Guatemala Summer, July 18, 2006

While planning my journey back to Guatemala this summer, I found a guesthouse online owned by a Lutheran Church in Xela. I made a reservation (in Spanish) and arrived on Sunday night the 9th of July. I was horribly disappointed by the spare room and the filthy bathroom, and confused by the two women who greeted me, apparently knowing nothing about my arrival and no more fluent in Spanish than I was. Things improved on Monday morning when I came downstairs to breakfast to be greeted by Sebastiana, who introduced herself graciously and invited me to sit down to a breakfast of scrambled eggs, tomatoes, tortillas and black beans. Though young and dressed in the same traditional dress as the other women, she was obviously the mistress of the house. We were joined at table by a young man in clerical garb (without the white insert in his shirt) and a large silver cross on a chain around his neck. He introduced himself as Pastor Ignacio, and said a blessing over our breakfast before digging in. I had already made up my mind to find other lodgings as soon as possible, and when he asked how long I would be staying, I muttered, ¨maybe three weeks.¨ In the course of introductions I mentioned that I was ¨una pastora luterana.¨ I thought Pastor Ignacio was going to jump out of his seat. ¨¿Es verdad?¨ he kept asking.

When I got to the school I asked if it were still possible to live with a family for the first two weeks of my studies, and the office coordinator was happy to fix me up. I thought that nothing could be worse than the dirty bathroom and bare room at Casa Concordia. I was wrong. I went back to the guesthouse to pack up my bags, pay Pastor Ignacio and move to the home of Doña Doris, the lovely woman who cleans the school. As I left, Pastor Ignacio gave me the address of the church and invited me to Sunday services.

The home of Doña Doris is a good example of how many Guatemalans live in the city. She has raised three children by herself since her husband died 14 years ago. The oldest, Jorge, is now studying to be a lawyer. Lilian, who I met in January when she worked inthe office at PLQE, is studying at the University and working part-time, as well as helping Doris clean at the school, and the youngest, Lesbeth is in her last year of Diversificado, like a combination of high school and junior college. She will go to the University in the fall to study to be a nurse. Everybody works in this house, except Fifi, the silly little terrier/chihuahua combination. Their house is reached through a dingy passage through an auto shop. All rooms open onto a courtyard. The living room, storage room, tiny kitchen/dining room, and bathroom downstairs. Three bedrooms are upstairs looking out onto the highest point in Xela, ¨El Baul.¨ It is wonderful on sunny days when I walk out on the balcony into sunshine and the clouds that always make the skies of Guatemala so interesting and beautiful. But it´s pretty miserable when it´s cold and raining and you have to go down the open stairs to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The house is crowded and not particularly clean, but I love the family. They are proud and hardworking, and have done very well for themselves against difficult odds. Life is very hard here, and keeping a house clean is complicated by the constant dust, grime, car exhaust, and summer rain. There are no screens, no heat, everything is open to whatever lands in your house, on your clothes, gets embedded in your shoes. I have taken over the dishwashing in the pila in the courtyard, calling myself the Queen of Clean Dishes. Doña Doris laughs. I have come to love Doña Doris´s cooking and her gentle good humor in spite of her demanding, underappreciated job. And I have become very comfortable in her home, a big surprise to me, who started out so picky. It´s the people who make a home, right?