Categoría: Inglés

Translated by Marvin Najarro While looking for coffee and vanilla ice cream in the frozen food section, Baudilia discovered a Nacimiento (nativity scene), it was like finding her favorite cinco (marble), her tira (marble shooter), after looking for it in the pigsty, under the tapesco de las gallinas (chicken coop), in the corner where the goats sleep, in the nest of feathers of thecoquechas (guinea fowls),  and even under the two meters of gravel left over from the construction of the house’s tapial (mudwall). It was her favorite tira that always brought her luck in winning at playing triangle, holes, and turtle. When she saw the bag of…

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Translated by Marvin Najarro Clemencia bought frijol camagua, ripening beans.She was looking for sweet peppers and onions, but the beans in nía Maria’s basket tried hard to catch her attention. First, they stood on their heads, jumped, raised their hands and danced, but Clemencia was too busy looking for the healthiest peppers. The frijol camagua did not give up and deployed their last tool, they belly flopped over the bundles of siete montes, seven herbs, they knew it was the only way to catch the attention of the distracted woman. With five peppers in the bag, Clemencia looked for the onions, but like a thick…

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Translated by Marvin Najarro The rain started around four in the afternoon and it has not stopped since. Fausta put herself in the hands of god, lit a candle to El Señor de Esquipulas and tucks her six pollitos, children, into bed with the poncho she bought in installments from a vendor who comes every Thursday from Momostenango, ajenando, hawking, pillowcases, sheets, ponchos, blankets, and traditional tablecloths. He always comes with his teenage son, and they travel around the town and villages with their wares a mecapal. Fausta let them to warm their tortillas over the embers under the comal. They carried their tortillas in a morral, which theyslung…

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Translated by Marvin Najarro As she does every day, she wakes up at three in the morning, stretches her body out on the metal bed with the wobbly leg and jumps off landing on her feet on the dirt floor. She unbars the makeshift door and goes outside to brush her teeth and wash her face with cold water that received the night’s dew. She cuts a lemon in half, sprinkles a little baking soda on it, and rubs her sobacos with it. She ties her hair into a ponytail, puts on her shoes, and grabs a sweater. She starts walking down…

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Translated by Marvin Najarro Since four o’clock in the morning, she has been at the pond washing her family’s clothes, some other women arrived at three o’clock, each one with a kerosene lamp to provide light in the darkness of the village’s grove of trees. Fortunately, there is a pavilion that provides cover from the rain when it is not windy, but when it rains heavily there is nowhere to take shelter, and they wash the clothes under the heavy downpour and end up soaked with their clothes dripping as they walk back home. If they finish before sunrise, they…

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Translated by Marvin Najarro In other times she would have bought guavas in the village for diez len (ten cents) each, big beautiful guavas the size of her hand, but instead these guavas churucas (wrinkled) of today are a sorry sight, overpriced like everything else, nowadays even the air we breathe is expensive, Toña reflects, while trying to make ends meet. She feels like drinking hibiscus punch; she always finds the two-pounds bags on the bottom shelves, near the green beans and beets. Although she usually shops quickly, today Toña wants to walk through the supermarket aisles and be disappointed by the colorless and tasteless…

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