Move Country

By_Vicky Liu

            Bekki Bolthouse was born here in California in 1980. First, she lived in Pacific Grove for 17 years. Next, she moved to San Luis Obispo for college. She studied social sciences and economics. After that, she moved to New York City for two years. It was very exciting. In New York, she worked at a school and did volunteer work at prisons. Then, she moved to Santa Cruz to finish college. But in the year 2003 she went to a new country called Guatemala.

            One really nice thing that happened in Guatemala is that she learned how to speak a new language, Spanish. Another, good thing was that she made many new friends. One of her a new friend was Mariko. Mariko was from Italy, but she lived in Barcelona, Spain. Later, in the year 2006 she went to visit Mariko in Spain and Italy. She spent 3 months in Spain.

            Bekki had many different experiences in Guatemala. One time, while she was visiting a friend in a far away village. She had a terrible accident. The toilet was behind her friend’s house at the top of a hill. Late one night, she went up the hill to use the toilet. When she sat on the toilet, she and the toilet fell two meters into the bottom of the dirty pit.

            The next day, she had to go to a wedding but she didn’t have any clean clothes to wear. Her clothes were any dirty from the toilet accident. She had to wear the clothes of her friend’s wife. Unfortunately the clothes were too small. On top of that, the clothes were traditional and should only be worn by Guatemalan women.

            Bekki had to take a bus to the wedding. The wedding was in a village that was very far away. When she arrived in the village and got off the bus, people started to point and laugh at her clothes. She looked very strange. Because the clothes were too small.

            It was very hot during the wedding and her clothes were very uncomfortable. During the wedding she ate 3 pieces of sweet bread, 0tamales, 1 bowl of soup, 2 cups of corn atoll, and drank 1 bottle of soda. At the end of the wedding, she felt very sick; she ate too much food at the wedding.

            After the wedding, she and her friends walked to the bus stop. Unfortunately, they missed the only bus. As a result, she had to walk ten miles back to the house. On the way she had to walk up and down two mountains. After 4 hours, she ran out of water. So she stopped at a house to ask for some water.

            Later, that night she became very sick. The water was not good and gave her an illness. She did not sleep all night. When she got back to town she had to take medicine. The medicine made her hallucinate. She dreamt that there was a flood. But there was no flood.

            Many months later. She moved far away from the small town in the mountains to live in a big city. The city was very dangerous. There was violence all around. She was scared every day and every night. One morning. She drove a truck to the bus station to pick up a friend. While she was waiting, two men tried to steal the truck and kidnap Bekki.

            Sometimes she would walk from her house to the office and walk back home for lunch. One day she saw a horrible sight. As she walked in front of a store, she heard a car screeching past. Just then, she heard gun shots. She felt to the ground and covered her head. She looked up and saw a large man fall slowly to the ground. His blood ran down the street.

            She got up and walked away because she knew that is was not safe to stay. She never walked that way again, but that wasn’t the last time she saw somebody die in Guatemala. She felt sad and nostalgic when she left.

            She came to San Francisco because she likes to live in big city but also likes to play in the mountains. San Francisco is a beautiful city and California has many mountains.

            In the end, I have learned Bekki Bolthouse has many story.