Site Family

In many ways, my new living situation is quite the contrast to my last one.  In Sumpango I lived with single family in a walled compound.  Here, I am living with 10 people crossing three generations in one of four buildings facing the same patio (and one cottage off to the side where I will end up eventually).  We are surrounded by corn fields, but no fence. 

In the house where I live now there are five of us (two boys, their parents, and yours truly).  Hendrick is 7 and Elkin is 2½, both are extremely energetic and predisposed to love me based on their previous Volunteer experiences.  Ela (their mother and my counterpart) is in her early 30s and is always on the run.  She works afternoons during the school year as an administrative assistant of some kind and also volunteers her time to coordinate the women’s group that I’ve been assigned to work with.  Benancio (Ela’s husband) is taking classes in Xela at night working toward his law degree.   

In the house just uphill there are three: Fernando, a cousin to the kids in my house, and his parents Catarina and Oscar.  Oscar is here just two weekends out of the month since he works in the capital. 

The grandparents (Don Juan and Doña Ana) and Aunt Isabel (sister to Benancio) sleep in the house just downhill.  During the day Isabel is at work out of town, Ana is at the uphill house with Cata, and Juan is up at the cottage where he has an office. 

The fourth building sits empty, though it just finished construction.  The electrical system was completed during November, and last weekend we had a massive party (hundreds of invitees… 400 tamales) to break it in.  Expect a post on tamale making down the line.

I will actually live the bulk of my two years about 25 yards away in a cottage that was once where the grandparents lived (and where Juan has his office now).  I’ve been waiting on moving up there to put on a fresh coat of paint (done) and because I’m buying some household items (furniture, kitchen stuff) off another volunteer who wasn’t willing to sell until December.  I managed to get my hands on my furniture yesterday and will be sprucing the place up to move in fully very soon.  It’s essentially going to be a studio apartment for me, with one large room for my use and a latrine and pila outside. 

There are so many personalities I’m only beginning to get a handle on the dynamics, but I’ll surely treat you to some family member profiles as time wears on.  

Gettin’ My Clean On

When living in another country, simple daily activities have a way of morphing on a person.

My first host family (first three nights only, at PCHQ) had a shower, but no way of heating the water.  So, we took very brisk showers.  The kind where you steel yourself in advance, hold your breath, and jump under the water to wet yourself.  Quickly exit, scrub with all the necessary soaps, and jump back in to rinse as rapidly as possible.  I can tell you, this method doesn’t go through a whole lot of water. 

My Sumpango host family (all of training) had a calentador (heater) on their shower head, which is a device that heats the water as it exits the pipe and falls onto the showerer, by running an electrical current through the water just before dispensing it.  The temperature is essentially controlled by changing the water pressure; more water, cooler temperature, and vice versa.  So, this is a much more comfortable showering experience, but to get the desired temperature, I need to sacrifice a lot of water pressure.  Sometimes this means I get out and discover after my hair has dried that not all of the shampoo/conditioner made its way back out.

Those who don’t have showers in their home tend to use a bucket bath.  The process involves heating a bucket of water on the stove (usually wood fired, but sometimes gas), mixing with cooler water to taste, and splashing the water on oneself with a small bowl.  This is another method that makes it clear how little water we actually need to get clean.  Makes me cringe to think how long I took to shower back in my teenager years. 

Since I have landed in a pretty indigenous area, I have the luck to experience a variation on the bucket bath called the temascal.  This is a small hut used as a sauna.  Rather than huddling in a bathroom (or courtyard) somewhere, we crawl (yes, really crawl...clutching our towels around us...oh how I wish I had a bathrobe!) into the temascal where a fire was lit hours before.  Usually there is some sort of sweet smelling herb thrown in as well, and water thrown on the hot rocks for humidity.  Within the temascal we have a bucket of hot water, one of cold, and a smaller basin where each user mixes to taste.  I strategically place myself under the peak of the roof to be able to sit more or less upright and do my washing by candlelight or headlamp (it's always after dark by then).  

Me crouching in the doorway.  It's an awkward waddle in and out.  Elkin just likes mugging for the camera.  Most of the huts I see are made of adobe and ceramic tile roofs, but my family did theirs out of block and lamina.  

Some of the herbs just inside the door (the fire was freshly lit at this point).  The floor is concrete, but they set boards on the ground as well... maybe for drainage?

The bench, the hot bucket (near) and cold bucket (far) with the fire and hot stones between them.  The green bowl is what we use to toss water on ourselves.  

