Useless

Me with my amazing host sister, who is a few years younger than me but runs the entire household. I like how freakishly enormous I look in that picture.

The laundry hanging out to dry. The mulicolored clothes are the "cortes" or skirts of the traditional outfits.

The pila and "bathroom", where all the magic happens.


I feel like a small child here. My conversations are very rudimentary. I can do very few useful things, such as make tortillas, properly wash my clothes in the pila, cook delicious meals from scratch. I need to be home by dark (as in 6:30), and if I´m late, my family panics and assumes the worst. My degrees, work experience and education seem to amount to very little here, and when my family asks me about it, I feel like an alien trying to describe life on an entirely different planet, there´s just no point of reference. Most people here finish school in 3rd grade, some go on to básico (middle school), precious few go on to Diversificado (high school), and going to university for most people is about as plausible as going to the moon. Here it´s a different ball park, and I´m just learning the rules of the game. The 5 year old in my household knows how to be a better Guatemalan woman than I do.