After I moved in to my Santa Clara home, a lady in the market asked my host mom “So are you proud now?” In Spanish, estás creída? She’s referring to the time my host mom escorted a tall gringa down the street on market day. She’s referring to me. First of all: rude. And second of all: What would my host mom respond to that? “Yes, yes I am conceited now, thank you”? Anyone who knows my host mom even a little bit wouldn’t call her conceited. She wields a machete and laughs like a ghost is tickling her lungs and works her land and the whole town knows her husband left her when her daughter, my host sister, was very young. So third of all: Who are you to ask my host mom such nonsense?

It’s become clear in my 4 months in site that I am a bit of a mixed blessing for my host family. I did not consider how my very presence would affect them until I went to the market with my host mom and she very, very quietly told me the price of things. I’d ask “cuanto?” under my breath like we were on some secret mission to which she would respond with 2 fingers raised. I’d hand her dos quetzales and she’d quickly grab the goods and walk along. She was a tremendous help to me in those first months settling in. It helped me see how much things typically cost and gave me confidence to regatear/bargain.

Side note: To say I haven’t made tremendous mistakes while bartering would be a lie. One time I was so convinced that I was being overcharged for a papaya that I left in a huff. The man said with brava: “DIEZ!” when I said to him “But you charged me two when I was hear with Doña Xayo..” We’re actually haggling over less than $1.50 in the US Dollar. But no matter, they don’t pay me in US dollars, they pay us what an average Guatemalan school teacher earns. And I don’t like feeling like I’m being had. I learned later that the price of papayas went up. Whoops. (Also how does the price of papaya change from 2 qs to 10qs in 2 weeks. That’s a lot).

Regardless, my host mom always gets a better price than I do. It’s because A: they know her and B: they know her financial situation. She is one of them. She works the land, she sells her frijol in the market just like they do. But I swoop by with a height of 5’7” (which is very tall I’ve been told) and a skin tone paler than most white people from my country not to mention Guatemalans. But beyond physical trappings, which are a lot like traps, I simply appear foreign. In the same way that I might easily confuse a German and an Estadounidense in appearance, it’s obvious to me right away that one is European just by his posture.

To add to their impression of my financial means, I have the same hair color, eye color, skin color and style of dress as lots of mission groups who descend from the States. They come bearing gifts, providing money to build schools and put roofs on churches and smile and say “Hola” and snap selfies and pray over Guatemalans with translators. Hell, I’ve been one of those volunteers myself a lifetime ago.

So they think I have pisto/dinero. And they think I have status (related to getting a visa, etc). And they know I speak English and that means more job opportunities for them. “Do you think you could translate this document for me, porfa?” It’s a common request if I can teach folks English. As I think about it now, I feel horrible about the time I was in high school and approached a guy who worked at Taco Bell and proceeded to order in Spanish. I assumed based on his appearance that he spoke Spanish and I really liked using Spanish. In retrospect, I wish he would have said “That’s offensive” and explained why (because I was dense enough to do it in the first place). And that’s a little how it feels when kids in the street yell “Gute Mohrning” at me in the height of the afternoon. It’s not offensive that they isolate me, in fact, they might think they are being friendly. But it’s a matter of perception: “you’re not from here” they are saying implicitly. But that man who worked at Taco Bell was probably born in the States and I marginalized him inherently by assuming he spoke Spanish.

But it’s something about getting constant attention for being different that fuels my frustration. 95% of the time it doesn’t bother me, even when the kids look at me and proclaim “Gringa!” in excitement/amazement/I’m not sure what exactly. I’ve started responding “No me llamo Gringa, Me llamo Natalia.” But this little girl on the street with curly hair like mine often says “What iss jore naihm?” whenever I walk past and I always think: I’ve heard this before. Does she think “What is your name?” means “How are you?” And I say “Natalia!” And she pauses like I said “salami peeler.” She’s not sure how to respond to an actual response. And so we awkwardly stand there for a moment. And I proceed to keep walking. Then once I’m halfway up the road I hear “Adios Natalia!” and see two faces peering out at me from the same restaurant door. Today her mom took a picture of me with the little girl because we are both colocha/curly-haired. She called it a ‘selfie’ even though we didn’t take it of ourselves. I never imagined I’d be hesitant to wear costume jewelry for fear it could be confused with actual gold and I’d be charged more for bananas.

So as you’ve heard the various ways it affects me, you can imagine the very specific effect it has on my host family specifically my host mom (she’s the one who is out the most). I noticed how quietly she wound through the market, helping me find my food without drawing any attention to herself or the Jolly Green Gringa looming behind her. It wasn’t until the other night at dinner that I told her: I noticed how quiet you are when we go through the market and she readily admitted “Sí, me da pena..” This conversation started because I told them about the restaurant owner who asked me to lend him Q1,000. I told them I imagine people give them the same hard time about me living with them, how they must assume that they have more money now. They conceded by nodding and explained how it has subtly but certainly reshaped their perception in the community. I know it might cause them trouble when I went with them once to buy avocados to sell in the market. They told me later that they lied to that family on their next visit: “She’s a friend and she’s gone home now.” This has nothing to do with me, this is because they don’t want to pay more for avocados.

And I, simply, did not expect it to be this way. I know what it’s like to be given tourist prices and how frustrating that is. But now I’m not a tourist and I still feel like I’m treated as “outsider.” Because I am an outsider. But I didn’t know, quite honestly, that my presence could be so impactful. But mostly it’s frustrating because I don’t want to pay more for avocados. And I don’t want my host family to either.