Nourish Goes to Guatemala

By Steve Mullaney

No, I know what you’re thinking—I didn’t get arrested. Yet. (Just kidding Mom and Dad). Our car broke down on the side of the road in rural Guatemala. We were stranded for a while and have no clue what we’re doing tomorrow or for the rest of the trip as far as transportation goes. The police had to help us—and only because we were in danger of getting hit by other cars or robbed if we were to stay where we were at. Oh, and by the way, did I mention that at the end of the day nobody panicked and this was universally viewed as an INCREDIBLY POSITIVE experience for our group to get through?

Intrigued? Well, I’ll get to that…first onto other things.

We got to meet with Community Enterprise Solutions (http://www.cesolutions.org/) which was amazing. One of the dangers of doing community-based work is going in with an expert mentality, or the assumption that everyone wants exactly what I (read: the middle class within the US) have. CES gets it, and they’re there for the long haul—building relationships and working with communities for sustainable solutions to problems which the community itself identifies. Being around people who are passionate is contagious, I know we definitely fed off of their optimism and their passion for doing the work that they do. A little clearer, (tolerance of ambiguity is such a plus for travelers), we left to visit Maya Pedal (http://www.mayapedal.org/), another group which Nourish is indirectly partnered with.

Maya Pedal is insane. You should just go to their website, there’s no other way to really describe them. Essentially, this man builds things like blenders, washing machines and water pumps out of old bicycles. How cool is that?

From there we were back on the road to get to Carlos Toriello’s house to spend the night, when one of the cars broke down by the side of the road. Reflecting on the experience, it was almost as if it were a hokey hippy-dippy trustwalks-in-the-woods exercise—only effective. Carlos assured me he did not sabotage his car so that we would bond.

Nobody panicked or brought down morale, everyone pitched in whether it was looking for rocks to keep wheels from slipping, using mechanical skills to diagnose the car or keeping spirits up with jokes. Long story short, everything and everyone made it—although I was transported up a hill by the Guatemalan police. As we regrouped I offered to ride with Carlos in the broken car (it had since suddenly come back to life, sort of) and it was decided that Pavak, the one with the most car skills, would go with Carlos. I quipped, “That’s probably a good choice; I’m an English major, the best that I could do if the car broke again would be to write a poem about the situation.” Pavak laughed and told me to actually write the poem. I did, and it is the high-water mark of American poetry.

An elegy for Carlos Toriello and Steve Mullaney who died writing this poem instead of fixing the car

As plumes of smoke exploded
and burning rubber smells flash flooded the area
so you taste toxins with every breath
Steve Mullaney quibbled with a notebook at the side of the road
counting syllables for a poem which would most certainly not fix the car.

Alone, Carlos works his pair of cell phones
thumbs dancing across the keys
punching out SOS and mayday
in frantic attempts to save the sluggish car.

“Steve, put rocks behind the wheels,” Carlitos urged the bookish frump.
however the only things Steve hauled were mixed metaphors
and awkward juxtapositions
into a hasty haiku.

Five, seven, five.
The haiku, that Japanese dabbling over which Steve spent sweat
ignoring Carlitos’ request to work on vain scratchings.

“Did you put rocks behind the tires?” Carlitos asked,
dripping with exasperation.

“Yes!” Steve exclaimed.
Carlos stuck his head neath the car
and was decapitated as the car rolled backwards
spreading guts like a Quentin Tarrantino wet dream
and tumbled down the hill into the traffic below.
Whereupon, Carlos’ sad body was smeared
across the highway
by a bus.

“Whoops.” Steve thought.
And justified in his head how the ‘yes’ referred to excitement
over finishing the poem
not an affirmative celebrating rocks under tires.

With that, Steve read his poem aloud.
To nobody in particular.

“Ahem.”

A Haiku Explaining our Unfortunate Situation

By Steve Mullaney

We are stuck right here.
I wish that the car would work.
That really sucks. Dude.

At this point, God himself shook the clouds off his sneakers
and came down to earth
to correct this ironic injustice,
and berate Steve for his rotten poem.

With one swift motion God smote Steve
and his accursed atoms spread in the four directions
to avenge Carlos Toriello
and punish Steve Mullaney
who died writing a poem
instead of fixing the car.

We ate dinner. We reflected. We bonded. The Guatemala Group became the Guatemala Team, and what could have been a disastrous experience was transformed into one which will catalyze us towards our goal.