Mamálita

Mamálita, or Margarita, is another incredible woman I have met here in Guatemala. She is the grandmother of Elvia and about 80 years old now.

Mamálita was born in Santa Teresa, an aldea of San Pedro, San Marcos, the same place Elvia was born. Mamálita's father never worked a day of his life, so it was left to Mamálita's mother and Mamálita, as the oldest child, to take care of the younger children. When Mamálita was 8 years old she left Santa Teresea to go and work in Xela as a domestic servant, but was essentially a slave. She never finished school (I'm not sure if she ever went to school) and cannot read or write.

Well, when Mamálita was 18 she met a man and got pregnant with Elvia's father. This man cheated on Mamálita and never married her. When Hermolindo was born Mamálita sent him to live with her mother in Santa Teresea. Mamálita continued living and working as a servant in Xela and once again got pregnant with Gloria, Elvia's aunt. I am not sure how old Mamálita was when Gloria was born, but she is only 10 years older than Elvia. Mamálita was older at this point, so Gloria always lived with Mamálita in the houses she was working in.

Mamálita was consistently mistreated by her employers, and thought of and treated as trash, not worthy of any respect. She constantly had to be working, because if she was ever caught sitting to rest for a minute, even to eat, she was chastised for being lazy and they would threaten to fire her. And Mamálita claims she often worked for nicer families that treated her better than most families would treat their servants.

Well, eventually Mamálita decided it was time for her to come back to San Marcos and find work in the capital city here (where I am living). Eventually Mamálita was able to find a job cleaning the bishop's house. She worked for the bishop before our current bishop, and worked for the current bishop until this past January. She was finally forced to "retire" because her arthritis has become so bad and has a lot of trouble using stairs. So Mamálita was "retired"in her house for about 4 months and became really depressed because she does not know what it means to not work, and to not work exceptionally hard. So about a month ago Mamálita opened her own comedor up the street from her house (which is across the street from mine). A comedor is like a small restaurant, but they generally only offer one or two plates a day and they are really cheap (Mamálita's meals cost about $1.10 and are delicious) and low key. So now Mamálita has her comedor and seems pretty content to be working again.

The lives of so many people I have met here are so different from myself, and everybody I know in the United States. My favorite thing about being in this country is being able to sit down with people and just listen to their stories, and then after understanding their stories, being able to hear their thoughts on life and the world. Mamálita is a bit more jaded about the world then Beatrice (see other post) but she is still an incredibly strong woman for whom I have a lot of respect.