‘These two lives I lead. I hope that one day they lead to each other.’
–sb 12.11.12
Yesterday I wrote that in my journal. It’s harder than it seems living here. I love it.
In the same way I loved DC. In
the way that you love the life you build for yourself.
I love that the rooster in the dirt patio
is still crowing. At 11 am.
I love that my dog is cuddled up on my
bed. I love the early morning walks we
take everyday.
I love my host brothers. With their disheveled hair and makeshift
soccer games.
I love what I do.
But I hate thinking about what I gave up in
order to have that. The other life. The one that has my family in it. The one that understands me.
And when those lives merge, or at least
interact for a bit, it really messes with me.
I get confused. I wonder about
what I want. I wonder if what I want is
what I really want. I wonder if I made a
huge mistake. I wonder if it’s the first
time I didn’t make a mistake.
So that’s where I am now. ‘Somewhere in between’. Modern vernacular: I’m in a funk.
Besides that, reentry has been busy. I want to tell you about my host sister-in-law. Her name is Cruz. And she is fantastic. She’s forty, wears traje, and has four
sons. That is, until last year. As the story goes she and her second oldest
went to the mountains to cut firewood.
When they were coming down the mountain she checked her phone and had
about 10 missed calls from her husband, Juan.
Of course, she freaked out thinking that something had happened at the
house or with her other sons. When she
called him, he said that all was fine but wanted to know when she’d be
home. Half an hour later she’s home and
my host mom had cooked lunch, strange, thought Cruz. Everyone kept saying that nothing was wrong,
but she didn’t believe them, they were all acting strange. She called her
oldest son over to her and was asking him what was going on (thinking that he
had eloped while she was up in the mountain).
He sat by her and kept reassuring her that he was in fact not
married. Thank god, she said. No one would tell her what was up, so she
went to bathe in the baths of Zunil.
When she came back, the whole family was there and drinking hot
chocolate (let me explain: hot chocolate is only for special occasions, like
birthdays). Now she was really peeved
and demanded the truth.
That was when Juan asked her if she would
like another child. She laughed and made
a joke about her age and said that she was done. She was done with washing all the baby
clothes. Done getting up in the middle
of the night. She was done. So no, she would not like another child. And then he made her an offer.
As it turns out, someone who knew Juan (and
knew that he had four sons) thought that maybe their family would adopt a week
old baby girl from Zunil. So my host mom
goes into another room and pulls out the most precious 8 day old baby and puts
her in Cruz’s arms. The deal was done,
Cruz agreed to keep her. And last Sunday
we celebrated Maria Celeste’s first birthday!
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| Maria with her cakes! |
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| My host mom (Laura) and I singing ¨happy birthday¨ |
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| It´s like a wedding, the birthday girl gets her face pushed into the cake |
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| Cruz and Maria |
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| Piñata time! |
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| Piñata is going DOWN! |
