Trial and Error

By Autumn Rauscher

“No wonder I hate you.”

Those words take me by surprise, and cause anger I rarely feel to boil up inside me and press against my mind. I just stare in stunned amazement for a moment, before awkwardly stalking away. I can feel my fingers clenching and releasing at my sides, and I have to try very hard not to yell at him. I can’t believe it. Never has someone said something like that to me, before. Just because of my religion.

“Are you a Christian?” Ken had asked me, when he saw the cross on my necklace. I nodded my head. Yes, I was (and still am) a Christian. That was when he proclaimed why he hated me, and listed a few other things he hated while I was still listening.

Once I’m far enough away, I begin to pace back and forth, just trying to figure out how to calm down, how to truly react to what he’d said in a way that I could be proud of . I simply can’t do it. I grab the top of a broken desk and contemplate throwing it at his head for all of six or seven seconds, before I realize that perhaps that’s a bad idea. Instead, I brood and slouch back to my seat, sinking into it and glaring at the desk top. Maybe I should have thrown it at him after all.

As soon as the bell rings, I get up and stiffly make my way towards the next class, a storm cloud still reigning over my thoughts.

“Autumn... you okay? What was that all about?” Said by my friend Elisabeth, who had been sitting across the room at the time and didn’t catch what Ken had said. I grunt in response. A pause.

“What’d he say?”

“He doesn’t like me because I’m a Christian. Oh, and he doesn’t like you because you’re a field hockey player.”

“Uh... okay?”

At that point we separate in order to get to our individual classes. I remain silent through my next class, and slowly anger fades and is replaced by a kind of dull shock, as I realize what that had been. Prejudice. I’d been encountering very mild forms of it my entire life; hell, it was in the media. But never had I personally encountered it. These thoughts carry me to my next class, where I take a seat next to a group of my friends. They’re talking about spring break.

“Yeah, I went skiing.”

“I visited family... some kind of reunion.”

“Ooooh, sorry to hear it!”

“I just hung out with friends. You?”

At this point, my four friends look at me and expect me to leap into the conversation. I don’t mind doing so. They make me smile, and I can feel myself cheering up around them. But my religion is still a touchy subject for me right now, and I don’t want to bring it up for fear of... something. I’m not even sure what, with my friends. Maybe pity, probably disinterest.

“I went down to Mexico.” For a mission trip with my youth group, I silently add. That doesn’t quite get me off the leash... they ask me what I did. I grumble for dramatic effect, before beginning.

I start by explaining how a bunch of kids my age had all gotten together, each hauling a week’s worth of items for a camping trip. There were a few lucky parents who got to bring bags full of toilet paper along, and store them under the oversized tour buses that we would use until we got to the border. We had been told that there would be no running water at the camp sites we were staying at. Instead, it was suggested that we ought to bring water coolers that we could use in the morning to brush our teeth with, and to bring toilet paper for the porta-potties that would offer as bathrooms. Once the toilet paper, bags, beach chairs, snacks, and eight large four-people-to-a-tent tents were stored away, everybody rushed into the buses, ready to find a spot and start the ride.

The ride lasts all day, and into the night with no stops. It’s easy for me to smell the faint aroma of the bathroom at the back of the bus, used occasionally by the teenagers around me. The vague chatter eventually fades away as I turn my gaze to the land outside, which slowly changes from cities and traffic lights to long stretches of fields, and a single road without any stops for miles. The light changes from a clear blue to a brilliant gold, then a dusky pink, and finally an encompassing darkness, only broken by the headlights from the occasional car that passes by.

Only once we arrive at the anonymous high school, where we’d be sleeping for the night, are we finally allowed off the two buses. We pull sleeping bags and pillows out from the piles beneath the buses, and trudge into the basketball gym, where we will sleep on the floor. Some time is spent before then, running around and talking, using the locker rooms a floor down from the gym to take get ready for bed. Oh, and to take showers. This is vital. Our last showers before we cross the border; we won’t get another chance to bathe until at least four days have passed. The camp we’re going to stay at, we’re told once again, has no running water. The coordinators assure us, however, that we’ll get a trip into the nearest city about halfway through the week in order to take showers. A treat.

