The Local Outsider

‘’Janet..Despierta.’’, whispers Doña María through a crack in the door to my room. My mind begins to register the sounds of roosters crowing in the distance and birds scratching their tiny claws on the rooftop. I look up at the rays of sunlight coming through various gaps in the dusted clay roof tiles above my head. My mind wanders. I think about my family. I think about the events that have brought me here. I think about my students who I’ve grown to love.
I sit up, stretch, and make my way to the kitchen behind the house.
Doña María is standing on the hard-packed dirt floor in front of a wood table. She is shaping a fresh tortilla with the palms of her smooth, plump hands. “¡Buenos Días!” I say, and she follows up with a habitual, “¿Como amaneció?” How did you wake? I sit down and Doña María hands me a cup of sweet, black coffee and two warm tortillas, just freshly patted and grilled atop a thick metal plate on the clay fire stove.

After breakfast with Dona María, I go to my room and get dressed. She asks where I’m going and I respond with,“Arriba”. In a place with two long roads that start at the beginning of town and wind up a slowly inclining hill, there are only two ways to go: “Arriba”,Up, or “Abajo”,Down.This non-specific answer is suitable because: 1.No one truly knows where they’re going and 2.No one really cares about the answer. It is merely part of the small talk that fills the day.

I stop by Doña Amalia’s. There are several women sitting around in the kitchen, so I pull up a chair. Standing by the stove, Doña Amalia smiles at me knowingly and looks over at the woman in the usual spotlight. Doña Chilo, a slightly round, exuberant and opinionated woman, gossips about babies being born, the new bus driver who ‘’drives like he’s a pig running from slaughter’’ and the couples who are ‘’much too young to be dating’’.
I look out the window. Two years living here and I still marvel at the sights and sounds of everyday life. Men are pushing wheelbarrows full of buckets of water from the well and teenage girls are carrying ground corn for making tortillas effortlessly on their heads. Children have bare feet and their legs and clothes are covered in the dirt that they are kicking up while playing marbles in their front yards.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Amalia looking at me thoughtfully. Her comforting eyes meet mine.They reflect the kind acceptance of an unspoken understanding. I both belong, and don’t belong, in this place I call home.