December 17, 2016:

K’oliw! (kuh-olee-ew) is K’iche’ for “Is anybody here?” I say this as I walk into the kitchen.

I took my second Mayan language class (Cuerpo de Paz pays for 20 hours) and came home. Before class, I was reviewing the terms I learned in class one: “Sakirik” (sock-ee-reek) Good Morning “Qe k’iq” (sheck-eejh) Good Afternoon “Shoka’ ap’” (shoke-ah-aup) Good Evening. Believe me when I say, my pronunciation skills were basura when applied to a Mayan Language. I’m glad we had Mayan Language Day in the office before starting class in site, it offered a scintilla of familiarity before facing the flames of a new tongue.

I sat across from Doña Clara, all 89 years of her, and sipped my coffee, and practiced these greetings. I usually go downstairs for meals because why eat alone? The fire in the stove crackled as it usually does. My own Grandmother, Nana, loved the fire. She would always say “I love to sit and watch this fire.” She said it like it was a novel thought, every time. This came in one of her calm, content moments which were, well, not delivered in bulk.

My dad would love this 3x a day Santa Clara fire. I can predict his stance to a tee, stretching his hands out wide over the heat and leaning back, blue jeans and a belt, Alabama ball cap secured on his head. We use fire in Georgia as more or less amusement. My family wouldn’t agree with that, they would gawk at such an accusation and say ‘we love the fire!’ But my family here relies on it to cook their food and boil their water so it’s drinkable. So I will emphasize: We don’t need the fire in Georgia, we just appreciate it when it eeks out through a dial and the aftermath gets sucked up through a flu vent. It’s a gas fireplace, ensconced in green marble and edged by a white wooden mantel. Very little effort is required to bring something as dangerous as fire inside our house, but it does emit heat and create a fellowship of those who benefit from the dancing llamas (llamas as in flames, sadly there are not actual dancing llamas).

En cambio aquí, our fire is the true meaning of hearth: provision, heat, family, comfort. My host mom, sister and Grandmother have their chairs strategically placed to disfrutar meals around the fire. They have a table on the other side of the room, but it’s not close enough to the fire! they say.

So there they sit: Grandma on the right, always on the right, Clara on the left, and Rosario (Host Mom) by the short table with the tortilla stone. When I am there, we form a crescent around the fire instead of a triangle, and Clara sits close to Grandma instead of across.

At lunch I told my host mom: today your Mother (Grandma Clara) started speaking to me in K’iche’ and crying. She was speaking in K’iche so I could not understand her. As I practiced the Mayan language greetings, La Abuelita responded in her native tongue, K’iche’. I look at her face and she is exactly what you’ve seen in the pictures of Indigenous Guatemala: you see pilas, torteando (making tortillas, yes, it’s a verb) and short old women with bony cheeks and missing teeth. Doña Clara is a woman of 88 years. When I said a few words to her in K’iche’ she responded with a mountain. It was as if I removed a jenga block through one phrase, and the rest of the blocks toppled out of her in conversation I could not understand. Can you believe it? The first time in my life I’ve been spoken to and all I heard was gibberish, couldn’t place a single word or catch the slightest clue. I felt powerless, cornered, and disappointing. Here this woman was throwing me a rope with her tongue and I couldn’t catch it because I don’t know how. And then tears spill out of her eyes and onto her tan, weathered, perfect cheeks. In this moment, like many others, she is a painting. And I can’t respond to it.

Instead I look into her eyes. I nod slowly with what I can only hope is perceived as an empathetic understanding. Her eyes are dark brown, she has her hair braided and pulled up under a piece of tela. Her rounded cheek bones stick out and her skin slopes inward underneath the cheeks. The lines on her face are perfect. I’m so glad she doesn’t use L’Oreal. She is missing one tooth, the front right one, and I appreciate this because I think it makes her laugh a little louder.

Sometimes I walk downstairs and Abuelita is sitting, combing her long hair. I’m immediately alarmed by how different she looks: exposed, vulnerable. She looks lost and beautiful and patient all because her hair is down, wet, and she is combing it with patience and non-emotion. She looks up at me and the bubbling laugh leaps through her smile.

One thing that mystifies me about these women of Guatemala is that they always have long, long hair, but they pull it back or put it up. The older women especially put their hair up in braids and tuck it beneath fabric tied around their forehead. To be honest, the way the bands stretch across their forehead puts me in mind of pirates. I asked once why La Abuelita wears her hair under fabric, my host sister said: because she can’t see without the bandana… and because of her age. She said the age part as if it was mutually understood. But I don’t understand the second part- is it because older women are expected to cover their hair because it is gray, or because long hair is a sign of youth and singleness a la “I’m beautiful single, check out these locks?” I mean this question with the utmost respect because I know it passes beyond my cultural understanding. After all, can’t they simply cut it?

Doña Rosario responded: “What happens is that I can’t talk to my mom like I used to because she doesn’t understand anymore. Sometimes I want to talk to her, but I can’t talk to her.” And tears caught in her throat and on the edges of her eyes but don’t fall. She muscles through the emotion with more words “Sometimes I try to platicar with her but she doesn’t understand.” I wonder if Do-Ro means that her mother can’t hear her or can’t comprehend her, or both.

That day my Grandmother and my Mother cried. That day I wasn’t sure how to respond, except to listen. That day I loved them more deeply than the day before. That day I saw a shade of their sorrow and their suffering, and I didn’t even understand or ask why. I just responded “Yo Intiendo” with a focused nod.

Fomentar is a verbo meaning: [Calentar] To warm, incubate, [instigar] to foment, stir up [promover] to foster, promote. During Mayan Language Class, my teacher uses the verb and I jot it down because I don’t know it. I get home and look it up, amidst formulating this particular post. I see that the definition perfectly connects fire, tears and understanding.

Sometimes the words don’t come, like when my Abuela speaks to me in K’iche’. Sometimes the perfect Spanish word comes in the middle of your K’iche’ lesson.

And sometimes there are no words but a fire and a new family of four women.