Departure

Departing Houston International Airport, on the second leg of my flight from Denver to Guatemala, as Continental Flight 443 crossed the coast and was out, winging over the murky, ship-crossed Gulf of Mexico, I felt the full weight of the word departure. Much as I despise all things Texas, including the maddening "design" of the greater Houston area, it is still nevertheless the soil of my native country, and I felt a certain (and surprising) fondness for it as I watched the vast, looping highway interchanges and the familiar suburban sprawlscape slip away.

I have never been outside of the United States. I am jumping into foreign travel with what is probably a naive enthusiasm, spending a month studying Spanish and working on social projects in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.

When we reached cruising altitude out over the Atlantic Ocean, suspended in a vaporous gradient of blues, a steady patter of prim white cumulus clouds--overlaid by a layer of translucent stratus and broken up with increasing frequency by billowing mountains of moisture as we progressed south--offered only the illusion of tangible terrain.

On the airplane, I dreamt a fleeting, restless dream. It was a nightmare of sorts, in which I had to explain an intricate constellation of food allergies, in Spanish, to a friendly but uncomprehending Guatemalan host family. Their perplexity was so persistent as to slowly become ominous. In the dream, the essence of my explanation was, inexplicably, the concept of immunoglobulins. For whatever reason, I could not make clear the broader point without crossing that precise, and impossible, blockade. "EE-muno-HHLOB-uu-lins," I said. "Ee-MU-no-GGHHLOB-yoo-lins." No luck. I woke before the imaginary crisis was resolved.

The topography of Guatemala proved to be foreign but inviting. Seeing the thick forests surrounding Guatemala City, my half-acknowledged uncertainty was exchanged for eagerness to get on the ground and experience such a radically new environment.

I was met at the airport in Guatemala City by a middle-aged woman named Gilda. She runs a beautiful bed and breakfast called Casa de Familia out of her home, twenty minutes south of the city. Cheerful, gracious, and with a motherly attention to detail, Gilda is almost ideally suited to her role as a shepherd of clueless American students. She makes her living in a loose partnership with local language schools, shuttling students to and from the airport, cooking meals while they stay with her, and helping to navigate the chaotic Guatemalan public transport scene.

Gilda's house is a charming yellow two-story structure with roomy spaces, colorful walls, and orange and lime trees in a shaded courtyard bordered by hedges. Tropical plants abound, and the landscape is defined by steep emerald hills and deep, shadowy ravines. It's not as hot here as I had expected, nor as humid. The sun is intense when it is visible, but the breezy air turns pleasantly cool when it slips behind the clouds, which are numerous, ragged, and fast-moving.

I am staying at Casa de Familia tonight, so as to avoid a nighttime trip on CA-1, the Central American highway. Early tomorrow morning, Gilda will drive me to the bus station, my departure point for a six hour bus ride to Quetzaltenango and the Escuela de Espanol I.C.A., where I will study for at least the next week. I won't see her again until late August, when I once again use Casa de Familia as a waypoint between Quetzaltenango and the Guatemala City airport.

So far, none of this is familiar, but somehow it feels right.