Life Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Dear friends,

We have very quickly fallen in love with Guatemala.

The first day we arrived, we stayed at a campsite near the border. The campsite was in the backyard oasis of a local named Alex.

It was heavily raining as we approached. We pulled into his driveway where he was nestled underneath a covered porch, taking a nap. After he awoke he happily let us park our car under the cover, to stave off the rain.

Alex was born and raised in Guatemala and was very knowledgeable on the local area as well as the country. Guatemala is actually quite small, especially in comparison to Mexico. We were eager to hear all the things he had to say about the place we’d call home for the next little while. Alex spoke English very well. Most people we meet, where English is their second language are very critical of their skills, and we always take the opportunity to remind them that they’re wrong. Especially when we consider that we’re in their country, and we should be speaking to them in Spanish.

Alex enjoyed hearing about what life was like back home for us in Canada. Since we’ve been travelling, people have shown a lot of curiosity for the great white north.

We spent the evening comparing and contrasting our lives, and he brought us cinnamon coffee and flaky bread rolls with a healthy spread of margarine.

We ate mangoes dipped in salt from the trees on his property and he insisted that we had to eat every last bite. We happily agreed.

Alex’s property was a garden of tropical trees and flowers that he planted himself. Mangos and coconuts, and fruit varieties we had never heard of before like Mazapan, or ‘Fruitbread’ in English.

His property sat on the edge of a hill that descended to a waterfall leading into a large, winding river. I took the opportunity in the morning to sit by the river, watching the streams gurgle and the sun move in and out from behind the clouds. Alex spent the morning picking up the garbage that had accumulated in the rocks and crevices of the flowing stream.

We would soon discover that in Guatemala, there’s a big problem with garbage. In Mexico as well, but there seemed to be a lot more signs indicating that it was illegal to throw your trash on the ground.

In Guatemala there are no government implemented, formal garbage collection systems. Basically whatever garbage you accumulate is your problem to deal with. There are expensive garbage collection companies that will collect your garbage and take it to a big trash pile where they burn it, but many people just burn it themselves.  

Driving through Guatemala as well as Mexico, it’s very normal to see fires all over the place. At times it seemed concerning to us, but it’s a common and accepted practice in the country.

As a Canadian it’s very easy to look at this issue in disbelief. Coming from a place where you never really even have to think about what you have to do with your trash. Canada is very good at eliminating the environmental burden you may feel.

Funnily enough, similarly to Guatemala and Mexico we don’t actually have a way to deal with all the trash we create. CBC has reported in recent years that Canada illegally ships a large portion of unsorted trash to Countries in Asia such as Indonesia and China. Canada pays these countries large amounts of money to take it and burn it. Ensuring our consciousness stays clean, while contributing to pollution very far away from us where we won’t feel the negative effects of our actions.

On a more positive note, people are attempting to create solutions to this issue.

A new initiative called pyrolysis turns trash into fuel using microwave engines.

“Pyrolysis is the thermal decomposition of any organic matter in the absence of oxygen. As long as the material is organic, it can be used to produce fuel through pyrolysis. Plastic waste, food waste, construction waste, chemical or pesticide waste, medical waste, and so on, can all be pyrolyzed. Microwave Pyrolysis differs from Conventional Pyrolysis with its use of microwave energy. Since microwaves run off electricity, this allows the reactor to potentially be run by renewable resources, making all fuel products carbon negative.”

In translation, this process allows us to essentially reverse-engineer the makeup of plastic.

Microwave pyrolysis was invented by Julien Brown, the founder of Nature Jab, an environmental initiative based out of Atlanta Georgia.

While each day we are moving closer to solutions, the larger issue is on a societal level, we produce too much and are dependent on unsustainable systems.

After bringing the bag of trash up from the river Alex informed us that we wouldn’t be able to find anywhere like a garbage can to throw it out, so he would take it and deal with it.

We were thankful for his kindness and the very warm welcome to Guatemala. We told him we would love to come back and visit him again someday, and then we were on our way.

From here we drove to Lake Atitlan, a large lake surrounded by small towns each with its own unique culture. We drove to a town named Santiago and stayed at a campground called Firefly Gardens.

We actually got the recommendation for the spot from the organizer of the project we’d be volunteering for on the cacao farm, so we were feeling optimistic.

We ended up getting there after dark– we took the scenic route…

We parked on the road leading into the campground as there was a 30 foot RV parked in the entrance of the gardens. We grabbed our flashlights and went in looking to find someone in charge.

We walked towards the top of the property where a young gentleman named Jonathon greeted us. He had a deeply grounding presence. Jonathan was one of the people we were told about. We also were told that Jonathan and Keira were expecting a baby soon, and we shortly found out that that baby was coming that night.

With ease and calm Jonathan showed us around the property. We were amazed by his hospitality given his circumstances.

As we were getting settled a young traveller named Roan popped out of his tent and welcomed us. Roan was from the Netherlands and had been travelling around Guatemala and Mexico for a couple of months at this point.

