Maria Full of Grace

The other day I was at my pila, or outdoor sink, washing some dishes. It was a normal day in Guatemala. The sun was shining. The birds were chirping. Everything was as it should be, when I looked over and saw something that was so subtle and often would have been looked over on any other day. However, for some reason I stopped and stared as though I had seen a ghost. It wasn’t anything ghastly by any means. In fact, it was simply three women sitting on a bench inside my house’s patio. Yet, it was whom these three women were that made me do a double take and see, not for the first time, the sad reality some women face in Guatemala. I’ve written before about how overall cultural attitudes towards teen pregnancy often make many young Guatemalan girls into uneducated women by the time their 16 or younger, but this was different. Never before in my 20 months of being a PCV had it been so blatantly spelled out in front of me. Sitting on this bench were my host mother Aura, host sister Daudy, and the hired help Maria.Each of these women represents completely different aspects of western highland Guatemalan culture. 

Aura, my host mother, is in her early fifties, has 6 children, and 7 grandchildren. She is a very charismatic and beautiful person who, in my opinion, is the glue that keeps the family together. She had to leave her studies behind when she became pregnant with her first son Michael and since has not returned to academia. She reads both of the national newspapers daily. Apart from being up to date on worldly happenings, she is like a hub for small town gossip. I still don’t know how she does it, but she always seems to know everything that’s going on in the pueblo.Everyday she can be found either in the house doing daily chores or in her corner store. She’s very much in love with her corner store, although I don’t know if she ever sells anything to anyone outside of the extended family. Meg and I think they would make a killing if they put in a scoop ice cream shop, but Aura refuses to give up on her store. She sells everything from 1Q popsicles to Barcelona Jerseys and specializes in perfumes, creams, and child’s clothing. I can’t imagine that she ends up turning much of a profit, as she only sells to extended family members at a discounted price. Yet, as I’ve come to find out, in Guatemala it’s better to be doing something that might turn a little profit and keep you busy than do nothing at all. So many people in Guatemala run tiendas out of their living rooms and more often than not women run them as they are the ones who are made to stay home and do daily chores. Aura is no different in this aspect. When she is not preparing meals, cleaning, washing clothes, or watching the grandchildren she can be found in her corner store. Aura, like many other women in Guatemala, had to leave her studies to be a mother at a young age. Since giving birth to her first son, she has become a super mother and grandmother who is the back-bone of the family.

Moving down the bench we meet up with Daudy. Daudy is my 26-year-old host sister who is not married and has no children. In the western highlands of Guatemala it is very rare to find a woman who at the age of 26 has no husband or children. However, she has what less than 2% of women who have every entered grade school in Guatemala have. She has a college degree. In an earlier entry I talked about her College Graduation and I could write more but I think the fact that she has no husband, no children, and a college education speaks volumes. Finally, there is Maria. 

Maria is a 12 yr old girl from Quiaquizuyal. Quiaquizuyal is an aldea or village of the Municipio or county of Malacatancito. In an earlier entry I talked about Plan Grande, which is another part of Quiaquizuyal. The village Quiaquizuyal is a very impoverished place. There is no running water or electricity. I’d say the average family size is about 12 children and most children have a 6^th grade education or lower. Maria has worked in the house for about a month or so helping Aura with daily chores and in this time has not once returned home. It is not rare for girls from these outer lying villages to come in and work as muchachas in the center of town. I know two other girls, including Maria’s sister, who also work for families in the town center. Maria can not read or write. She is also very shy and even more so around a boisterous gringo like myself. Only recently has she begun to talk to me, even if it is only a couple of words. I’d seen Aura and Daudy sit on that bench before but I think it was the addition of Maria to the line-up that really made me stop and think.

I had never before seen three women of such different backgrounds sitting together on a bench. Sitting on this bench were, for a lack of words, a grandmother who left her studies at an early age and since has been left to a domesticated life, a 26 year old single college graduate with no children, and an illiterate 12 yr old girl who works, for all intents and purposes, as an indentured servant with slim to no possibility of ever returning to school. It was the combination of these three different women sitting and smiling on a bench that made me do a double-take and once again come to grips with the harsh realities that women in Guatemala face often to no fault of their own. While Daudy represents a brighter future and hope for women in the western highlands of Guatemala, I can’t help but wonder how many other girls, not only in Quiaquizuyal, are unable to read and write and therefore sent to more urban areas to be muchachas or thrust into modern day indentured servitude. I wish this could have ended on a more positive note, but sometimes reality is just that, real.