La Vista De Un Volcan

Pace past the corner of imagination and innocence. Look closely and you see the face of a child, smiling, at the zoo. Last Thursday I had the grand opportunity to accompany the children of Centro Sonyador (Dreamer Center, a connection to the Scheel Center through Nuestros Ahijados, their umbrella parent organization) on their first big trip out of the city. And he gathered two of every animal…to the Guatemala City Zoo. Guatemalan mothers watched their Guatemalan hijos y hijas climb on the bus, probably the first time they had truly let go of their young ones. Es bueno, I told them Yo voy a ser su hermano grande hoy! My excited Spanish imparting my love of being a big brother, especially to three beautiful Guatemalan children. Ludwig (Ludwig! Espera para mi! Became a constant phrase of the day. Who names their Spanish child after a German composer?), Michael (Pronounced Me-kay-el), and a girl I forget the name of, always did, luckily she never ran off.


It was quite a sensation to see the little placards that read “Leones de Africa” or “Monos”, watching little bronzed faces, (See picture with Ludwig)as the children pointed in real emotion at wild animals behind man-made iron fences. “Mira mira, es un elefante!” Michael kept telling me, it was his favorite animal. Vi un elefante en vida real en Africa, I attempted to tell him, who knows what he gathered from it. First time I have seen these animals since Africa, so strange from this side, in a different language.



Later that day I got the chance to be the big brother I had always wanted to be for 5 year old Spanish boys and girls. I began to pick one up by the arms, knowing it to be an open invitation for all the other boys and girls to get in line and take their turn being swung around by the tall gringo boy who they barely know, but so much love, at least for that moment. Moments of reflection from my ecstasy of sweet smiles with Jessica (Te gustame, no? She is with me in the picture below) allowed me to think about the strange fact of me being the only male on the trip, one of two or three out of all the volunteers I had met since my time in Antigua. It clicked to me how fantastic of an event it was to have a 6’ 4” Americano to look up to, literally and emotionally, coming from broken households, and if they aren’t their fathers certainly aren’t more than five and half feet off the ground. It made me smile to think that for a day I had changed the perspective of a handful of blessed, smiling, animal-watching Guatemalan children.


The next two days came in flurries of drinking homemade sangria with Americans and Canadians and Guatemalans (well sort of ), pick-up basketball games (never played basketball in Spanish before) and the other half of Antigua (welcomed into beautiful homes in south Antigua, hidden from the poverty, from the reality of the world. The warm water felt nice on my hands though). I will speak only more directly to the basketball game, as I must because when my passions collide it excites me so.

I walked to the court Saturday morning, just a tall skinny white boy going to the courts for a couple of shots at the bottom of a net, an ordinary sunshine-y day-except there was no net. Rather the imaginings of a net hung from weathered rim standing no more than 9 feet of the ground. To the nearer foreground rested the unsupported façade of a Guatemalan cathedral, sitting as if waiting for someone else to walk through its tired doors. In the farther background, Volcan Agua, cheering me on as I slam dunked like a real man, (or hombre real in the papers of the streets of Antigua the next day).

A random girl from the Scheel Center came out to shoot around, and in a matter of minutes four other people came, honeyed skinned legs funny with soccer shoes and Chicago Cubs hats to play tres en tres. In America, aside from the jazz stage, the basketball court is the place where I am uninhibited, natural, relaxed, my verbiage and language, my encapsulated lexicon (only used in boxes of places, understood nowhere else) all come alive. That’s a fancy way to say my smack talk on the court, but it is to say this to say that it was not on this day existent, for there is no Spanish translation for “Whoomp! There it is!” Alas, my team was victorious when we had more points, various shouts of “El es sus! El es sus!” went to no avail for the boys were not used to a game where people score more than every 30 minutes. Smiles said what words could not (they always do, even when words can) and I walked home, sweat dripping onto Guatemalan grounds, satisfied with my performance in my first ever tres en tres.


The view at the top, everything around you dead, you finally realize where life comes from-the endless cycle of destruction rebirth, watching with hopeful eyes for those patches of green, a banner of hope waving from afar. Such thoughts scattered my mind as I did a 360 on top of Volcan Pacaya.
Fresh from eruption only a month ago, the life around it was naught. Your feet pressed down and down some more upon the fresh ash, wherever you went it followed you, or you followed it. I bent down to pick up some, ended up with a chunk of igneous rock in my hand-a real lava rock. You never really think about a lava rocks as being something you are missing in your life, until you have one in your hand, from a real volcano, and for moment life feels complete. Until you look around from the top and see three other volcanoes seemingly miles away from 8,000 feet, but they rise above, sleeping giant neighbors of this younger brother, recently come to life. And that was just the view.

I of course wanted to share my perspective of the world with the volcano, it had been so kind to do me the same. So, I brought marshmallows. Some part of me imagined that I would brave the elements and roast them in real lava, but today, I was not ready for such a task, and yet I came prepared. At the bottom of the volcano I was looking for a stick (under the impression there would be no sticks on a burned down volcano, I was wrong), when I found Oh! Lord behold a metal pole, no more than half an inch in diameter, about a foot and a half long, with a pointy end on one side, and curvature that some may call a handle (and dare I did) on the other end. My excitement made me believe that this had been left here for me, for the sole purposes of roasting marshmallows. And I am a man who follows my beliefs.




Watching an artist at work are a huddle of German girls, some Dutchees, a few South Americans and fellow Americans (from Colorado). His art? Well crafting the perfect roasted marshmallow from the thermal vents of the heat of natural earth-i.e. on a volcano. The artist indeed was me, and I had never felt so wonderful in a long time. I love being in my element, being able to share with the world around me. Life is a continual game of give and take, and for all I have been blessed with I shall give back two fold. Just never thought it would be with marshmallows. Pictures were taken of me in this zone, I smiled real big for the camera, stood up and took a bite of my delicacy.


How wonderful it is to taste something that may not be able to be tasted again, to savor the moment and say “Where did your life turn wrong? Come! Join me on this volcano, we shall laugh, be merry, and we will live our lives with fresh air, blue skies, and all the marshmallows you could ever wish for!”