Culture Shock -- Relocating to San Tomas

Living With Yolie: Feb 14-18

There are three rooms in the house: A kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom. There are five family members. I sleep in a lumpy bed in the corner of the living room, wondering if perhaps the pillow is stuffed with rolled up nylon stockings. The back bedroom holds all five family members. I consider my Dad's snoring, and cannot fathom how they manage.

But this family is wealthy in comparison to others in the Guatemalan lower class. They have a dairy cow, a mule, and some chickens. Each morning, I wake at four to the crow of roosters, and cannot go back to sleep. I'll admit to morning crankiness as the stench of animal dung attacks the house... Yolie's husband is already busy milking the cow and mucking the stalls, err... driveway.

Yolie's cuisine is typically Latin, and I am thrilled to have a large plate of beans, rice, plantains and fresh cream. Each morning, Edgar, Yolie's 8 year old son, is sent down the street to the "Tortillarilla" to get a basket of corn tortillas from a gossiping trio of local ladies that make dough and pat pat the balls between their palms.

Unlike Antigua, no one in this little farming town speaks English. Out of neccesity, my Spanish is slowly coming along, but I am a little paranoid as Yolie's family talks over dinner, then laugh when they recognize the blank look on my face. Thankfully, the old Sony radio plays constantly on the kitchen counter, and I can both learn from the Spanish beat and take refuge in Debbie Gibson.