The Albino Giantess Visits the Jungle

Adventure Week Continues! This time in the middle of a severe head cold! That’s how dedicated I am to this cause! Viva la revolución! Etc.

When I was nineteen, I went on a mission trip to Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Yes, that’s the kind of young adult I was, the kind that spent her savings going to the heart of the jungle to help the Oaxacan natives paint their churches and sing Bible songs in Spanish with the Oaxacan children. Don’t judge me; it’s not like I was huffing glue and getting drunk like other college kids. That came later.

Just kidding. About the glue, anyway.

Actually this experience was the first to truly change my life, and ignite the adventure fever that has never really subsided. I have been crazy ever since. Although in truth, I was crazy before this – just not as well-traveled.

Even though I was born and raised in Southern California, one of the cruxes of American ethnic diversity, on this trip I first understood what it felt like to be an “Other.” At five-six I dwarfed the tallest men in the remote inland-Oaxacan village we visited by a good half-foot, and with my transparent white skin and blue eyes I looked like an albino alien giantess.

Don’t believe me?

The woman standing next to me was the tallest in the village. No joke. All the kids followed me around all week, presumably because they had never encountered such a bizarre representation of humanity. I’d like to think it was my singing voice that drew them, but who am I kidding?

We all struggled good naturedly to communicate, and it actually wasn’t as hard as you’d have thought. Spanish was a second language for all of us (Native Oaxacans speak a totally different language), so we only used the easy words. The most oft repeated phrases on that trip were “Me gusta tu cámera,” and “¿Mangos? están en todas partes,” or, “I like your camera,” and “Mangos? They are everywhere,” respectively.

One language we all spoke fluently was that universal language of food. Boy, was the food here fresh and delicious (popsicles made from real papaya and coconut! OMGIMINHEAVEN), and it was the first time while in Mexico I didn’t need to prepare my own instant coffee, because they had their own coffee farm with fresh beans every morning. Bliss, I tell you. No other words suffice. I actually feel sorry for everyone who isn’t me, because that means they’ve never had this coffee.

In this tiny village, we were staying at the church perched at the top of a hill, with this view out the front door:

We were sleeping on the church floor in sleeping bags, and I was convinced a giant spider would make a nest in my bag and come home with me like Arachnophobia. Even though I didn’t see any giant spiders, I just knew those monstrous aberrations of the animal kingdom were coming for me.

While on this trip, nothing extraordinary happened. We helped them paint the church and make basic repairs (just so you know, I was the one they asked to cut in at all the corners because I could paint a straight line. The artist in me wept with joy at the prospect. Does my ego know no boundaries? No, no it does not). We were not kidnapped by the local drug cartel. We did not have a standoff on the road out of Puerto involving semi-automatic weaponry and a flamethrower. I barely even got to use a machete. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an adventure.

I saw my first fireflies ever on this trip, sparkling in the twilight like dancing faeries. I saw monkeys in the banana trees (original, huh?), and I would point to them and laugh, while the children would look at me like I was being silly and tell me “Monkeys? they are everywhere.” There were no covered bathrooms, but they hung curtains for us prudish Americans, who were always afraid a strong wind would disturb the apparatus and reveal us giants squatting over a hole in the ground.

I tell you, I would go back in a heartbeat.

Sometimes I wonder what those beautiful, vivacious children are doing now. They are young adults now, as I was at the time. Are they still washing clothes in the stream and hanging them to dry on the line? Have they ever left that tiny village on the hilltop?

With coffee like that, I know I wouldn’t.

Written while under the influence of antihistamines. Come back tomorrow for more adventure, and possibly a better-feeling narrator.