Posadas are another word for hotel or inn.

‘Round Christmas time (this borrowed from a google search) posada is: (in Mexico) a ritual re-enactment of Mary and Joseph’s search for a lodging in Bethlehem, performed just before Christmas. 

After Christmas, certainly the weirdest ever over the crackling of the plancha and tamales while easing into the fabric of a new host family and wondering- do they exchange gifts here?– Hot chocolate or Egg Nog or the classic movies or 12 Days of Giveaways with my favorite tv gal Ellen or even the drivel from Kelly Ripa? Nowhere in sight or sound or smell so there was nothing to do but embrace the tamales and the fireplace and the vacuum of space set aside from the familiar. It’s not a bad vacuum now that I’ve furnished it. But even before I bought the hammock, it was a nice vacuum. It was a new vacuum. There was room for anything and space for nothingness and sometimes that is a perfect gift for Christmas. I went with my host mom to Mass and the pastor said “Posada” and I asked her what it was. She explained after that it was something to do with appearing at a doorstep and someone giving you something without it being expected. I thought that sounded pretty cool unless the unexpected was explosive.

But where this story is headed is after Christmas when I went back to the mother office for two more weeks of training. After a fun youth retreat but before training started, I went to Antigua to seek out my favorite cafe. Me and this cafe go way back to 2005. It is called Fernando’s Kaffe with a K which is weird because Spanish for coffee doesn’t touch a K. But I love the place. Eventually my dear friend Tanya joined.

I noticed a lady with a cane, glasses, short brown hair seated alone with a Mac folded open in front of her: I told Tanya that I think this lady is my future. This was before I saw the cat curled up at the chair across from her, and I knew it was true. I said I wanted to talk to her and Tanya told me I should. I practiced my monologue, got Tanya’s approval, left her my camera to take a sneak picture and asked for her luck.

“Excuse me, may I interrupt you for a moment?” 

There was space for a million trees to grow in between the moment I said the “t” in “moment” and her response. You know why? Even though it was a casual request in a corner of one restaurant in Antigua in the midst of a million other conversations happening in the world, I was entirely at her mercy because she had something I asked for that only she could give me: her story. And she could have responded in Spanish, she could be from Russia, she could hate talking to strangers or hate her own story or simply be too busy and too important to speak to me.

“Yes?” She appears to respond with a healthy volume of uncertainty but openness.

In my life I’ve heard a thousand stories but this may be the first one that I’ve ever pursued cold. I have no reason to ask except that something about her presence called to me.

“It’s just that I noticed you sitting here and you seem like an interesting person. I wondered what your story might be and just thought I should introduce myself.”

I explained that I was a PC volunteer and that I have just started service. I wonder what my future will be like but I don’t know what I will do. I wondered how she found herself here.

She offered for me to sit and we began to talk. I felt instant gratitude (the plan worked!) the kind that fills you after a fabulous cappuccino you doubted just before it touched your lips. It was in this open space that we began to swap stories.

It’s true that most people want to tell their stories. Most people want to be heard. Even/especially people who don’t like chit-chat, it’s why Beautiful/Anonymous is such a popular podcast. But there’s usually an ounce of familiarity between two people who sit down to talk. There’s a point of reference or a website that says you’re compatible or they are selling gum at a gas station and you just ate a Greek Salad. We didn’t have a reason or a socially constructed bridge to cross to excuse the disruption in activity when I extended my hand. What connected us was Fernando’s Kaffe and a bit of gumption and also why not?

And Maria (this was her name) could have spent two hours telling me about her life. Instead she told me some and asked me some. And this is how it went. This is how it went until I heard her say International Journalism and the Tanya bell went off in my head. I held that note as she continued: “It’s funny I went to a psychic years ago and she told me my career would be based in Guatemala. I didn’t think much of it at the time, this was in the 70s, but amazingly enough I am still here.” I waited for a moment to ask if I could invite my friend over.

Tanya joined me and we listened. She told us that she joined the first Latino radio station in Sonoma County in the 80s and she works with several organizations here, training journalists. We asked her a few questions but she encouraged us that life didn’t unravel the way she expected (she is 66, she revealed) and that every chapter has been a bit unexpected.

The thing about Guatemala, aside from it’s glorious mountains and humble generosity and tourist traps (Antigua, Panajachel) and it’s abrasive (IMHO) ex-pat community, coffee exportation industry and diligent culture, is that it’s global influence and power barely comes in above a whisper. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here” the country declares in even hushed tones nada más. And something about being here as anyone other than a retiree or passerby unites you to your kin.

Guatemala is small (comparatively speaking) in my experience.

Guatemala is overlooked (comparatively speaking) in my experience.

And sometimes that unites strangers who appear to come from somewhere else.

Eventually I told her that this cafe had a special significance for me. I came here in 2005 to eat with my mission trip group. What does 2005 feel like to her at 66? Because 2005, to me at 30, feels like Saturn, Mars and a Jupiter ago- bygones. (That’s another word in English you may have always heard, bygones- have you ever thought about what it actually means or just made a guess or let it pass like a weird fart you don’t understand?) But then Ms. Maria told us that this was a special place for her too. She said she met her love in this cafe.

This is one of those experiences with practical magic. Maybe this conversation defined the phrase for me. To be honest, I never cognated over the phrase before. I just thought: practical magic. That’s something I miss, words that you use and assume you know the meaning of but you can’t be sure. That never happens to me when I speak Spanish- I can’t take educated guesses at words I don’t know. It’s easy to take language for granted and to know phrases like practical magic all your life but never dig at it. In Spanish I have a shovel and a sweaty brow and heaving shoulders.

And Tanya and I asked her more about her life and she told us more about her writing work, her Mexican-American heritage, her winding career and the mystery that ebbed through her life choices like mystery tends to do.

And the thing about Posadas is that, unless in the case of Mary on the Donkey, there is almost always room inside the inn. You just have to knock. And I knocked and that was the surprise. And there are so many stories behind doors I’ll never knock. But this time I did.