Feet on the Ground

Comitan, Mexico, mid-1990’s

Excerpt from my book:

Shoes pounding the pavement in the street outside our window. Explosions ripping the stillness of the night. Then a loud, insistent banging on the outside door of the courtyard.

“We are under attack!” I exclaimed. “NOW what do we do?”

“We’ve got to think,” replied Bill. “Stay calm and think rationally.”

This was our first night in-country as new Accompaniers. We had stepped off a bus earlier that day from Mexico City.

“Here is the name of the hotel they recommended,” I said to Bill as I extracted a slip of paper from my fanny pack.

Project Accompaniment had assured us that the hotel was safe, clean, and modest. In typical Latin style, it was surrounded by a high wall, had a courtyard, and two thick, sturdy wooden doors that were closed and bolted after dark. Shortly after checking in, we had crawled into bed in our second-floor room, our backpacks propped up against the far wall. We were travel-weary but felt safe and ready for a restorative night’s sleep.

“Tomorrow our adventure really begins,” I murmured to Bill, as a frisson of excitement flitted through my fatigue.

The alarming ruckus propelled us out of bed. Fear coursed through our veins. Bill climbed up on a wooden chair and peered out the high window to see what was going on. Stay calm, scope out the situation, then make an appropriate non-confrontational plan of action. We reminded ourselves what our training had drummed into us. We didn’t have to talk about it. We acted instinctively.

Drat it! All he could see was the thick, high wall of our hotel. We couldn’t find out what was going on out there. We realized we had no control over it anyway.

“It sure sounds ominous!” remarked Bill as he jumped down from the chair. “I wonder if guerilla forces are attacking the city.”

“But we’re still in Mexico, not Guatemala,” I said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

We decided to put our efforts into what we did have control over. Calming down with deep breaths, we pulled on our street clothes. We packed and closed our backpacks, ready for action. Then we waited to see what would happen next.

We waited the rest of the night. No one came to our door. No sounds from anywhere inside the hotel or the courtyard. It was an oasis of calm and quiet. Would it stay that way? Would we stay safe here? Would the turbulent upheaval of law and order out on the streets pass us by, leave us unmolested? Or would the angry forces bang down the mighty hotel gates, surge in like a horde of devouring locusts and take us captive? Would we ever get to be Accompaniers and help our vulnerable brothers and sister restore their lives to calm and dignity?

Photo below is similar to our hotel.

To find out what happened, I invite you to purchase my book from one of the sources in the About the Book section of my website: lindabrierly.com