There’s something about fighting your way through the base of the largest waterfall in Honduras – 140-feet of water billowing down on you, chest-deep in raging white rapids, hands blindly clinging to the sides of slippery rocks – that bonds you with the 10 other people beside you working to form a human chain of survival against the seething current.
This is how the 2011-2012 BECA team decided to spend its weekend away on a post-Institute, post-Academy bonding retreat.
It was only after we had climbed through the cascades of pummeling water and into pitch-black caves behind the falls that we realized we had been given no life jackets and had signed no release forms. We’d paid some guide (or … stranger, depending on how you look at it) the equivalent of 5 US dollars to lead us through the wrath of the Pulhapanzak Falls.
I’m happy to report we are all back safe and sound with amazing and incredible memories. Scaling the base of the Pulhapanzak Falls was by far one of the most extreme, intense, and thrilling experiences of my life – but there’s no doubt about it: I could never have done anything so daring if I hadn’t had my team beside me through the entire process.
Since we are a group of 18, we did our journeys in 2 groups. The walk started out friendly enough, but as the roar of the falls grew louder and louder, we knew things were about to get intense.
“Look down and breathe through your mouth! Ok. Vamanos.”
These were the only instructions given to us before we crossed the last of the natural rock partitions that separated the baby waterfalls from the mammoth one that stood 140-feet above us. Talk about a frightening set of directions. The sensation of climbing through this waterfall was surreal. After we were forbidden from looking anywhere but down and breathing out of anywhere but our mouths (ironically the same classroom procedure I will be instilling in my room during silent work time), we found ourselves completely disoriented by the lack of visibility and blatant inability to hear anything save for the sound of water crashing beside us.
Blindly feeling my way across the slippery rocks, I found myself submerged in the waters, trying to catch my breath like I did as a kid whenever I would jump into the 60-degree lake in the dead of winter … except this time it wasn’t the feeling of icy daggers stabbing my body that took my breath away – it was the pure adrenaline rush pumping through my veins that rendered me unable to control the rhythm of my own heart. I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was going next. I couldn’t look to my left, I couldn’t look to my right, and I sure as heck couldn’t look up. I couldn’t see anyone or hear anything.
All of a sudden, a hand appeared beneath my face. With no idea of to whom it belonged, I grabbed it, held on, and began to move forward. With no idea of who was behind me, I blindly extended my other hand backwards and met the grip of another teammate. In a matter of seconds, I’d become a link on a literal human chain spanning the base of the Pulhapenzak falls.
Suddenly, I heard a distant cry. Someone was shouting.
“Look up!”
It turned out we were standing at this place between the rock and the falls where we could, if only for a few seconds, look up into the tumbling sheets of water falling around us and see the the entire length of the waterfall. The way the sun fractured off the water and the way its rays splintered through the cascades was nothing short of mesmerizing.
It was as if we were in a glass cage of noise, incapable of seeing or hearing anything – but if we were to try hard enough, if we were to lift up our heads, we could see that right above our chaotic world of noise and blindness lay a beautiful canopy of light and peace waiting for us at the top.
Next we headed into a dark cave right behind the waterfall. The entrance to the cave was a literal 2-foot hole leading into complete blackness. We had no idea to where this tunnel led or for how long we would be crawling through it. Trusting those who had gone before me, I snaked my way through the dark hole (add this to the list of things I would never have ever done under any other circumstances). My friend ahead of me saw my trepidation as she glanced back to make sure I was coming. She reached out her hand and let me grab on. I could see only as far as her shoes, but I blindly and unabashedly trusted her the whole way through. Before I knew it, we had arrived at a cave where our other friends sat waiting. We rested for a minute, caught our breaths, and let our heads stop spinning. A few were wary of entering the cave, but in the end, every single one of us crawled through.
After we’d battled our way back through the waterfall, we were allowed to jump off a 10-foot cliff into a small pool created by a smaller waterfall on the side of the mountain. My initial reaction was, “Absolutely not” … but then I saw every one else beginning to get in line. I knew I couldn’t be the only one out. If everyone else could do it, I could too. I quickly jumped in line. Everyone ended the day jumping off that rock.
So, what does this all mean? Why did I just tell you all about our bonding experience under the waterfall, climbing through caves and jumping off cliffs into swirling white waters? Because I like to think that what happened in that waterfall is similar to our upcoming year here in Honduras. Because right now we’re all basking in this sense of post-Academy bliss, hinged in this strange period of time in which training has ended but the year has yet to start. We’ve met about half our kids, but we have yet to meet the rest. We’ve taught for four hours the past two weeks, but we have yet to teach a full school day for weeks on end. We’ve been here for a month, but the last of the people who’ve led us through this critical phase have officially left Cofradía.
Things may be calm and peaceful now, but they are going to get turbulent. There will be times when we will feel like we are drowning, unable to see or hear anything else except for our own insular, chaotic world. There will be times when we will have to climb our way through our own dark caves without any idea of where they end or to where they lead.
But for every time that we find ourselves not knowing where to turn or where to go, there will be 18 sets of hands ready to guide us, push us, and help us find our way to that place where, if we just look up, we can see that there is beauty, light, and serenity awaiting us at the end of everything we are doing.
