Takes a Village, #5

         La Familia Guatemalteca

Qué lindos, ¿no?

This is Brian, and this is Josi. They are in our Guate family, as we've come to call it. Their Mami Flor was Asa's nana for 10 years (in the US). A few times, we all flew to Guatemala with Flor to stay with her family. And they became ours.

Sarita, Poppa Cornu, María
They've lived on this finca their entire lives. We took Sarita to a carnival and she went on all the rides. Twice!

Brian and Josi live on the finca where their family has lived for generations. The other people who live there full time are the very elderly Poppa Cornu (called, unavoidably, "Pop-o-corno" by Asa); Flor's two sisters, Sarita and María; and la Chinita, Ruth, who got her nickname because she looks Chinese. At least that's what Flor says. Ruth is Flor's daughter. Flor's son, Juan Carlos, lives with Flor in the projects in Boston. They both send money back for the family.

So what is a finca? It's hard to translate -- the dictionary says "estate," but these fincas, outside Guatemala City, are not the "estates" of U. S. English. Finca isn't exactly "farm," either. That's granja. Anyway... I like the word finca. 

This is when Sarita introduced Asa to the Joy of Pigs. Well, to pigs anyway.

Below is the central courtyard of the finca. You can see how estate

doesn't really describe it. The door on the right leads into the kitchen.

Notice how things are held up? It's just natural tree trunks, not finished boards. I think it's pretty.

Turning around, you see a small table and two more chairs. Nothing else is in the room. It's all out in the courtyard.

The stove (yep, that's what that is) is made of flat rocks set on top a concrete base. To cook, you build fires inside the base and then find a hot spot to set your pot, pan, kettle on.

I am pretty sure this is not good for the lungs. Especially if the lungs spend a lifetime in here.

Oh, look. Here's la Chinita now. Does she look Chinese to you? Ruth is la mamí of Brian and Josi. She is Mayan Indian and Latina. La Chinita is so beautiful; and she is the most serene person I have ever met.

At this point, she hadn't seen her husband, Gustavo, in more than two years. He was working in the US and sending money back. Ruth and Josi were handling it pretty well. Brian, not so well, I'm afraid. He seemed sad a lot.




I took the photo below of Josi in the courtyard. On this trip we brought toy knight armor and swords for Brian and Asa; for Josey, the accoutrement of a princess. We were wise to the fact that little Guatemalan girls had jumped on the American Princess bandwagon, too. I don't know what Josey is thinking here, but I hope it's not that every little girl can't be a princess. That's what I always think when I see all the Princess stuff on every single little girl at the mall.

Our Mayan Princess.
She always looks like she's on a downer
when I take her picture.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thus ends the series, Takes a Village. I used to hear that and go, "Oh, that's nice." I've since thought a lot about the expression.

All humans work together to perpetuate and advance the species (in the long run), and to bring up the next generation (in the short run). What are the practical implications?

I'm thinking that when people who aren't parents gripe about how the parents in the office get to work at home on school holidays, or take the day off on snow days, we can all consider the extra work and time put in to be a contribution to raising the village's children. We would all want parents to be with their children to care for them when needed.

Adoption, foster care, hosting exchange students are ways to give to the village. On a smaller scale, you can take a kid whose parent died, to shop for a holiday gift for the other parent. Who else is going to take them? Offer to show up after ESL class and talk casually with the students. It gives them more conversational practice. I'm thinking 15 minutes, that's all.

Give blood. Babies in particular need their specific blood types. If you can give platelets, consider getting into the apheresis program. They won't make you spell it. Hell, they won't even make you say it.

I know this whole thing sounds preachy. And it went on a long time. And I don't care. ~tapu

Takes a Village, #3

Of all the children who have come into and out of my life, Mariah is the hardest to write about. Oh, Mariah herself is a wonderful child. She was much easier to parent than a lot of children would have been given the circumstances. What makes it hard to write about her hinges on how she came to live with us.

When I was little, I was practically raised with a boy named Drew. His family and my family went on every vacation together. We all crowded into one car each Christmas to go shopping at Lazarus department store. We spent our weekends together in family activities. Drew and I were like brother and sister, or at least first cousins. He was the brightest, funniest, most charming boy: everyone loved him.

We were also each other’s sexual “first.” Our parents were a little late in realizing we were too old to sleep in the same room. Drew and I were always just friends, but with the most comfortable closeness I ever knew in my childhood. We had “casual sex” before it became the national pastime.

Once we grew up, Drew and I had little contact. Our lives were far flung, in lifestyle and geographically. While I was a graduate student, Drew was a laborer. That kind of far flung.