By the time we’re done showering and changing into pajamas, the pizza we ordered has arrived. Flocks of ravenous, travel-weary teenagers descend on the doomed dough. Soon enough it is gone, and we’re back to running around the gym. Playing frisbee, kicking a ball around, talking and laughing. Getting all our energy out.

“Okay, everybody! Lights out in ten minutes! Boys on the left side, girls on the right!” That’s our youth group leader, Erik Hanson, a bright grin on his charmingly frog-like face. Soon enough people are flocking to one side or the other of the court, stretching sleeping bags out beside their respective gender. Everybody but a few stragglers are in “bed” by the time the lights are flicked off, those stragglers being forced to blunder their way towards an open sleeping spot. They are led on by the snickers and chuckles of fellow students and group leaders alike, though take it well. Soon enough, everybody is asleep, just past midnight.

Ridiculously happy music blasts from the speakers above our heads. It’s morning, just past dawn.

“Time to wake up! Get dressed, pack your things, and then head outside to wait for the buses to arrive!”

I sit up, bleary confusion on my face. That feeling I’d had before, about throwing the desk top at Ken’s head... I feel something quite like it, only this time towards the music that’s still blaring above me. I go through the motions with a zombie-like state of mind, just like everybody else around me. We are teenagers. There is no coffee to counteract the horrible music, or how early it is. We trudge on.

Once outside, my peers and I congregate and discuss how long it will be before the buses arrive.

“They’re already five minutes late.”

“The sun just barely came up... give them a break. They’ll be here.”

“I bet they don’t come at all. Stuff like that has happened before on previous mission trips, you know.”

“Oh, God. I hope not.”

“We’re calling them right now and making sure they’re on their way,” Erik informs us as he walks up, phone already in hand. He walks off out of hearing range, and begins to talk. We wait.
“So... it’s been ten minutes. They’re totally not coming.”

“What are we going to do if they don’t show up? All our stuff is still under the buses. Tents, bags, chairs, food... shit.” We wait a little longer. Erik calls again, then begins to discuss with the other youth group leaders.

“Fifteen minutes. We’re screwed.” A minute or so after that sullen, defeated statement is made, we hear, and then see, the large buses pull in the driveway and rumble forward towards the proposed meeting spot. Once the luggage is stowed beneath and we’re filing into the hulking vehicles again, the drivers apologize for being late and promise it won’t happen again. Well, of course it won’t. This is the last time they’re driving us before we rent vans to cross the border.

The trip gets on its way again, breakfast passed out en route. A lovely choice of muffins, bananas or apples, and small boxes of cereal without milk or bowls. Apple juice or berry juice is presented to wash it all down. I once more space out, talking occasionally to others, listening, watching. Sleeping, and I am certainly not the only one doing so, as photos of the trip in a later slideshow would reveal. The day passes quickly amid the constant thrum of the bus’ engine. We stop briefly for lunch at an area which hosts mainly to truckers. There are a couple gas stations, and multiple choices for food, all of them fast food. We get the choice between McDonald’s, Burger King, and Arby’s. Students separate into foraging groups to head towards each choice, given half an hour total for purchase and consumption before returning to their assigned bus. We all eat quickly, and flock back once more.

By the time we arrive at the border, it is late afternoon, and we’ve switched from two buses to four or five white vans, all driving in a line to Mexico. We slip through the border patrol without any problems, and drive into the town just on the other side. Billboards change abruptly from English to Spanish, street signs and store fronts and graffiti all changing as well. We entertain ourselves by guessing which words mean what in English, as we drive by, heading past the cities and towns, and the outskirts of the towns. That’s not where we’re staying.

The scenery becomes sparse, and hot. It’s mostly agricultural, though the village we pass through does not seem to thrive off what looks like long fields of wealth. Tents are set up in the merciless sunlight. Sunscreen is applied, sleeves are rolled up, and glasses are put on. The shade is a relief. By the time we’re finished, we’re covered in dust, and sweating from the labor and the heat. Dinner is eaten wearily, and then we all collapse into our tents for the night.

The next day is spent driving for most of the morning, until vans veer off in different directions, and head to different locations. Mine is Rosa, a nickname for the church we’ll be working with. As soon as the vans pull in and stop, we all slip out and into the coolness of the old, cracking, faded pink building of the church. It is one story, and about twenty five feet long and ten feet across. There are a few old, chipping wooden benches and a quaint pulpit at the front. The tapestry hanging over it is the only vibrant color about this place, multiple colors and beautifully made.

