La Mera Mera is slang for “Big Boss Lady.”

My first ‘Profe,’ Eduardo, taught us this word.
I knew instantly that my host mom is La Mera Mera. I knew my host family wouldn’t be expecting it when I dropped the palabra-bomb. My host mom laughed and laughed. The next day, she called me “La Mera Mera de Español” and then I called her “La Mera Mera de mi Vida” and we go back and forth, La Mera Mera-ing.

Prior to reintroducing myself to Guatemala this time, I was not familiar with any socioeconomic class other than the rural, indigenous peoples of Guatemala. I had not visualized the upper working class of Chapínes (self-elected name of Guatemaltecos). I’d never met any.

So my host mom, Rosa Maria, has introduced me to a new class of culture simply through inviting me inside.

I’ve sidled up to my La Mera Mera through foreign circumstance and her gracious acceptance: This is the first time I’ve ever had a host family! (If it always go this well, I might never grow up). Through the pulse of this collectivist culture, it’s principally in the task of eating and savoring that I’ve observed and learned who my host mother is. Like an ornate centerpiece I can observe meal after meal three times a day, I sit at the dining table with utensils and tortillas and absorb more about my host mother. Almost all of our meaningful conversation happens around food.

Week one, I learned that her dad owns a coffee plantation and she is one of eight children. Week one, she learned my dad is a pastor (she is very religious so I weighed the pros and cons and decided to tell her). Week two, She told me over breakfast that her oldest is separated and how her youngest son feels about his job. Week three over an omelet, I told her how hard it is to sit in class all day. Just this week I learned that her parents bought property for each of their eight children, and she and her husband built the house on this property. Food, fact, food, fact. Feelings. With food and fact comes feelings. If Guatemala had a tagline, I’d recommend that.

She is originally from this city and has always lived here. Her laugh is generous and loving. She is not smooshy like a snuggly grandmother, all cuddles and sunshine, instead she is sturdy and loving and provisional in every sense. She works hard to support her three sons with ironing, cooking, cleaning, hosting, and managing all elements of the house (they are all in their 30s). Her manner is compelled by care, effort and routine, all immersed in class.

She gets up at 5am to feed her sons breakfast, and she packs their lunches at the same time. She usually eats breakfast with me, later in the morning. If I am eating breakfast on early days (6am) she usually doesn’t eat with me, but she always sits with me. She always sends me on my way when I leave the house “Que te salgas bien” and stands by the door and watches me go. Some days she has to pack my lunch, and it’s adorable to see all the volunteers unpack their lunches from their moms. My mom wraps everything in napkins, even las cubiertos (utensils).

Like I said, my Mom is of a certain dignified stock: hard-working, honest, devout, loving, and has worked for a comfortable life. Her home is beautifully punctuated with collections of plants, in a manner I could only hope to manage someday. She has an “oficio domestico” and several construction workers who also come to do repairs and renovate a new wing of the house for her son and his wife. It’s fascinating to me because my parents get their house cleaned once a month, but they have no “domestic workers.” She has “workers.” La Mera Mera.

She is my gateway to understanding the dinner conversation that speeds by. She will often take the time to narrate with words on lower shelves that I can reach. When I come home for lunch and again after class, she always greets me with a hug and a cheek kiss and asks me “Como te fue?”

It wasn’t until last week that she explained how her husband died. Francisco died three years ago. She told me this when we first walked into her sala (living room) and she pointed to his 11×14 photograph distinguished above the sofa. She has come to terms with his loss, as far as a spouse can, and carries on.

It was a conversation that started about milk. As we ate breakfast, she told me that she preferred the Dos Pinos brand of milk with 0% grasa (fat) and that she’s been buying it for years. She told me that her husband had issues with his liver and colon, so she had to cook a certain way because of his health. In spite of her efforts and all appearances, he died of a heart attack at age 53. One minute he was fine and in ten minutes he was gone. She talked of his problems but never with the heart: “solo el hígado, solo el hígado (liver).” His heart took him. She told me this incredulously. The recipe called for 3/4 “It was a complete shock” and a 1/4 “why?”

And I love to listen to her stories. She has ever-so-patiently listened to my creaks and aches and pains as I adjust to a new life.

She has traveled to Canada, to Orlando and to LA. I’m not sure about the other parts of the world.. But she really liked her travels there. She said there was a time she really hoped to live somewhere else: Canada or the US. But she said, she looked at her life in Guatemala and realized it was a good one, too. She’s hosted students for 15 years, and never visited one.

It’s hard to explain her in a way Americans will visualize because this type of “housewife” doesn’t exist in the States. She is not a “housewife.” She is La Mera Mera.

No matter the space between us, I don’t want to part with her.