Futile Devices

It has been (and remains) incredibly difficult for me to find words that adequately describe my experience in Cobán, Guatemala. The following reflection follows my journey throughout the entire week within La Ciudad de Esperanza, beginning with day 1.

So much is the same, yet everything is different within this community. Surrounded by rolling green hills with trees that mimic a familiar forest, how can such a place exist? I can’t help but wonder who or what is responsible for the way things are here—the strange beauty that conceals the brokenness. 

Throughout the next couple of days, it began to rain outside the clinic. When it rained, both of my shoulders remained comfortably dry. However, the individuals within La Ciudad remain content, even with one (if not both) shoulders completely drenched. When the rain falls they accept it as the way things are, the way things will always be. I found myself continuously seeking shelter because that’s the way it has always been. But when I look at this community, I imagine everyone seeking a way to leave. And by the end of my second day, I already found it impossible to want to stay. I found myself wondering if these individuals ever yearn in the pursuit of something “more” or “greater”, despite this being the only thing they have ever known. 

On day 3 I observed two school girls standing beyond the enclosed walls of the physical therapy “clinic”. There were bars on the window, but they were hardly capable of obstructing the bellowing laughter that seemed to radiate off the thick walls that surrounded me. The girls smiled at me through the window and periodically turned towards each other and began to giggle. Bars represent confinement, prison, a punishment. But when I observed these two students between the gaps—smiling and laughing—I was forced to confront the question of “Who is the one that is really trapped?”

I then began to wonder—when we are finished and it is time to leave—what life will look like for the individuals within La Ciudad. Do they ask themselves the same questions, seeking the same unfamiliar answers? Perhaps when you reduce everything down (including yourself) to the bare minimum, we all seek answers in God, ourselves, and others. With this profound and new sense of clarity, only then, I found myself wishing I could stay longer. 

With their hearts continuously overflowing, it makes sense that their cups remain full. But these are not the kind of cups that you can sustainably drink from, failing to provide the nourishment that is so necessary to survive. Sometimes I wonder if that is the nature of their generosity, whether they recognize it or not. Dr. Richard described the individuals within La Ciudad de la Esperanza as “the pulse of life”. I inscribed it into my brain, assuming a sort of grand significance to those words. Although I may never fully understand the sentimental weight of that statement, I do firmly believe that these individuals are the life I needed all along.

And as I waved goodbye to the clinic one last time, I found myself at a loss as to when (and if) I would ever see these individuals again. I have sought them out, as they have us, perhaps both with a blind ignorance on the impact we would have on one another. Only then did I realize that in the process of liberating those in the community from their pain (ailments), I experienced a sort of liberation within myself as well. 

But words will always remain futile devices. 

~Kat