We meet the children that begin to wander into the church, as well as the minister’s wife. The minister himself is in a wheelchair, and is sick. While we grab a soccer ball and begin to play with the kids, Erik heads into the small two room house behind the church to discuss plans with the minister.

We come every day to Rosa, playing with kids, teaching them, singing songs in Spanish that we labored over to learn, and learning from them. We also fix the roof on the minister’s house, which had been leaking when it rained, and slowly coming apart from the harsh wind storms that brewed up occasionally in that area. And yet, at the same time, we are completely repainting the inside of the church, a robin’s egg blue that is relaxing and comforting to look at. All of this is done every day, stopped only by lunch breaks. Tans are collected quickly, as well as dirt. Remember, no baths. Only porta-potties and tanks of water used to brush our teeth.

Then disaster strikes and woeful news arrives. We can’t go to the public bath-houses in the nearest city. They’re closed on the day we thought we could go. The reactions go something like this.

“Nooooooo!”

“What are we going to do? Does that mean we can’t shower until we’re back in America?”

“I wonder if the kids notice...”

“Why are they closed?”

“The kids totally notice.”

“Fuck.”

We’re not sure what to do, but Erik promises he’ll try and figure it out. He does. Two days before we’re due to return to the U.S., he informs us that we can go out to take brief showers. It’s about an hour’s drive from the villages where we work and live to the nearest city, but we make it. The reward is worth it, every single heavenly drop.

Refreshed and clean, we return late at our campsite, sneaking in quietly so as not to disturb the other sections, where other small groups from all over the country are staying. We dread the fact that we’ll be setting our tents up in the dark. We can’t leave them up during the day, in case a wind storm arrives and breaks them. With this dreary thoughts in mind, we approach our location.

To find that the tents had been set up politely by some unknown group, and none of our stuff had been taken. We thank God and thank the groups around us, before falling asleep.

Another day passes, this one our last with Rosa. We also find out our last ever. This was the last mission trip our youth group would make down to Mexico. We huddled in a circle and spoke our thanks for the welcome the minister and his wife had given us, via our translator. There are tears as we pray together, say our good-byes. We know it’s the last time we’ll see the couple. They are old, and the minister’s health is failing. It’s difficult to know this, and not be able to stay and do more for them, raise money for hospital visits, build new benches for the church, cook and clean and maybe just stay forever to help. But it’s not possible. We did as much as we could in a week.

Once good-byes are said, we take a last picture before the newly painted church, and then slide quietly into our vans. Nobody says much of anything, on the drive back to the campsite. We eat dinner, and then we sleep. In the morning, just after dawn, we pack everything up and load it all into the vans. Our group finishes early, so we aid the others around us until we have to go. We drive back to the border, beginning to talk about our trip.

“I’m going to miss them. But didn’t the church look nice?”

“Yeah. And the food the minister’s wife prepared us was great!”

“I really wish that we could come down here next year, too.”

At that point, the van becomes silent again, brooding. We cross back into the U.S., and begin our drive up to the Bay Area. It is the initial trip in reverse. We return the rental vans, move everything into the buses that arrived, depart in them. Eat at a fast food joint, sleep in that same gym. Take a precious shower. I find out, with some amusement and some disgust, that the tan I thought I had received from spending every day for a week in the sun washed off into the drain at my feet.

We set out our sleeping bags, we sleep. Music wakes us. We get into the vans, and wait, growing excited and nervous for our return home. Eight hours away. Five. Three. One. We’re calling our parents, telling them to go to church and get ready to pick us up. We’re already arranging plans with friends once we’re back home.

The trip is over. I wave good-bye to my friends, previously my peers, and load my things into the car’s trunk, then slide into the front beside my mother. She starts the car and begins to drive.

“How was your trip?”

“My tan washed off.”

“Uh...huh. What did you do?”

At this point I stop my story, and slowly my thoughts return to the classroom around me and my friends staring at me. Clearly, I had been talking too long. There is a pause amongst my friends, before talk moves on to other things. I’m left thinking about my trip, and the experience I had earlier today.

“No wonder I hate you.”

I don’t get it. I really don’t.