Drew had a little girl with a woman he was later divorced from. The mother was in prison for drugs and Drew had full custody of their daughter. I had a little boy with my partner. Drew and I saw each other’s children only once, when we were all back home for Christmas. The kids were toddlers: my son, Asa, and Drew’s daughter, Mariah.

A few years went by. One day I got a call from my father. He had shocking news. Numbing, nauseating news:
 
Drew had been charged with child molestation and pandering underage porn. He’d had sex with Mariah’s 14 year old babysitter, and he’d filmed it.

I can still feel the shock and the grief. You know how, when you hear something like that about a stranger, you think that scum, that sub-human, a monster like that deserves to die. Well, let me tell you:  it is a different feeling when you love the person involved. It is waves of confusion and complexity. Denial is the only refuge.

And there was Mariah, 6 years old. She stayed with her grandma, and then an aunt, and then a second cousin. When Drew’s trial was over, I asked if they’d send her to me. I wanted to make sure she heard good stories about her daddy. I figured I had more of those stories than anyone. Drew figured I did, too, and signed the paperwork.

Drew was sentenced to 24 years. I’m not sure what “hard time” means exactly, but that sounds like it to me. While Mariah lived here in Maine, we would fly  to Ohio to visit Drew in prison. I don’t know if I can capture the tension of those visits. We were there for 6 hours. Come in at 9; go through a degrading search; no one out ‘til 3. An open room with fixed tables and chairs. A hundred people with disheartening stories sitting in that stark, gleaming room all day. Mothers trying to keep their children from running around. One of the dozens of rules: Inmates are not allowed to touch visitors in any way... so, no hugging when you see them. Try explaining that to his daughter. You stand feet apart and say, “Hello!” and “I’m so glad to see you!” and he says, “Thanks for coming. Thanks for bringing her,” and starts to cry.

I just realized—that
little thang is wearing
MY jacket!

Mariah was with us in Maine for two years. She had been held back a grade the year she shuffled from relative to relative, but she thrived in a new atmosphere. We didn’t do anything special. I remember thinking, gah, it takes so little to keep a child feeling stable and happy and safe--how come it’s so often not done?

At the end of the second school year here, at age 10, Mariah decided to go back to family and be closer to Daddy. I’m ashamed to admit that I felt released from a heavy burden. 

It is hard to raise another person’s child. I don’t mean if you’ve adopted; but when they have a fall-back position, things get sticky. For the child, someone else should be in charge. Not you, who have made an unfavorable decision. And poor Mariah--she desperately wanted Daddy to come back so she could just live with him again. I heard "Daddy would never do that," so many times that I was afraid I'd respond. 

But in the end, we made it through and at the very least, Mariah was away from the small town back home long enough for people not to think of what Drew had done every time they saw her.

Mariah called me after she had been back home a while and said, “Mama, thank you so much for teaching me manners. None of the kids here have any!” I tell that story a lot.

Takes a Village, #2

Zolboo and the Mama.
We're on our way to his basketball banquet.

Guess what. I was an exchange student. I was in high school and I went to live in Mexico. It was stressful and lonely, and at times frightening, but I've always been really glad I did it. So when this woman named "Bunny," whom I'd met in the grocery store (making eye contact again), asked if we could host an exchange student, I said Sure!

I asked if it mattered that we were a gay couple with no teenagers, only a 3-year-old boy. Nope, said Bunny. This is America. They're coming here to learn about it. They have to deal with where they end up. (I love Bunny.)

And that's how Ganzolboo "Zolboo" Galbadrakh of Mongolia came to Maine to stay with us. He was 17 and from the capital city of Ulaan Bataar. To become an exchange student, applicants must pass a test to show that they're proficient in English. When Zolboo arrived at Portland International Jetport, I asked (cleverly), How was your trip? And he said, Yes...?

Zolboo was about as miserable as I was as an exchange student. I think he liked living with us, and loved Asa, always reading to him and holding him up high to make basketball shots. But his beginner's English held him back in making friends at school and he wasn't much of a self-starter when it came to exploring the city or finding other ways to meet teens.

Zolboo brought home one friend, another exchange student named Ruslan. He was from Tajikistan. That guy was dangerous and nuts. He got drunk at a party, which embarrassed Zolboo to death but he had to bring him home with him--Ruslan was staying the night. I gave Ruslan a small room of his own. He threw up all over the white duvet cover and it went through to the comforter. We had to throw it all away.

Other than that lapse in judgment, Zolboo was a great guy to have in the family! He calls sometimes. His English is much improved. He lives in Washington D.C. and has some big job with an international corporation there. He is so grown up.