Getting help from where you might least expect it

So there I was, slogging my way down a foot path carved along the slope of a rainforestcovered Guatemalan mountain in the fading twilight of a late-July Saturday evening.

My head, shoes and cargo pants were soaked by the torrential rain, my pants caked in layers of mud after slipping and impacting the gooey red, Guatemalan soil that made walking in my eight-year-old Teva hiking shoes akin to dancing on ice in bedroom slippers. Even under my plastic poncho, loaned to me by my friend Nancy because I had forgotten to include my own in my overnight bag, I was awash — not from rain but from sweat.

In the mountains, cooler and less moisture-soaked than the Guatemalan valley floors, the humidity can still easily drench clothing with sticky sweat. And in this instance, fog my glasses, which along with the rain and dimming light, made making out the various unknown twists and turns in the trail even harder.

I was in this predicament because our mission team had elected to include a visit to the aldea of Monte Blanco in Guatemala’s Baja Verpaz Mountains as part of our itinerary this past July – a visit requiring an overnight stay. We wanted to visit for several reasons, one of which was because it is the home church of our Q’eqchi Maya, multiple-mission-trip traveling companion and Polochi River Presbytery executive secretary Julian Ico.

So, late Saturday afternoon, after visiting a church in the river valley town of Rivaco, the seven of us clambered into the bed of a small pickup truck along with Julian and six of his relatives. We loaded the cab rack with our sleeping bags, cots and overnight bags and stood against the bed’s cage as the truck bounced and careened down and then up on what passes as a road in Guatemala.

As we climbed higher we were not only nearing Monte Blanco but closing the distance between us and the water-soaked, gray-black clouds pouring over the summit of the mountains. Would we get to Julian’s house before the deluge?

Alas, no. The clouds opened and rain poured Noah-like as we hurriedly donned our gear. As the intensity increased to deafening proportions, the truck stopped and we splashed our way up a short path to a house where we were offered hot coffee and bananas by Julian’s daughter and son-in-law’s family.

Turns out the house was right at the point where we were to have left the truck and started down the trail to Julian’s house anyway. We hoped to wait out the storm, but that was also not to be, and so with daylight rapidly fading, we set out.

That’s how I found myself in the condition described above, on a Guatemalan foot path with my companions strung out ahead and behind me. By the way, it’s called a foot path because it’s about a foot wide.

I slogged forward, head down most of the time, looking up only to keep the rapidly dimming path in sight. I clutched at whatever plants might provide leverage over exceptionally slick and muddy spots.

I crossed a small stream on a foot bridge — yes, it’s about a foot wide — with an unseen waterfall to my left, and a smooth, flat rock where the stream slid down to my right. The terrain was so steep that at any time if I had slipped and fallen off the trail to my right, who knows where I would have stopped and amongst what I would have stopped in.

I kept going as various rainforest foliage smacked me in the face. I have never felt so vulnerable, so not in control of anything, in my life.

Suddenly, a small figure loomed ahead on the trail coming towards me in the dim light. As it neared I saw it was a small, barefoot Q’eqchi girl in Guatemalan dress – Julian’s 10-year-old granddaughter Rebecca.

She walked up to me confidently, and not so much offered her hand but took mine, turned and guided me through the remaining brush another 20 yards or so to the warmth of Julian’s house where hot coffee, soup, fruits and safety rewarded us in the dim, smoke-filled kitchen.

It’s an interesting sensation not feeling you have some control over what’s going on around you. As Americans, we’re used to having control, the individualism to determine answers to our own challenges.

We’re uncomfortable admitting we need help, especially when that help comes from where we least expect it. And yet, those are the people who can often help us the most.

A lesson learned on the slopes of a rain-forest covered Guatemalan mountain in the fading twilight of a late-July Saturday evening.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].