Posts Tagged ‘Guatemala’

Corona

Wednesday, March 18th, 2020

I found this photo of me at our rented house in Antigua last summer. The world is so different now. Everything from before seems quaint and naive. My daily excursions to the artisan market. My crazy affection for handmade plastic baskets. Our carefree visits to restaurants and museums. Today, we’re grateful to breathe fresh air.

From March 16:

Day 1 of homeschooling and sheltering in place. Day 1 of many days to come. The school district said 2 weeks, but we’re anticipating much more time than that.

Upside # 1: We’ve discovered Downton Abbey. Which everyone in the world has watched, except us. Omg, every night, the joy!
Upside # 2: We’re all healthy, so far. That’s a big one, and we’ll take it.

From March 17:

Day 2 of homeschooling and sheltering in place. Our planned schedule of kids waking up at 8 and starting “school” by 9 are, shall we say, subject to change. Especially since it’s noon and one of our teenagers has only now gotten out of bed. Reminding myself: Flexibility in all things will be key.

How do we even try to keep life normal for our children? When they only want to see their friends and socialize. The latest news report is that schools will remain closed until the Fall. We’re not even through the first week.

What choice do we have, what control?

This will be an adventure.

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Antigua summer 2019

Thursday, November 14th, 2019

When is Guatemala not on my mind? Never, probably. Scrolling through my phone, I found these photos from Summer 2019, all from Antigua. xoxo

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Birth family visit summer 2019

Friday, October 18th, 2019

I’m posting here a few photos from our trip to Guatemala this summer, with Olivia’s birth mother and grandmother, at Lake Atitlan and in the church at Panajachel. I won’t speak for anyone else, but these visits are the most emotional days of my year. (Also, as you probably know, I post family photos “from the back.” xoxo)

Olivia’s now 17. We reunited with her family for the first time when she was seven, and have been lucky enough to visit every year since then. Each family, child, and situation is different and everyone makes decisions that are right for them. With Olivia’s family, this feels right.

 

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Love Never Quits by Gina Heumann

Thursday, September 5th, 2019

I love reading memoirs about adopting from Guatemala, so when I saw my friend Gina Heumann post on FB about a book she’d written, I bought it immediately. Love Never Quits tells the story of Gina and her husband, the two boys they adopted from Guatemala, and the challenges they faced and overcame as a family. The younger boy suffered early trauma which manifested as behavior diagnosed by mental health professionals as Reactive Attachment Disorder. But this diagnosis did not come quickly. Gina tried for years to find help for her son, until, finally, she did.

The biggest takeaway for me in reading the book was how little is understood about adoption by mental health professionals, still, after so many years. And by adoption, I mean being relinquished by your mother; possibly living with multiple caregivers, in an orphanage, or on the street; and/or possibly being neglected or abused before landing in a secure, loving home; and, after all that, being required to adjust–as a young, frightened child–to an entirely new life. Reading the book also reminded me how ill-prepared *we* were as adoptive parents: how no one told us what we might face, how alone and misunderstood we would feel while facing it, and how difficult it was to find trained professionals qualified to counsel and guide us.

I met Gina Heumann at Heritage Camp for Adoptive Families (something else many of us do in our attempts to build bonds with our children) and was impressed with her dynamism and energy. Brava to her for writing about her family’s struggles and how they overcame them. May Gina’s story deepen the understanding of adoption’s complexity.

For more information about Gina Heumann, visit her website.

 

 

 

 

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MFA and Finish

Wednesday, January 30th, 2019

My word for 2018 was “Finish.” Finish the MFA degree and finish a decent draft of the manuscript for my first novel. Friends, I’m happy to report I did both. Here’s me with Olivia on graduation day, in my cap and gown, and giving my final reading in the Antioch library. I read the opening scene of my novel-in-progress, which seemed to provoke a strong reaction.

My word for 2019 is still to be decided.

Happy New Year! (no longer so new.)

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Jakelin Caal Maquin

Wednesday, December 19th, 2018

Many of us know the world of Jakelin Caal Maquin because our children are from villages like hers in Alta Verapaz. Their families are Q’eqchi, K’iche, Kaqchikel, Ixil, Mam, Tz’utujil, Chuj, Garifuna. They struggle in ways hard for us to witness, much less understand: The daily walks to the public pila for clean drinking water, the scarcity of protein, the homes that get washed away during rainy season, the inability to attend school due to the need to work, the lack of jobs beyond subsistence farming, the absence of any viable and lasting opportunity.

I read this paragraph in the New York Times and almost weep:

On paper, Guatemala is not poor; the World Bank classifies it as an upper-middle income country. But those statistics mask profound inequalities, the legacy of centuries of racism and economic control by powerful groups that even now resist attempts to soften the sharp edges of the country’s systemic discrimination.

We see it when we visit: the endless, crushing, inescapable poverty that defines the lives of indigenous Guatemalans. We hear it from our families, who tell us their only chance for a better life is to leave the country they love.

When I read stories like Jakelin’s, I remember my grandparents, who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from Scotland and Ireland to America so their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would not go hungry and suffer the way they did. My father was the first of his strain of the O’Dwyer clan born on US soil. Today, I benefit from their brave sacrifices.

My heart breaks for the soul of Jakelin, for her mother and father, her siblings and cousins. Their family is my family. We are one.

 

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Antigua parade Summer 2018

Sunday, August 5th, 2018


Maybe it’s the Rockette in my blood, but I see people moving in unison to music and I become that white lady with the camera, sobbing. This week in Antigua, Guatemala.

 

 

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Guatemala. Summer 2018

Thursday, August 2nd, 2018


Something I didn’t anticipate, but probably should have, is the way Guatemala now possesses my heart. I’m here with my kids, so happy to breathe in this place. (Yesterday we visited friends who are weavers in Xenocoj; the photo shows Olivia standing beside them, dressed in their beautiful traje.)

Other photos show the kids eating lunch at Pollo Campero and a bus with balloons and sticky notes. (This week was St. Christopher’s Day, patron saint of travelers and drivers.)

With every trip, my appreciation for this remarkable country deepens.

 

 

 

 

 

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Fuego and Pacaya

Monday, June 4th, 2018

The footage of Volcano Fuego erupting is mind-boggling. The latest reports state at least 25 dead and hundreds injured. Aurora International Airport is closed, and for miles beyond the lava flow, ash blankets roads, trees, and houses. Our family in Guatemala is safe, thankfully, but so many are not.

Guatemala is home to some thirty volcanoes. As I’ve previously posted, Mateo and I have climbed Pacaya several times; the photos here are from our trip in October 2015. Pacaya is known as “safe” to climb, unlike the mighty and active Fuego, whose name means fire.

Guatemala always is in our thoughts, now especially.

 

 

 

 

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Happy birthday, Rigoberta Menchu

Tuesday, January 9th, 2018

Happy 59th birthday to 1993 Nobel Peace Prize winner and K’iche’ activist Rigoberta Menchu. Today is a good day to post a clip from the 1983 documentary she narrated, When the Mountains Tremble. Menchu’s voice throughout is riveting, beginning with these opening sentences–“My name is Rigoberta Menchu… I’m going to tell you my story, which is the story of all Guatemalan people.”

My family owns the DVD, but the film is probably available elsewhere on line.

When the Mountains Tremble is directed by Pamela Yates, who continues to make important documentaries about Guatemalan history, including Granito and 500 Years.

 

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