Marie and Benedice - 11.20.06

Another Guatemala post I've been working on over the last year...

My host family this week includes 2 granddaughters: Marie, age 4, and Benedice, age 5. Technically, the girls live next door, but they always join me when I come for meals at their grandmother's house. Every morning, they sit next to me as I eat my beans and eggs and tortillas. They’ve finished their breakfast long before I'm awake and so they just watch as I eat.

If there’s one thing kids like, it’s being chased, and Marie and Benedice spend a good deal of energy each morning devising ways to get me to off my duff. They whisper secret plans to each other, giggling their fool heads off.

In the end, they always come up with the same plan. The plan is this: Benedice distracts me with a question while Marie circles around to tickle me from behind. That's it. Every morning.

It works every time....

I defend myself like a wounded coyote, leaping from my stool and lunging at my Marie with teeth bared. Ah, but this leaves my back exposed to Benedice, who pounces on me like a mountain lion. There is a melee, and much chasing about the house, the girls doing their best to stay ahead of me but still close enough to feel threatened. I do my best to give a good chase without destroying my knees on the concrete floor.

Then Grandma peeks her head inside and gives us the stink eye. We slink back to the table.

I have a few moments of peace to eat until Grandma steps out of the house again, and the girls start to giggle, and whisper their secrets, and Benedice asks another question.

*****

After breakfast we always pause to read a book, and that book is always Where The Wild Things Are. The girls fight each other for the right to turn the pages.

When the last page arrives, the girls rush outside. I follow slowly behind, conserving my energy for the game of tag ahead.

*****

(Video: Nicole joins our game of tag)


You might think I could fairly well dominate a game of tag against a couple of preschoolers, but we're surprisingly evenly matched. For one thing, they know the terrain – the slick spots in the packed earth, the branches that must hurtled. They also fit easily under the lines of wet clothes that are steaming in the morning sun – lines that threaten to decapitate me at every turn. Finally, they are protected by their puppies, Rocky and Paulusa, who snip at my heels whenever I come near to their posts.

We have to dodge all these obstacles as we race through the fenced in yard. We also have to dodge Great Grandma when she shuffles outside to hang clothes on the lines, or to visit the latrine, which sits in the back of the lot in a shrouded by black plastic tarps and sheets of rusty tin.


*****

One morning, I ask my host Grandma about her mother. She responds with a snort, “That bitch? She’s a horrible person. She used to hit me and my sisters, yank on our ears, say all kind of bad things about us. Even now I have to keep the girls away from her so she doesn’t hurt them.”

But Grandma never questions her obligation to care for her mother, and so Great Grandma remains an obstacle as I chase Marie and Benedice. She shuffles slowly through the yard, the eye of our hurricane, sliding her left foot forward 10 inches or so, and then, leaning on a stick, she drags her right foot even.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love these stories! Tell me another one :)
Mom