form of Catholicism. It blends their ancestral religion with the faith brought to the country during the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century.
I found the procession riveting. The smoke created a mysterious, holy aura around the saints, and the tiny women who carried the incense were elegantly adorned with folded-up textiles on their heads. I followed the parade from the sidelines and was walking alongside Mary when María Elena turned to me and asked, “Would you like to carry the Virgin?”
I
blinked. I nodded. María Elena tapped one of the porters on the sleeve, and she slipped out of the shoulder notch and gestured for me to take her place. I looked at María Elena uncertainly.
“Yes, yes, go, go,” she reassured me.
I slid into the empty space, joining the Maya women, feeling as though I had a serious job to do—helping in some minuscule way to perpetuate the traditions in San Antonio. It was then that the aforementioned Velcro opening of my heart took place. I was so moved and touched that I had been allowed to share a moment of the enduring Maya culture.
I carried the saint for about twenty minutes, and then my shoulder began to hurt. I was much taller than the other women, so I had to carry the brunt of the weight of the wooden litter. María Elena took my place, and I returned to the sidelines.
When the procession was over, I stopped at María Elena’s house to say “thank you.” We hugged and I was surprised when she stopped me at the door. “May I ask you an important question?” she inquired.
“Of course.”
“Tell me how I can see the world the way you do.”
I was a bit nonplussed. How could I explain to a woman who barely eked out a living by weaving textiles, who had no computer and little or no education, how to become a travel journalist?
“You want me to tell you about schools for journalism?” I asked her. “I’m not sure about the possibilities in your country, but I can try to find out.”
María Elena shook her head. “I don’t know about journalism. I just want to see the world. How do I do it?”
I explained to her about passports and visas and that it often takes a long time to obtain them and it can be costly.
“How do I get to your country to visit you?” María Elena asked.
I often dread that question when I am traveling. I live in an apartment without a guest bedroom. I am on the road a lot and frequently leave without much advance notice, so it’s difficult to make plans. I certainly have hosted people I’ve met in my travels, but I work on deadlines and if a visitor arrives who knows no English, has no transportation or money, I have to be selective about offering to be a full-time host and tour guide. So I didn’t know quite what to say to María Elena. I gave her my business card and said I would tell everyone I met in Guatemala to visit her village and buy her textiles so she could save money to see the world.
I actually returned shortly with a group of fifteen people, all of whom bought clothes, bags, and placemats from María Elena, but she was stand-offish and hardly seemed to know who I was. I thanked her again for her kindness to me and left.
When I got back to the U.S.A., the phone calls began. Once or several times a week, María Elena phoned to ask if she could visit. I had a hard time understanding Spanish in person, but on the phone it was next to impossible. I frantically thumbed through a dictionary as we spoke, not wanting her to spend money while I fumbled to communicate. I told her that Paul and I would be traveling a lot over the next year and I couldn’t make plans. I kept repeating “visa” and “passport,” hoping she would understand that she couldn’t travel without them.
The more María Elena called, the sadder I felt. She was frittering away her hard-earned quetzals on a pipe dream. How could she ever see the world, except in her imagination?
One night, months later, María Elena called and asked me if I would write a letter inviting her to the U.S. “Of course,” I said, wondering how I had become part of her travel fantasy. “I will mail you a letter next week.”
“No, no, no,” she insisted. “I want so badly to travel. I will find someone who has email and you can send the letter to that person for me.”
Several days later, an email arrived. María Elena had indeed found someone to send an email on her behalf, which reiterated her request for a letter of invitation. I did what I had promised to do and wrote the note. Then I left the country and, for much of the year, was on the road.
Months later, when I was home for a stay, the phone rang and it was María Elena. I’d rehearsed in my mind what I would say: “María Elena, I am exhausted. We’ve been traveling very far and I need to settle in, answer my emails, pay my bills, file stories. Please forgive me if I can’t invite you at this time.”
But María Elena didn’t give me time to deliver my prepared speech. “I called to say ‘thank you,’” she said. “Thanks to your encouragement and your invitation I was able to visit California. It was wonderful to travel and to see your country.”
She spoke so fast that I didn’t understand how she got her passport, visa, and airline ticket to the U.S. With whom did she stay? Was it a relative? A new friend? An old friend?
