There were two bright spots in our visit to Quixabaj. Fletch already mentioned Francisco, the young guy who took it upon himself to teach his nieces and nephews the Spanish that he knew, drawing lessons from comparisons between the Spanish and Q’anjob’al bibles. He was a very proactive guy, who had in fact attended our charla the day before, and was pleased as punch to offer us some coffee and sit and talk awhile. Then there was our dinner with Don Nicolas. As I mentioned before, we only ran into him again because he happens to live by the highest point in town, and we went there to see where a water tower could stand.

He obviously had a bit of a raport with the nurse, Victorina, who accompanied us, so when invited we all ducked in the low door to their kitchen. Their kitchen was one of the nicest we’d seen all day, and we’d seen about 15 by that point. They had an improved wood burning stove that was crowded with four or five women making tortillas and cooking soup. Nicolas said it was interesting to meet more foreigners, as the only other ones he’d met were the Cuban doctors who’d worked in the town for a while.

I will note here that the Cubans are pretty popular characters in these parts. I think it’s the novelty of them, as they were apparently the only foreigners to make it out here before we did. This was not the first time we’d heard of them, nor of their peculiar habits. Nicolas told us, just as every other Guatemalan here has, that the Cubans do not eat tortillas, as though not eating tortillas is a serious character flaw. In fact, it is somewhat offensive to them as the tortilla is their main staple, and it’s considered rude not to eat what you’re offered. “The Cubans,” they say, “don’t eat tortillas.” They say this many times with wonderment, then, “They eat a lot of rice and pork. And horse meat! Can you believe it? They eat horse meat.” Then Nicolas told us the story of how he went to see his Cuban doctor friend at the health center and his friend had two huge plates of meat. The doctor offered some to Nicolas, who almost took some. Meat is a rarity here. But then he asked where the meat came from and when the doctor said it was horse, Nicolas said no thank  you. “Who knows what it tastes like? It could taste just like cow, but we just don’t eat horses here. They don’t eat tortillas, but they do eat horses. Do you eat tortillas?” Believe it or not, this is about the fifth time someone has taken this exact route to asking us if we eat tortillas. They’re so pleased to offer us some when we tell them we do. So we were served tortillas and soup as he continued on. “The Cubans just happened to be around when this horse turned lame and they had to kill it. The doctors asked the owner what he was going to do with it, and they said they were just going to kill it, so the doctors asked if they could have it, and they took it and skinned it and took all the meat.” I keep sitting through this same story, and it always makes me laugh. Everyone tells it with the same wonderment. It makes me wonder, what will they say about us when we’re gone?

The other point of interest to people is our relationship. I have had to clarify many times that we are really married. But it means so many things here: whether you were married in a church, and by the mayor and it’s legal; or whether you were married in a Mayan ceremony that doesn’t count for anything legal–but in those parts people are so largely ignored that legalities matter little; or whether you’ve just lived with the same person for most of your life and had ten children together. In all of those situations the couple is considered husband and wife. We were married in a ceremony, but not be a priest or by the mayor, and yet it is legal. So we usually just tell them we were married in the church. It’s easier that way. Nicolas asked us all the usual questions about the legitimacy of our marriage. But then he asked, “How many times did he have to go ask your father for permission?” I told him he didn’t even ask my dad once, he just asked me. Fletch explained that was okay to do in the states. “How many times did you have to ask to marry your wife?” I asked. He looked up and around, “Oh, my dad and I had to go ask permission from her father probably ten times. So we did that, and then they gave us permission. Then we had to wait for four months while the plans were being made. During that time the girl watches the boy in public to make sure he doesn’t talk to any other girls, because if he does that means he’s looking into another wife. In that case the girl will refuse to marry him. So he didn’t even ask your dad once?” he asked, nodding in Fletch’s direction, “Were you robbed?”

What? I was suddenly very confused. He explained that now a days it happens a lot that the boys don’t bother with asking permission they just come in the night and take the girl away to live with him. I told him I thought my parents were pretty happy about us getting married, or at least they didn’t seem to mind. They liked Jaime. “So he came to your house once before you got married?” he asked. Ahah! “Oh yeah, he’d met my parents a few times before we got married.” Nicolas seemed content with that. He said that some fathers get so angry when their daughters are robbed they want to kill the guy. Nicolas himself seemed more sensible, saying it was disappointing, but as long the man didn’t drink and abuse the daughter, as long as he worked and tried to make a living, well, there wasn’t really any need to get so upset about the robbery, because there wasn’t really anything you could do.

Then the next famous questions, “Do you have a family?” My answer: “Yes, we have lots of family, but we do not have children.” People are pretty blown away when they hear we’ve been married for two years and have NO CHILDREN! *GASP* I’ve learned I can figure out what religion a person is by the order in which they ask the following two questions: What religion are you? Do you have children? If they ask about religion first, they’re evangelical. Evangelicals are worried about my immortal soul more than anything, where as the Catholics’ primary concern seems to be the state of my womb. Nicolas hadn’t talked about religion yet, and sure enough, it came out later he’s Catholic. By the way, the ratio here is pretty much 60%/40% Catholics to Evangelicals. At this point there’d been about 15 different people in and out of the kitchen, so I asked Nicolas how many children he had, “Oh, man, I don’t know? I have a lot, hombre. Ten?” This response cracks me up, and yet, it’s pretty typical. He asked me how old I was, and then was shocked all over again that we don’t have babies. “People in Quixabaj usually get married at about 12 or 13 years old, so by the time they’re 16 or 17 they have a few children already,” he said. I know this, and I knew it before he told me. Still it just freaks me out.

After all the talk of marriage and children he turned to questions about the states, which one we came from, etc. etc. Nicolas said there were some guys from town who went to the states for a time. “The problem is that beer is very cheap there compared to here, so they get used to drinking it, and then they keep drinking it when the come back.” Interesting, he’s the only guy we’ve heard speak negatively of this habit. Then his son came in, a tall skinny guy with a huge smile, and asked, “How are you?” in heavily accented English. He’d lived a few years in Riverside, California. When he asked us what state we were from, he ran to the next building over and came back carrying an airplane magazine with a map of the US, and a ReMax real estate catalog of all the listings in Riverside, California. In no time he was telling us about the work he did, and how hot it was, and how they loved  to drink cold beer after work. It was so cheap!

After a bit, it just becomes uncomfortable to hear all the praise lavished upon the United States. It’s not that I don’t like being American, or that I don’t like the United States. With critical analysis and judgement, I like both of those things very much. But it’s like this other thing I’ve had happen more than once here, where I’m in a group of people and quite suddenly the conversation topic changes from something like the weather to how beautiful I am. Aprubtly everyone is staring at me and commenting on how pretty my hair is, and my eyes. It’s just kind of creepy, because I it’s not who I am that is beautiful to them at this point, but what I am. What I am is quite exotic and different in comparison to them, but who I am is something they don’t yet know or understand, and thus their value judgements are not so much flattering as they are uncomfortable. I feel like viewing the world in such a way leads people quite easily and accidentally to different degrees of self-loathing or degradation, and I think that’s the case on both an individual and international scale. Nonetheless, the experience is at least interesting, something to reflect on.

As we were talking, the rain returned, pouring down in torrents for a while. The moment it let up they rushed to get umbrellas and towels to cover us as they walked all three of us back to the health center. So inspite of the difficulty that was Quixabaj, I felt that night like we’d done our job at least. We’d participated in a cultural exchange.