Scrabble - 9.21.2006

My teacher, Maria was helping me learn prepositions when she told me that her father and brother were killed by the government in 1985.

She said at that time it wasn´t uncommon for soldiers to ride into a Mayan village, charge the people with supporting the guerrilla movement, gather everyone into the church, and then kill all the men. Sometimes they would kill everyone. Then they would burn the buildings and destroy the fields.

Many others, especially social leaders and university students simply "disappeared." That´s what happened to her father and brother. Her father was a leader in their Catholic church. Her brother was a university student in Xela. They disappeared on the same day, and there hasn´t been a trace of them since. As far as she knows, they weren´t part of the movement.

Then Maria told me about her family´s farm. They grow corn for food and potatoes to sell at the market. From her gestures I gather that each potato is the size of... maybe two softballs glued together. Her family digs each one out by hand because the hills are too steep for machines (and anyway, machines would be too expensive.)

Then I learned that her nephew is about 2 months away from receiving an Accounting degree. And her niece is very nearly done with some sort of Science degree.

Towards the end of my lesson, Maria suggested that we play Spanish Scrabble to work on my vocabulary. She told me that I can use a dictionary so I have a small chance of winning. Just as we started our game, the electricity cut out. We playedby the light of a thin yellow candle.