Frankly, I was in awe of María Elena. Against all odds, she pursued her dream relentlessly. It was, after all, her dream and no one—least of all me—had the power to discourage her. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were in Paris one day, craning my neck as I looked up at the Eiffel Tower and there, on top, I saw María Elena waving down at me.
After my last phone call with María Elena, I began to think of other people who were raised without the benefits of education and exposure, who had pursued what seemed to be impossible dreams.
There was a young girl I met in Tunisia, in a remote area near the border of Algeria, when an “Internet bus,” outfitted with computers and connections, came riding through her town. It was the first time many of the kids had laid hands on a computer, and of course they were excited and mesmerized.
The girl lived a subsistence existence with her widowed mother and brothers, and the mother confided that she had sacrificed everything to give her children an education. She had no idea what the Internet was or what a computer looked like, but she was thrilled when her daughter climbed into the classroom-on-wheels for an educational experience.
I interviewed the girl when she exited from the bus. “How did you like it?” I asked, expecting a one or two-word answer.
“I will learn this!” she said. “I want to be rich, I want to be famous, I want to be a star. I’ll go to a great school, I’ll study something important, and I’ll make my mother proud of me.”
I smiled indulgently, not really believing that any of it could happen. But, to my amazement, it did. She went to school in the capital city of Tunis, got a nursing degree, and began practicing in a clinic. A few weeks ago I got an invitation to be her friend on Facebook.
I have taken a vow: Never will I ever underestimate the power of anyone’s dreams. Not even my own.
Over the past few decades, I have been privileged to witness two births, a handful of baby-welcoming ceremonies, many marriages, and I have accompanied more than one person to the final threshold of life. All the trivia of quotidian existence dissolved as I participated in the embracing holiness of these events. So now, whenever I travel, I always inquire about family celebrations, religious pageants or observances and pivotal ceremonies because it seems to me that this is where real life happens. When I am fortunate enough to be invited to participate, I find myself interacting with people in a context that is meaningful and authentic. I am no longer a tourist. I am forced to be real, present, aware and observant. And I am always deeply grateful for the opportunity.
A few years ago when I was on the island of Yap, in Micronesia—9,394 miles from New York and 6,883 from Los Angeles—I made a request of the locals with whom I spent time: “Do you know of anyone who just had a baby, is getting married, or has died and wouldn’t mind if I attended their ceremony?”
They shook their heads. Undaunted, I asked every person I met, but the answer was always the same.
“How about the outer islands? Any life ceremonies there?” I asked.
I was informed that the outer islands were remote and largely inaccessible. Every few months, a boat named the Micronesia Spirit came to Yap to transport folks to the islands, but there was no fixed schedule. If you happened to hear about a crossing, you could book passage. Otherwise, no way. A few expats who lived on the island of Yap said they had never been able to visit t
he outer islands, even though they had tried.
Just as I was about to give up any hope of witnessing a life ceremony, the manager of the hotel where I was staying knocked on my door. “There is a funeral ship going to the outer island of Mog Mog,” she declared, beaming, “and you are booked on it. Congratulations!”
When I told some locals of my good fortune, they turned ashen. “Hasn’t anyone warned you about the Micronesia Spirit?” they asked. I shook my head and laughed.
Two days later, at dusk, I was on my way. I watched as a coffin was solemnly carried onto the three-tiered boat and then I boarded the Micronesia Spirit with a rolled-up yoga mat, a sandwich, and two bottles of water. The ship, licensed to transport l50 mortals, was dangerously over-crowded with close to 250 passengers. It seemed that everyone but me had staked out a place to sleep, and most were already lying on overlapping woven mats or flattened cardboard boxes so that the decks were a human carpet. I’d been told that you never step over a prostrate Micronesian, so how could I walk around the ship without stepping over bodies? I stood still and plotted what I would do to get through the next fourteen hours. Finally I decided to retreat to the lower deck and settle near the coffin. After all, I couldn’t offend the dead.
All night a group of women encircling the coffin sang as I was drenched by waves crashing over the side of the dangerously overloaded ship. Soaked and exhausted, I eventually climbed to the top deck where I found myself a wedge of floor space.