Birthday Weekend

Ima, Marta and I sat under the florescent lights in the dining room. We slowly ate our dinners, a mixture of leftovers from the previous two days of festivities; refried beans, tostadas, bread, hot fruit punch and candied sweet potatoes. Birthday cake was waiting in the fridge. We recalled the events of the last 48 hours and enjoyed the warm evening that was free of rain.
We talked about the rats that live just above the thin sheets of fabric that separate me from the tin roof who I can track by the footprints I see imprinted through the fabric every evening. We talked about how Lupe thought I said semen when I said salmon. We talked (again) about the new fruits and vegetable I’ve tried since arriving in Guatemala. We laughed over the giant fly that joined our party this afternoon (everything was going fine, people were chatting and laughing when Marta said, “Look! Look at this giant fly!” Indeed, that was a large fly on the napkin package, but there were plenty of other flies everywhere else as well. Chaos ensued. Gasps of air were taken in and released, hands were raised in the air in disbelieve and then guarded grimacing faces as the fly circled the table. “Where’s the flyswatter?” someone asked in a panic. Marta, never moving quickly, casually got up from the table and found the flyswatter. “It’s on the window, look!” Lupe blurted with arm outstretched, hand ending with a pointed finger. Marta got the fly in her first try, something new for the nonchalant woman. It fell behind the cabinet. Marta got on her knees and coerced the corpse toward her with the yellow, plastic netting of the swatter. “It died”, she pronounced. She stood over the table and mandated, straight-faced: “No big flies are permitted here. Only regular sized flies”). We laughed about the kids who first covered their faces with the beans we ate at lunch, and then later with the icing from the cake. Marta marveled over how I had eaten two and a half tamales, 6 pieces of bread and three cups of punch the night before and was still able to eat a tamale for breakfast today. They teased me over how little Spanish I knew when I arrived, and reminded them of how little Spanish I know still.
These five people and two little ones have become friends and family in a way I haven’t experienced before. It is amazing to me, to be able to sit, sometimes in silence and sometimes in laughter, and pass time and care for and be cared for and share lives with people when I can only stammer out a broken sentence in their language.

I have another blog entry written out from my site visit this last week. It will be posted soon.