My Guatemalan family
Trip Start
Jul 14, 2007
1
9
11
Trip End
Aug 11, 2007
Quetzaltenango,
Guatemala
Monday, July 23, 2007
Since the first Sunday in Xela, I have lived with a small family in their home. The mother's name is Albina. Albina has 4 sons who are between 17 and 28, but only the two youngest, Eric and Diego, still live at home. Albina's oldest son, Luis, lives in the house next door with his wife and two children and the second son, Jose lives somewhere else in the city with his wife and children. Her husband died 10 years ago, so Albina has been a single mother for quite a while. Fortunately, her entire family lives in Xela and her mother at sister, at least, live nearby. I'm sure that has helped tremendously.
So far, I donīt know much about Diego, aside from that heīs 17, speaks very softly, and doesnīt like vegetables. It seems that heīs a bit shy to me, but I still donīt have a good read on him. He doesnīt have breakfast or lunch with the family because he goes to school at some distance from the house. Diego leaves every morning at 6am to catch two buses to go to school. Because heīs so far from home, itīs easier for him to eat lunch closer to the school.
Eric is 21 and is a medical student. This is his last year of coursework before starting a 3 year internship. Last week, he had midterm exams every day, so he was a bit tired at lunch. Heīs a nice guy and is more open than his younger brother. He has been studying English for about 8 years and loves American music and television. Itīs not unusual to see him trying to eat and watch The Simpsons-he tries to open the door to the living room to see the TV. I donīt think Albina really approve, but she seems to indulge him a little. He does work very hard on his studies, so I can see why she would be inclined to let him get away with a little. Plus, heīs very charming and there seems to be a healthy dose of boyish mischief in his eyes. I like him. I wish he was around a bit more, though. He missed dinner for 3 days the first week because heīs part of a football league that had a rough schedule of games.
Albina herself is amazing. She was a teacher before she had children. Over the last week, Iīve learned more of her story by listening to her talk to another, more advanced Spanish student who moved in on Thursday. Apparently, she taught Spanish to Mayan children in a small town during the war. The Guatemalan army would come to the school, looking for the guerrillas. They would accuse the teachers of hiding the guerrillas and accuse the students of helping the guerrillas because the children would try to hide from the soldiers. She knew several teachers who disappeared from schools and were presumably tortured and killed. Her story resonates with another that I heard on a trip to a local community on July 22 and 23, but that deserves its own entry. Itīs enough for now to say that the more I learn about Guatemalan history, the more I want to learn because I think itīs important that these stories are not lost. I suspect that I will go to the next historical activity offered by the school.
The final member of the family is Trina, a student from Seattle who moved into Albinaīs house last Thursday. Trinaīs first week was last week, too, and sheīs had a serious stroke of bad luck. First, her bag didnīt make the connection to Guatemala, so she was living out of her backpack for the first 5 days she was here. She had very little warm clothing (most of it was in her bag) and was placed in a relatively poor familyīs house. The room that she stayed in was literally made out of particle board and got very cold at night. Unfortunately, she also go a bacterial infection and by Wednesday, the cold and the infection combined to make her miserable enough that the school had to arrange for a taxi to the doctor and helped her find a hotel for the night. The next day, she moved in to Albinaīs and got her bags; the new environment and medicine have helped her recover fairly quickly.
Trina is here for two weeks to study Spanish and Guatemalan history. Sheīs a much more advanced student than I am and I think Iīve gotten a lot out of just listening to her and Albina talk. She encourages me to talk and complements me on how much more it seems that I am understanding. She went with us on the trip this weekend, which is good because she and another student, Carrie Anne, bore the brunt of the translation duties. But Iīm getting ahead of myself again. Trina is 30 and is a singer as well as a student. She has two incredibly cute kids who are 10 and 6. For her final weekend, this weekend, weīre planning to go to Panahachel together, which should be a blast. Trina has so fear and is a total extrovert. I love watching her interact with people and facilitate groups of students. Iīm really glad that she came to live with Albina.
My room is upstairs from the main house and has a little concrete patio, where Albina hangs the laundry to dry. There are two other rooms there, one of which belongs to Eric and the other to another student. Thereīs also a bathroom upstairs that is for the students to use, which is pretty nice because many students have to share one bathroom with the entire family. My room is fairly cosy and I really like it. Though at first, I didnīt really understand how to work the shower, now that I know the secret of using the electric heater (which looks like it might be a little dangerous, but seems ok), Iīve had short, but relatively warm showers every morning. By short, I literally mean a 3 minute or less shower. If I leave the water on for more that than, I risk burning out the heater. So I keep it short. I guarantee that the one thing that I will do when I get home is take a long hot shower that empties our water heater...
Trina and I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Albina Monday through Saturday. She is an excellent cook and is used to cooking for boys, so we get plenty to eat. She was so incredibly nice about cooking mild food when we were both sick. Sheīs just a wonderful woman and I feel very lucky to have been placed in her home. I hope that by the time Trina leaves that I have enough Spanish to have more engaging conversations with her. Iīm afraid that my basic Spanish often isnīt up to the task to carrying on a deep conversation, though we have talked about American dietary habits, our families, and teaching.
I know that I have much more to write about, but I have homework to do and I really need to get back to immersing myself in it. It can be very easy to speak to my fellow students in English because I have so few words. So I really need to study the hundreds of words that I have definitions for and get use to using them.
Iīll add photos of the house when I get a chance. I have a ton of photos to sort through, yet, but thatīs another dayīs work.