He was tall and goofy and did a killer Borat impression. Alex and I naturally became fast friends with him. We spent the first evening sitting around the campfire getting to know each other and providing Jonathan and Keira anything they might need.

Roan conveyed an openness to life, to himself and to us, which was incredibly inspiring. He has been on a healing journey for the past couple of years. Confronting his wounds, his ancestral trauma, and the chronic fatigue that he developed from long-covid. Roan was overflowing with wisdom and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of getting to know such an evolved human being.

That evening we were joined by the owner of the property, Chello. Chello greeted us with beer and a campfire. We felt like we came to the right place.

We stayed up late that night in anticipation of the baby on the way, and by the morning we welcomed a new baby girl into the world.

Firefly gardens is located outside of Lake Atitlan, in a forest abundant with glowing fireflies.

The property is an eco-garden focused around sustainable living. The kitchen is outside and there are solar showers and composting toilets. Believe it or not, the showers get incredibly warm from the sun! The property encourages living in conjunction with nature and community.

There were quite a large number of people in the community while we were here. There was Roan, Chello, Jonathan and Keira, and their baby. Then a young woman from England named Becky - who will actually end up joining us at the volunteer project for a month.

There was a Moroccan family camping in that 30-foot RV that I mentioned. They’re actually driving the Pan-American highway just like Alex and I! They started in Halifax Nova Scotia and intend on driving all the way to Argentina with their two kids! They’ve been on the road for over a year now, and intend to make it to Argentina by the end of this year.

These were the first people we’ve met who are on the same journey as us, and we spent a lot of time sharing our experiences and resources with each other.

Then there was Chello who is the owner, he is probably one of the kindest people i’ve ever met and he made us feel incredibly welcome in this space.

Most evenings we spent around the fire with each other, singing songs and talking about life. Alex and I cooked most evenings for the community and enjoyed being able to take something off of Jonathan and Keira’s plate.

This was also the first space where we could speak English with other people in over a month!

We ended up staying seven days at firefly gardens. The longest amount of time we had stayed anywhere yet. Alongside the many conversations with the community came lots of realizations that the pace in which we have been moving has been way too fast.

Many of the newsletters I've written have discussed our desire to slow down. In which over and over again we are telling ourselves and you, we are finally slowing down! It’s taken us a long time to realize it’s going to take a lot more than a couple days off-grid to come to a full stop.

That unattainable full-stop readily presented itself to us here at firefly. At firefly everyone moved at their own pace. They moved at their own rhythm. The sense of urgency you feel in a city, was nonexistent.

This space embodied relaxation. It embodied an encouragement to move with the flow of your body, rather than against it.

This philosophy is called Wu Wei and comes from Chinese Daoism.

Wu Wei translates as “non action” or “effortless action” in an article written by Stephan Joppich titled “The two-word concept that makes everything you do feel effortless.”

“It means letting things happen the way they happen, not how you want them to happen. It means to let go of certain expectations, certain outcomes. To stop acting against the natural current of life,” says Joppich.

Wu Wei suggests that moving towards our goals doesn’t have to be a forceful action. And that the more we live in a state of forceful action the more we are living in resistance to the natural flows that already exist within us.

Up until now I've spent a lot of my life in resistance.

Wanting things to happen at a pace that society would accept. Blaming ourselves when we are unable to achieve the things we want, meet the goals we set, or stay true to the expectations we create for the kind of people we’d like to become.

Somewhere along the way society became obsessed with optimization and productivity, forgetting the fact that we are human beings, we are not machines.

At Firefly there was a natural flow to things that felt restful and inviting. When I decided to let go into that flow, the resistance I was causing in my life became painfully clear.

Funnily enough as soon as I let go of the expectations that it needed to happen a certain way or at a certain time in order for it to “count” as a success, things started to get done. And I realized I put a lot of energy into something that ultimately didn’t matter.

Wu Wei means giving up on forcing things, but not giving up all together.

“Wu Wei suggests a persistent amount of pressure. This pressure isn’t a metaphorical jackhammer or wrecking ball. It’s a soft strike in the right spot. It’s like water quietly working through the toughest cliffs and rocks.”

Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

After our time here, we have decided our trip is going to be extended and we have no set end date. The only expectation we are holding ourselves to, is to move at an effortless pace.

After a deeply restful week here, getting to know some beautiful people, it was time to move on.

From Firefly we drove to a colonial city called Antigua. Antigua is lined with cobble-stone streets, amazing restaurants and surrounded by volcanoes and mountains. We stayed two nights here at an air bnb– a treat to ourselves because we were about to live out of a tent for the next two+ months.

Alex had been pretty sick this past week so we took the time here to recover before starting our volunteer project. On our last day we woke up early, grabbed some breakfast and hit the road. We had a seven hour drive ahead of us.

The drive went smoothly, but it was long and tiring, winding between small towns and stopping in Guatemala City to get some last minute supplies.

We finally arrived at Tuqtuquilal, Regenerative Centre after dark, set up shop in the car for the night, drifting to sleep excited about what the next day and the next couple months would bring.

And it is on this note, that we begin a new chapter.