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Guatemala

I’m awoken by the booming voice of God. “Flight attendants please prepare the cabin for arrival.” I blink a few times, as sleep falls from my eyes and my contacts make their way back to their rightful positions. Through the slight blur, I smack around the side of the plane, looking for the plastic window blind. The small, brown man next to me shifts in his seat, obviously uncomfortable from my graceful and sightless performance. As the window blind raises, light floods into our row. Once again, the man next to me shifts uncomfortably. I mumble something along the lines of “sorry”, but he obviously doesn’t speak English, so I continue to go about my business.

First, I check around the cabin. I look around to see the familiar faces of six of my younger schoolmates and one of their moms. Some are still sleeping because clearly they missed the message from God. I turn my attention to the now open window at my side. Slowly, I creep my face right up to the plastic so my nose is just barely touching it. All I see for miles and miles is blue. This isn’t the blue of the ocean or the blue of a lake. It’s the blue of the roofs of Guatemalan homes. Fashioned from big blue tarps and some simple string, these are the only protection they have from the outdoors. At that moment, all I can think is: what have I gotten myself into?

Here’s one way I never thought I’d spend my last summer before college. I’m in a foreign country with a bunch of high school seniors. We’re standing in the middle of the barest airport I have ever seen. It’s like they built the building and forgot to finish decorating. We make our way over to the rusty baggage carousel and wait.

The seven people I’m with include five of my soccer teammates, one desperate cheerleader, and a mother from the Motherland. This mother, Lynette, was born and raised in Germany and if any woman represents Hitler’s Aryan race better, I have yet to meet her. She describes herself perfectly in one statement: “If you want to torture me take me to a five-star hotel and spa for a week.” This declaration was actually quite hard to decipher through the hacks and deep throat noises that accompanies her true German accent. She is the mother of the most anal girl you will ever come in contact with, Hannah, and this trip brought out the worst in her on several levels. Hannah is the girl everyone has at their school who doesn’t quite fit in because they are clearly torn between books and friends and books are winning.