A Who's Who

The oldest daughter of my host family, Andrea, is turning 10 today. Feliz cumpleaños/Happy birthday/Kikotem roma aq’ij Andrea!

The birthday girl!

For the past (nearly) two weeks, I’ve been hosted by the Rodriguez family here in Tecpan. Ixchel and David have been really hospitable and kind and their three kids – Andrea, Sofia, and baby Diego – are adorable. Ixchel is a native speaker of Kaqchikel which gives me a good opportunity to practice! The rest of the family understand Kaqchikel but tend not to speak it. Which means I’ve been doing a lot of talking in Spanish – or at least attempting to. Due to not having direct contact with the language since some ill-fated classes in middle school, I would put my Spanish somewhere in between abysmal and drunk. For instance, I can only use the present tense and the difference between para and por still escapes me. But, I manage to communicate somehow! With many mishaps and frantic hand gestures, of course. My greater challenge is in class.

Iximnik'te reviewing the parts of town - with a sliver of Grace to the right. Class is held at Ixim's house

In Kaqchikel class, the primary teacher, Iximnik’te, teaches in a Spanish medium. Surprisingly, this hasn’t been as insurmountable of an obstacle as I expected – largely due to the English-speaking presence of the secondary teacher, Ana, and my fellow classmate, Grace.

Grace and I make up the student body of this year’s Kaqchikel class. She is a volunteer with Wuqu Kawoq and, in many ways, a superhero to me. She is a fluent speaker of Spanish, is studying/working in public health, and has long-standing experience living in Latin America. She has already studied K’ichee – another Mayan language. Besides all this, she’s a pleasure to talk to!

Ana is a native speaker of Kaqchikel and a great resource for my non-fluent-in-Spanish self. After having lived in the US for many years, she’s now back in Guatemala with her family and starting up various programs to help her local community.

Here's Ana, Pedro, and Grace. Ana is demonstrating traditional weaving.

Ana showing us how the thread is prepared before it is woven into cloth

The fifth member of our cozy class is Pedro. (Dr.) Pedro is the bridge that connects my linguistics background at Maryland to Guatemala and Kaqchikel. A former post-grad and current colleague of Dr. Polinsky’s, Pedro is a linguistics professor here in Guatemala. He has done a lot of work in the corner of syntax that I’m probing and has been invaluably helpful. As the husband of Ana, together, they form my main support and inspiration here. I’ll be going to live with them for my final two weeks in Guatemala!

That’s the gang! I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such kind, intelligent, and inspirational people.

Kaqchikel word of the day: simil (see-MILH) – The smell of the earth after the first rain OR the smell of a delicious meal.