Mi Famila Gonzales

I live on a side street on the outskirts of the old city, about ten minutes from the park and school. Like all the houses here, it´s constructed of concrete block, covered in stucco. It´s painted that sea foam green that we so often mock in the states. The house is centered around an open air courtyard, where laundry is usually hung to dry. To one side there’s a tiny kitchen. It is without running water, which is for the best, since tap water isn’t potable anyway. It just has a stove, an oven (where the family keeps their dishes), an odd assortment of tables and chairs and walls are plastered with decorations. Family effects, religious paraphernalia, and old advertisements make up an overwhelming assortment of color.

To the other side of the courtyard are the family’s quarters. Because my family is very private, I’ve never actually seen inside, but there appears to be three little bedrooms. On the third side is a bathroom. Houses here have water tanks, which must hold all the water for the day. While ours is sufficiently sized, the hot water heater cannot keep up. It’s a little forty-watt affair, taped to the shower head, with all sorts of exposed wires. This reduces my shower to a warm trickle or a freezing downpour, as well as an adventure in avoiding electrocution.

On the final side of the courtyard is a wall with a door in it. Behind the door is another dirt courtyard, where all the washing is done. The courtyard is also home to my very own menagerie; two bunnies, a duck, a parrot, and four cats. I struggle with these pets for two reasons: First, the word for bunny and a the word for bastard are very close together in the Spanish language. I often make this slip, so I´ve taken to explaining my pets to people in pantomime. Second, the cats spend most of their time on my corrugated tin roof. You think of cats as light footed, but they´re not. These cats are like elephants on my roof. Very frisky elephants that make some of the most unpleasant sounds on earth when they have sex at night.

Off of the courtyard are two bedrooms that they rent out to students, although I’m alone right now. My bedroom is bright pink, with Christmas themed decor. I have a desk, a chair, a bed and a dresser recycled from stateside in the 1950s. My mattress is a slab of soft foam, covered in home-sewn sheets and two blankets which appear to be made of brightly colored burlap.

I find this really difficult to wrap my head around. While I consider my current living situation an exciting experience, it’s my host family’s everyday reality. My adventure is their poverty. While they seem destitute to me, in central Xela terms, my family is lower-class, in terms of they’re state, they’re middle class, in Guatemalan terms, they’re well-off, and in global terms, they’re downright rich. Neither the mother, the father, nor the two grandparents have to work. I believe they live entirely off of the income from room rentals, and the father is working on finishing the second courtyard. They don’t seem as focused on material possessions and status symbols as many other families here and the daughter attends public school, which is uncommon for a single-child family in the city.

While my family is very sweet, I am relegated to another part of the house, and I only see the adults at mealtimes. Moreover, they are quite introverted. They don’t ask a lot of questions, they give single sentence answers to my questions and they’re completely apolitical. Only the daughter, Ana, is interested in talking to me, and she makes me insane. She is very interested in all of my stuff, and absolutely unable to take no for an answer. While I understand that the family is renting a room to me, and that it’s a business transaction, I find it very frustrating. For me, the whole point of a home stay is to encourage immersion, not just the discomfort and horrible food. As a result, I’m planning on changing families next week or the week after.