December 22, 2016:

Today we went back to ‘El Monte,’ the same spot as the first. I’ve gone with her to three ‘montes’ but this is the first time I’ve returned to the same spot, the first monte I ever knew in Santa Clara. You see, I’ve heard of La Tierra, La Montaña, but never “El Monte.” My host mom says the word with a long ‘oh,’ “Fijese que mañana yo voy al moooohnte.” She refers to it like a busied housewife refers to her husband, “Tomorrow I have to cook for El Mooooohnte, go to El Mooohnte, so I won’t be here.”

This is her livelihood, her ‘sembra’ from El Monte. Earlier in the week, she harvested ojas de Maxan (o-has day Maushaun), gloriously massive leaves in which we will wrap and cook the tamales. The trend of “cooking seasonally” in the US is her pure lifestyle here. That is to say, her work schedule and her annual calendar is based off the will of her crops, the X factor being when the decide to bloom. One Sunday I went downstairs to go to La Misa with her but she was gone: “I had to go to La Capital because the aguacates were ripe and we had to sell them right away or se ruina and no one buys them!” I’ve never known someone to disappear because the avocados were ripe. But this is the life of selling natural produce, I am learning.

My first trip to El Monte we cut coffee. On my first dinner in this house, she mentioned she had to go cut coffee. I asked if I could join and she bellowed in disbelief: “To cut coffee!” like I said “I just won two tickets to a cruise, wanna join?” and she repeats “A cruise?” in the form of a statement, “No te crees” is written all over her face. Come to find out, everyone else who learns I cortared cafe responds in kind: “Usted cortó café!” with heavy weights on each letter. I just respond with “Sí, era divertedo!” And they respond in the same low tones: “Sííí?” and proceed to look at me like a beanstalk just sprouted out of my forehead and Jack is at the top whistling California Girls by Katy Perry. I love this reaction, I tell ya I love it.

But today was different than cutting coffee. Coffee cutting was an all-day affair (though I dropped off after lunch, Rosario returned to El Monte for more). Today we popped over for a few honest hours of finishing up: she had some pascuas, Christmas flowers, left to cut and that’s it, she said, then we will salir. The first time to El Monte, I came without my smart phone which was smart, it was just me and the monte and the earth dappled in red and yellow coffee fruit; this time, I brought the phone and was snapping pictures left and right. Super glad I did because I got some great pics but it only further highlighted that I was not doing any labor.

I’m snapping secret pics as Doña Rosario is chopping at wildlife with precision and experience to the point that it’s routine, the machete a familiar instrument. It’s an extension of her arm, this thing. She uses it to point, to beckon, and sticks it in the ground when she needs her other hand. If I were to ask Casual God one question right now, I’d ask “Hey There What’s Up With the gender roles here in Guatemala that say construction work is for men, always, but machetes and axes are okay for women? And carrying heavy lumber on their backs and heads, also okay for women? If I can wield an ax, why can’t I also install a roof according to this culture? Casually, Natalie” I would not wait around for the answer because this is Casual God, so I would then direct a question to Formal God: “Dear Sir, How is it that I found myself in Sololá in the home and life of a family so wonderful? Con Mucho Gusto, Natalia.” I would not wait around for an answer because Formal God uses letterhead and the postal service is on strike in Guatemala.

So I just direct my questions to the sky in the form of joy like breakfast in bed or a mattress made of pancakes; eventually the important questions get answered. Meanwhile I’m feeling the quiet kind of joy that can’t be described without sounding cliche because ‘joy’ has been rendered schmalzy by Hallmark at Christmas and 90s Christian praise music. But this joy is an actual thing when you’re standing on the edge of El Monte and your host mom of 3 weeks cackles as you snap away, embracing a universe you knew about but didn’t think you’d breathe. Joy is exhaling carbon dioxide in a place that you thought was only flat.

We don’t chat when we’re in El Monte. We work (I use the word loosely, I am keeping her company), I inhale her efforts in quiet.

I heard a gasp and laughter when DoRo found an alien flower, she brought it me. Two stalks fused together and all there was to show for the marriage was two pathetic sprouts on top, no bloom, no prowess. “Alien” I said and snapped a pic.

