More Travels with the Ahijadas

I step outside from the tiny store with my can of beer, ready to head back to the hotel with my adopted family. Juanita, age 18, Tono, her son, Ilda, age 13, and Irma, age 12 are staring across the street. It's nine PM in Guatemala City's Zone One, and the bars are starting to get going.

"The young women are dancing," Juanita says. "We want to watch."

I assume she knows what the young women do there, and let them watch for a minute or so before uprooting them.

We're on our way back to the hotel after a dinner of Pollo Campero, Guatemala's highly successful chicken franchise. I'm not a fan of it at all, but eating there is a dream-come-true for them, so I willingly cough up $20 for bad food and societal and environmental degradation.

We stray a few blocks off course because I mistake 9th Avenue for 7th. At 10th Avenue I ask for directions. Most everyone you see is nice and trustworthy, though we bend our paths greatly to avoid obvious drunks and homeless people. I insist that Irma hold my hand because it's a bit scary out.

She has become much more of a daughter now; we spend lots of time together. I miss having little kids around, maybe as much as she misses having a father figure in her life, so we're much closer than you would think if you only heard our conversations. At the restaurant, she got silly. She's quite the clown, but rarely speaks in Spanish, mostly Tz'utujil, and her sisters get tired of translating, as most of her jokes consist of calling family members made-up names.

"El se llama Matitrux!" (His name is nonsense-word.)

But the eye-contact and the hugs and the trust say more than words could. We go to a shopping center called Tikal Futura which looks like it belongs in Miami. Before we're even inside, the group spots an escalator leading down to a parking garage. They roar with laughter. Juanita and I step on, her whole being shaking with fear and laughter. Irma and Ilda can't bear to get on. We run a hundred yards to the up-escalator, not wanting to leave them alone. This time Irma and I board the down-escalator. She squeezes my hand. I show her how to walk as the escalator moves. She's having more fun than most kids would have at a major amusement park. Ilda joins in later, and we go down yet another level. I introduce them to the elevator to go back up. I don't even feel it move as they scream at top volume.

Inside there is an arcade, and there are bumper cars, which are even more fun than the escalators. After two rides, we're off to shop. This is our second day in the city. The first day, we ate at a nice place with typical food and fantastic marimba music, then spent forever looking at shoes and clothes. I asked each one what they needed most, and made them wait when they thought they wanted something. "Think about it for a little while. If you buy that, you can't afford anything else." Everyone completed their shopping on the first day except Juanita. She understands deferred gratification better than the others -- in fact, the shopping was completed in ascending order of age. At the mall, she's the only one with shopping left to do, and we go into a dozen shoe stores. She always grabs displays and tries them on and says they're too small, and I tell her repeatedly to look for the style you like and ask to try it on in her size.

She's very smart in her way, but can't read an analog clock. She's shy, but nowhere near as shy as her sisters. I only have to prod her a little to get her to communicate what she wants to the salespeople. At Pollo Campero I manage to convince Ilda to ask the waitress for what she wants. It shouldn't be hard to ask for your favorite food. But several times over the weekend I think I have done the same with Irma, and always at the last minute she covers her face and says "Ild!" and her sisters fill in for her.

Sunday morning we go to the heart of Zone One, and there are severall  parades. Our goal is to see where the president lives and to eat normal food with lots of tortillas, which we find. (Actually, I don't know if Colom lives there or not, but I've seen him up close twice and he's no big deal!) I teach them how to blow soap bubbles and they stare at helium balloons and cheap toys and dolls, asking for most of them "for Tono."

We board the bus at the CENMA, ready for the 3 hour ride home. It's due to leave at 2:30. I ask if anyone needs to use the bathroom. They don't so I go alone and buy a Prensa Libre and head outside to find Juanita a coke, as she is sure she will vomit without it.

On my way back in I see a young man lying with his head on a rock, convulsing, apparently from a drug overdose. He has bleached hair and close-cropped facial hair. He looks like a gangster and looks like he might be dying. Everyone walks past. So do I. I don't know the systems work here. You get hardened to death and tragedy here. In the mall a little over an hour ago a donut saleswoman collapsed, and my adopted family members looked on with fascination. Another donut salesperson was the only one attending her for several minutes until others started to take interest. A woman in yellow slacks, maybe a doctor, looked like she knew what she was doing, and stooped down to give the trambling woman attention. Minutes later some firefighters were on the scene, and the carried the patient away on a stretcher. On our way into town the day before, on the Panamerican highway going through Mixco, our friend Aklax pulled over to let an ambulance with lights on get by. Minutes later it was two cars ahead of us, going ten or twenty kilometers per hour. No one else pulled over to let it by.

I get back in the bus at 2:25. Juanita and Irma need to go to the bathroom. A few minutes later, the driver turns on the engine and puts the bus in gear. I bolt out of my seat.

"Wait, a mother left her baby here with me!"

"I can't wait here, I have to pull outside. I'll wait there."

These girls have never been here before, and outside is far away, so I bolt off the bus and run towards the restroom. The bus attendant is running with the girls in my direction. All is well. He makes fun of them, says they were putting on makeup and looking in the mirror when he found them.

