Antigua host family

As my Spanish has improved, I’ve discovered more about the family that is hosting me. Amanda has been fantastic, ensuring we’re comfortable, ready to talk without being nosy, and runs a very efficient B&B. We asked why she doesn’t actually register to AirBnB, and she said that people didn’t want to stay so far out of town. My teacher suggested that Amanda puts in more effort than other host families used by the school for just this reason. It’s further away, which I don’t mind, but the large, clean rooms and diverse menu of very decent food make up for it.

She doesn’t manage the whole service on her own. Ilya, a Mayan woman, has a room on the ground floor where the family live, which she shares with her daughter, Fatima. Unlike other families I’ve seen with ‘help’, the relationship here is very positive. Ilya works very hard, cleaning the whole house each day and doing laundry in return for the room and food, but Amanda spends as much time in the kitchen as Ilya, helps with other chores as well as taking care of the church bookkeeping, and helps Fatima with her homework. After asking Ilya for guidance with my Spanish homework one day, I had the horrifying thought that she might not be literate, but I’ve also seen her helping Fatima learn her letters.

They joke that Fatima has two mothers and two fathers. I haven’t asked where Fatima’s biological father is, and they haven’t shared that information, but Amanda’s husband Paco and her oldest son both act as father figures for her. Paco co-owns the metal workshop, which we walk through to get to the front door, with his brother who lives between us and the street. I assume that the whole place belonged to their parents and was divided up to make room for two houses and the workshop. Two other brothers live nearby.

I haven’t had enough exposure to other families to know whether this situation is normal, and I wonder how the relationship between Amanda and Ilya began. The only clue I have is that a Canadian friend who lives on a property outside of town has a local family acting as caretakers. He honks and they run to open the gate. He repeatedly tells me how guilty he feels for this colonial relationship, but that the family was living on the street before his parents gave them a home, security and an income. Perhaps Ilya was invited to move in when her husband was no longer around to help. If I come back to stay, I might have a strong enough relationship to ask.

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