We leave one patch of land to another as she tells me ‘despacio,’ always. I smile to myself because it is too hilarious and I’m the only one there to enjoy the humor of the moment: She’s the one wearing black flats meant as shower shoes traversing the natural earth with 40 pounds of mega-flowers weighted on her forehead and telling me to go slowly. In addition, she’s toting my water bottle and 3 avocados, 2 guiskiles (small potato-like squash with spiky exteriors) and her own water bottle in her apron because #boss. Talbots is for first world, we are in first universe.

I have time to think to the soundtrack of slashing branches: Will I be sad this Christmas? When I heard the other volunteers share stories of their first Christmases, sad and lonely in a new place, alone, it slashed my confidence. I etched away a bit of mental space for sadness if the feeling strikes. If training taught me anything, it was to be prepared to feel things you can’t control or anticipate, even if ya don’t wanna. Christmas has always been a magical day: my parents are exorbitant with gift-giving, fat stalkings with TJ Maxx gimmes and Trader Joe’s snacks, the gas fire crackles and and we enjoy our comfortable lives with a puzzle, scrabble or a drink and snacks all day. I love to buy gifts for my family: developed pictures from the year, a special soap from Whole Foods, rich coffee or treats. Last year I brought home Turkish delights, hand picked and vacuum sealed from Istanbul. But what I love most about Christmas are the days leading up: wearing scarves, coats, writing Christmas cards, eating sweets and posting pictures of years gone by from holiday parties. Aside from the cloying Christmas lights outside, repeating instrumental “O Come All Ye Faithful” from outside of my room, it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all. That is a little sad, but mostly a blessed relief. If I have to miss Christmas, it might as well feel like it’s not happening, I decide. My first ever Christmas without my family, and our first Christmas without Nana.

When we finish on both sides of El Monte, we pack up. She harvested flowers as I harvested moments, aside from my meandering thoughts, like the one when she looked up at me with a wily laugh and said “Soy Campesinoooohs! Ahahahha” (I’m a farmer!) I elect to carry a bushel of the tall flowers myself. She argues that this is too much for me to carry but I respond “Soy mujer!” and she laughs that bubbling cackle, relenting to let me carry maybe a third of what she totes. She loads up the flowers over her head and I swear she is a painting. I snap pictures of each second and I can’t wait to tag my instagram post “Natural red head” as it looks like the Christmas flowers are sprouting from her skull, blooming, crecering con fuerza, as she leans over to put her tools in her apron. For her this is life and for me this is novel. So I write about it, she lives it: she was not taught to write.

With cargo, it’s a 20 minute walk home. I might be a city mouse, but I’ve got arm muscles thank you. She keeps asking if I am okay as we trek our way back to the house. She carves out the way for us to go that avoids the busy street, stopping for two breaks because them flowers be heavy. As we pass her friends on the street, they giggle as I intentionally use their K’iche’ greeting “e naaa.” They smile and double over in giggles, grown women included, because not only is the Gringa carrying cargo, she is speaking the local language. Usually they say “E naaaa” to DoRo (Doña Rosario) and “Buenas Días” to me in the same breath. I will be changing that, after all, both Spanish and K’iche’ are foreign to me. Why not use the one that’s natural to one of us?

Something about this is always hilarious to them. Something about me is hilarious in every circumstance on the street. I am not used to getting giggled at constantly, but it seems I have no choice. I personally know I’m funny but I also know they’re not chuckling at my wit: they’re laughing at my very presence. My foreignness. I’m like the weird alien flower we found in El Monte, stalking down the street. What am I doing here?

We make it home and I rest: diarrhea strikes. I emerge as DoRo is officiously boiling the flowers stalks in bushels. Boil flowers? This is new. She explains it is to kill the sap, otherwise it turns black and also drains the flowers of color. She sprinkles fresh water over the red flowers, hoping they will ‘animo’ and people will buy them. She has wrapped each bunch in a thick cord of green: it’s a long piece of leaf she ripped from another crop. The very definition of resourcefulness, necessity being the mother of invention and all that jazz.

She shows me which stalk of Pascuas she will keep for herself because La Clarita asked her to set a bushel aside. The tall flowers do rise again after the stalks are boiled and the leaves sprinkled with water. So what do I know? I learn something new every day.