A word on mosquito bites and family as a way to sum up the Mayan Empire

By Karla

Four days into my trip to my father’s homeland, Guatemala, we go to the most beautiful terrain I have ever seen. A mix between jungle and forest, parrots flying past me, butterfly’s the size of your hand, and the buzzing of insects. At some point we stop in what can only be described as a Lychee forest, huge lychee everywhere in tons of different colors, lots of yellows, reds, red with green spindles, and oranges. There it is – the entire world’s beauty there for me to enjoy.
I get to our family’s home and realize I have been massively bitten by mosquitoes. Now a few bad mosquito bites is a blip on my travel radar. My father, a man who always praised toughening up, looks obscenely worried.
His reaction surprises me. The father that I know and love has always been slightly apathetic. That night, I am up writing in my journal and about to slather on menthol. My father comes in the room and asks me if he can put the menthol on my legs for me. I look at the worry lines creasing his forehead and ease myself back on my uncle’s couch and make room for him to sit as I think "Let him be your dad right now". For the next 30 minutes my dad sits on the couch and rubs menthol on each of my mosquito bites. He shakes his head as he looks and thoroughly rubs the cool balm into each of the bites. It dawns on me then, 1 am, sitting on the couch of an uncle I've only known for days, in a tiny tropical and rural port town in the south east of Guatemala, just how much my dad loves me. It hurts him to see my mosquito bites. Where as I was fully willing to brush them off as inconvenience and take a minimal 5 minutes to care for them, my dad thinks it’s worth 30 minutes of his time to try and make it better.

Now, my father isn't the most expressive man. He has a gruff exterior and his expression in the states is usually one that verges on scowl. I am quite the emotional and expressive woman, I was a toughy for him to handle. That night, and many other moments on the trip, I was struck by how in our baggage as father and daughter, I had not ever truly understood just how much my dad loves me, even if its hard for him to say it. I am loved. There it is – the entire world’s beauty there for me to enjoy.
My family in Guatemala relates to each other so powerfully. When one family member hurts the whole family does, when one family member has joy the whole family rejoices. My dad, I discovered, was pulled from all this love at a very young age and put in orphanages until coming to the United States, this is where his base was created. Everything he learned about being a dad got packed into the first 8 to 9 years of his life. A nine year old boy soaked in family and all the bruises and trauma that followed created the man who sat at my legs and dedicated 30 minutes every night for 5 nights to provide his daughter with comfort.
I heard so many rich stories in those three weeks. Stories about my revolutionary great-grandmother "La Abuela", that hid propaganda in tortillas to help Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary. Stories about her exile from her mother country. Stories about the loss of her 13 children and her raising all her grandchildren in their absence. Stories that are full of immense pain and tremendous pride at what each of them had to do to guarantee survival for the rest.
I understand now, perhaps better than at any time in my life, that I am Guatemalan, Mexican, and American. This visit was not a visit to a foreign land but a return to another home. I am fundamentally tied to my culture. To a people whose ruins remain more amazing than any modern day building I have seen. Linked to traditions and values created out of struggle and hope. I am loved by them. I was loved by them before I ever was even born. And they fought for themselves, each other and my future. Now I get the distinct honor of being their historian; making sure that my kids, my students, and my friends know where they come from.