Pena is like concern for another. It should have been my first post in Guatemala!
Before we even stepped foot in country, we were told “no tengas pena!” and it keeps popping up like the dead keep pushing up daisies. It’s hard to encapsulate because it’s woven in the tela, it’s ground in the maize, it’s a way of life.
Pena simply means “pity, shame” but I can’t get behind this definition. When someone says “No Tengas Pena” it means “don’t go to any trouble” or “don’t trouble yourself.” Por el otro lado “no te preocupes” is more situational, “don’t worry!” But “no tengas pena” is a Guatemalan colloquialism, like a familiar handshake in your favorite cafe.
If I tell host mom to expect my return from out of town at 9am and I arrive at noon because there was a change of plans, she will have pena written all over her face when I walk in. “Y porque no me llamaaaaste, Natalia?” “You told me 9 and you’re just getting here and it’s almost Noon. I was about to get up to call you.” “I was worried, I was worried.” She will say. Sometimes I feel like I am in high school, but know its her job as a host mom to have pena.
On a day I was not feeling well, I napped a vast chunk of the afternoon. I hadn’t slept the two nights previous. I have come to nurture sleep as if she were my only tomato plant. I ate a mountain of Maria’s galletas and fell asleep inside my mosquito net. At noon thirty a knock: my host mom subired (came up) to check on me. I said “Todo bien, gracias!” and she said “Are you going to eat lunch?” and I told her “Es que yo estoy llena!” Vaya she says and bajars (goes down). Around 3 I heard my host sister cleaning the outside of my steel doors with a broom. Bang bang bang. I took recourse in slumber. By 6pm a knock: It’s Clara: “Natalia, no te vas a cenar con nosotras?” and I replied: “No gracias, hermana. No tengo hambre” and she said “vaya.”
But I imagined that this wouldn’t fly. So I bajared to join them as they ate and immediately heard the concern in my host mom’s voice as she said “What’s wrong? It’s not normal for you not to eat with us and I wasn’t sure if something was the matter.” And before you know it she’s launched into the rubix cube of thought processes she encountered in the moments I refused to emerge from my room. Keep in mind, while I always come down to prepare my food to eat with them, there is no expectation in my service that I eat meals with the family. I don’t pay them to cook for me, nor do I expect them to provide food, and I have a small kitchenette upstairs. “I thought maybe you weren’t feeling well from the avocado you ate last night..” “Or maybe something happened to you today.. pero saaaaber” (who knows) and it took minutes of assuring her that I was fine, and sitting in her sightline and listening as she unloaded her thousand pounds of pena before she would accept that I was okay and let go of the hurt that I chose to be alone during mealtimes.
Usually my host mom is very relaxed as long as I explain what I am doing, but food is a different story.
Today I went downstairs to find a bowl big enough to mix up pancakes. After host sister found the best one for mixing, she came in from her washing to assist me. I’ve made pancakes upwards of a zillion times, but as I walked up the stairs to my kitchen she said “You want them to sacar burbujas (make bubbles)” and I think I said “vaya” or “gracias..” In a minute I heard her knock at the door. She scaled the stairs to see how the pancakes were coming out.
You should see their faces when I show them the spots of flea bites on my butt. Their brows fall heavy while their eyes widen and they gaze at each other in wonder like “What must it be, Clara?” “What must it be Mama?” and a conversation in K’iche’ follows over the wellbeing of my buttcheeks. And when Clara returns to Spanish, she says to me “Tal vez es por los chilis? O por el cerdo pero, no mama, she don’t much eat pork here!” Another night they presented the theory that it’s the sun that hits my butt when I walk to Paquip, but I reason with them that I am always wearing pants..
These are all examples of pena. It’s discomfort, concern, worry, uncertainty or when a person goes out of their way for you.
And that is why people often say: “No tengas pena!”