A Few Snapshots of Atitlán

Gerónimo is urinating into a hole in the floor though the bathroom is only ten feet away. "I'm about to close," he says in an unsteady voice. "Come back tomorrow." He extends his thumb and curls his fingers to form the shape of a bottle which he tips towards his mouth to indicate that he's been drinking. It's ten in the morning. I close the gate and head back up the cobblestone path. A little girl in the purple guipil that most little girls wear here smiles at me knowingly. Smoke is pouring out from her doorway, and frequently invades Gimnasio Atitlán. The other gym is about a mile away and will charge me twice as much, but there will not be smoke.

Later back at the house Juanita tells me that her older sister doesn't talk much now that she's back with her husband.  He doesn't want her to. "He also doesn't let her eat chicken. Solo ca-arne." She holds the stressed vowel in that last word much longer than any native speaker would, in a childish way, as if making fun of something, or whining. "How boring! And he beats her, but not as much as before they separated."

"I'll bet your husband doesn't beat you," I say, because there is something about her that is strong, something apart from her slight teenage frame and sweet demeanor.

"He hit me once. I told my Mom, and he started to cry."

Her mother, Magdalena, has been a grandmother for five or six years now. She looks old enough, but is in fact only about 37. After Irma was born, Magdalena's husband left the family to fend for itself. On a few dollars a day she has raised her girls to be loving and caring and clean and healthy. When I visit with the family I am always impressed with how they work together to care for the younger ones and readily help me cook and clean.

I will recommend Juanita as a housekeeper to the hospital when I leave, though I'm very disappointed with the way they treat their employees. Most of them are comfortable with the fact that they earn less than the legal minimum but discouraged that there is no hope for advancement. Antonio has been in charge of the inventory for four years and earns exactly the same as any newcomer. He is bitter about his situation and would love to head north to work for a few years, but knows that jobs are scarce now.

Two hospital administrators spoke to me recently about their concerns. "We can't allow you to have visitors at Las Milpas. A lot of things have been stolen and we can't have that." A few months ago a former employee of the hospital apparently stole $100 from a doctor here. She had left the money on the table and knew the woman was not particularly honest.

"Not only that, but several dishes and kitchen items are gone. I know what my countrymen are like. Maybe you can take care of yourself, but the Spanish doctors are delicate. Las Milpas is like a hotel; you can't just bring in anyone you want. Ask our permission first and keep a log of anyone who visits." The conversation switched to my scholarship program and proceeded to bounce oddly between the two seemingly unrelated themes. "I know you give scholarships to several people here, and the problem is they become insubordinate and don't want to work. I know you meet at Las Milpas with the people you give scholarships to.  I would like some clarification as to who they are."  He mentions many people's names. I help fewer than five people go to school, and only one has anything to do with the hospital.

"Only Ingri," I say, instantly regretting having divulged information, but not wanting people I don't help to be blamed. "Some other former volunteers pay her tuition, I just help a little with books and transportation costs." They reply that she doesn't work for the hospital, as if that wasn't the name they were looking for.

Two days later they fired her giving an excuse that made no sense (the gardener wasn't doing his work with her around, and also there are very few volunteers at Las Milpas...?) For her, it was not a huge economic loss, only four to eight hours per week. But the vengeful, jealous attitude is a huge problem, an overzealous  and reckless desire for control that leaves behind a fearful, overly cautious, resentful group of workers who are anxious to leave and find somewhere else to work. Two students I sponsor have left in the last few months.

Ingri's loss is Juanita's gain, at least for a few weeks until I leave.  I told her I would pay her $3.75 a day, $5.00 when she learns the job as well as Ingri, which is twice what her mother earns, and I hope that won't create problems. At the end of her first day I told her she was an outstanding worker and would get the higher amount. Last year an older woman named Rosa cleaned the place. Jared, who was in charge of Las Milpas at the time, always made us leave dirty dishes for her since she didn't do anything else. Ingri and Juanita both know how to look for dirt, so we try not to leave dishes.

The following day I go back to the gym. Julia, from North Carolina, comes in for a work out. She is the first woman I've seen at Gimnasio Atitlán. She was there the day before, two hours after I left, and said that was a mistake. Instead of closing, Gerónimo invited friends to come and get drunk with him.

My Ahijadas and Their (Very) Extended Family

I never know how many invitees I'm going to get when I entertain, and I entertain several times a week here. Sunday I picked up my two sponsored daughters (ahijadas, we call them here, which is a much nicer term than 'sponsored daughters', because it also means goddaughters) with afternoon plans of swimming in Lake Atitlan and preparing and eating dinner together. Six others joined us, all family members, from 18 years old down to 16 months (those two being mother and son).

Their house in Chukmuk is a mile and a half from Las Milpas, so when a tuc-tuc approached, we grabbed it.  There was another person in addition to the driver already on board, so we were eleven in the tuc-tuc.  If you have never seen one, it's a motorcycle with a shell and a backseat which seats two adults comfortably; only the driver is legally allowed in the front seat. Eleven is probably close to a record.

Everyone had such a good time swimming, bathing in the water (even though the cyanobacteria is back), cooking together and eating, that we decide to do it again Wednesday, except that they would teach me how to make tortillas then.

And Wednesday was nearly a repeat of Sunday, although no less fun, but also included a lesson in making tortillas.

Words do not do justice -- watch the videos!