Some family members go in together, but I’m a solo bather.  I also am usually last in line so the room has cooled somewhat before I enter, because I’m not a huge sauna person and don’t like sweating as I leave the shower.  On the other hand, since we have no heating in the house and it gets into the 40s and 50s at night, it’s a nice way to heat my core every now and again.

Now, I get the temascal experience maybe once or twice a week, but I’m working in agriculture.  So for days I’m digging and planting, I have worked out a deal with our neighboring aunt to get access to her calentador shower next door so long as I pay the difference in the electricity bill.  The first time I stepped into the shower I was amused and exasperated to find the shower head exits the wall at nose height for me.  The combination of crouching awkwardly and pitiful water pressure has kept this from being a really popular option so far.  Maybe I’ll work out a way to do bucket baths at my little cottage in the future.  

This calentador has a tube hanging down with a little nozzle at the end.  I don't want to use it, but it thwaps me if I don't get it completely coiled and out of the way.  If I coil too tightly, it comes off the shower head altogether and goodbye water pressure.  I took this photograph standing normally... 

No shower curtain!  This leaves my change of clothing and towel somewhat damp after a shower... I could remedy this but I'm not sure I'll be using it enough for it to be worth it.  

Harvest

One of the more impressive stalks of corn I've come across; they are usually between 10-12 feet tall, but this one seems to be approaching 15' (I'm 5'8").  I have seen a few fields in marginal land that were only about 7-8 feet tall, but in general, I'm definitely in the land of the tall corn.  No wonder so many towns call themselves "[Name of Saint] Milpas Altas."

At the end of November and beginning of December, the corn is judged to be dry enough for harvest.  On a daily basis I see lines of men and boys on the paths heading out to the fields with costales (feedsacks) slung over their shoulder.  Earlier this week, I tagged along with the group heading to harvest my family’s land.  Usually this is a two day event for my family, as they have about 5 cuerdas* of land split across six locations, but this year we completed it in one day because the harvest was pretty poor, perhaps due to the extremely wet rainy season.

On the way out to the field, my host “dad” asked me where my tool was.  (Sidenote: he’s only 32, so feels more like a brother age-wise, but since the kids claim me as their sister, I’m not sure how to refer to him).  Well, in the first instance of Guatemalans being more prompt than I am, they had headed out without waiting on me, so I had rushed after them without getting the tool memo.  Luckily, a sympathetic guy in the group lent me his**, showed me a quick slit and slash motion once and I was off and running.  Well, fighting my way through the cornstalk jungle.

I think most of the group were just using a nail tied to some string (to loop around their wrist), but I had a lovely gem, carved out of some kind of bone.  I asked what kind of bone they use and the answer was “any kind, it doesn’t matter.”  This is a classic response in which I ask for specifics and they give me the general answer – for all that my Spanish gets me by, there’s still a language or cultural barrier there that leads to misunderstandings.

These three were around 10 years old, I think they were earning a little cash on their "summer break."

We all spread out choosing one line of corn, working from one end of the field to the other.  I quickly (although perhaps less efficiently than the others) picked up the rhythm of bending the stalks in half to bring the ears within reach, slit open the husk top, peel back the husks, and wrangle off the ear of corn.  Sometimes the corn was pearly and dry, sometimes the ear was half putrid and moldy.  We took it all (apparently the rotten stuff goes to animals). 

After clearing out one area we dumped our sacks and sorted the corn by quality, bagged it again, and took it to the terrace (roof) of the house to be laid out to finish drying in the sun, there sorted by color as well.  Then we moved on to the next area in a different part of town.  Since each generation inherits land from their parents, each successive generation has less land, divided into smaller pieces scattered further from one another.  It’s not so bad in my family; the grandfather was one of five children, there are three in the parents’ generation, and two children right now (no plans for additional).  Many other families have 6-10 children, so I can’t imagine how their land gets parsed out. 

 

*A cuerda is 25 x 25 varas, a vara is officially about 84 cm (but often measured by an arm length).  So, theoretically my family grows enough corn to eat each year and extra to sell on a little more than half an acre.  On the other hand, it felt like more land than that when I walked it, so I don't have huge confidence in those calculations.

**Was this just a kind gesture to the newbie?  Were there gender dynamics at play, either chivalry or sexism?  What about class issues; the white girl can't work with her hands?  Welcome to the brain of a PCV with a Liberal Arts background and not enough actual work to do just yet.  Over-analyze much?  Guilty as Charged.  Really though, I was thankful he offered it, but uncomfortable taking it since it means he did it bare handed, which gets pretty tiring.