What the heck are the gringas doing?

What the heck are the gringas doing?

This is what I imagine many people in our community think when they see us.

Almost every day we go out to run in our matching black capris, white shirts, and baseball hats. Sometimes we go in the morning, sometimes in the evening; the people in the aldeas we run through must think we are some strange twins who never work.

When we do work, the situation often plays out like one morning last week, when we were standing in front of the muni (municipal building) for an hour and a half waiting for our teachers to come pick us up. “What the heck are the gringas doing loitering in front of the muni?” I imagine people are thinking. I wonder if they have ever heard of people-watching?

I bet they get a kick out of us wandering circles around the market buying two of every type of mango so we can try them all.

Today I didn’t have to work and my host dad who usually drives the kids to school was out of town, so I offered to take the kids to school. In a fashion all too familiar to me from my own upbringing, they woke up late, took forever to get ready, and we had to rush to school. It’s nice to live with a family I can identify with. On the way there and back, I of course greeted everyone we passed. As soon as I got home there was a phone call to say that my host sister’s teacher was gone and she didn’t have class. So it was back to the school for me to pick her up. When I greeted them for the third time that morning all of the neighbors began to wonder, “What the heck is the gringa doing walking back and forth along the same street all morning?” I got even stranger looks when I went into the principal’s office to pick up my sister. “You’re leaving with her?” they asked my sister. Yea, I would also be suspicious of some random gringa coming to pick up a child. Especially with the reputation we have for being child robbers. But luckily for me and little sis, security here is much more lax than in some places and with her affirmation off we went.

Sometimes my strange actions might be maddening to some. Like today when I used the bus to travel within the town… Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but apparently it’s a no-no. I don’t think the driver was very happy when I wouldn’t “correr atras,” or push my way to the back of the bus to make way for more and more passengers to pile on, because I was getting off in 4 blocks. But what could I do, I was late and the mini buses for in-town travel weren’t running yet.

There are also some good “what the heck are the gringas doing” moments. Like when we introduce ourselves to a room full of parents in their native kaqchikel. The only problem there is that then they expect us to know more than five words… poco a poco.