monday, monday

What is going on relative to my research project--

Getting settled in here has been really hard, I never really did it last time, but Im feeling hopeful about this trip. I am taking care of myself. I have a good living situation with a family. It is an interesting adoption case actually. The domestic, Marga, got pregnant and the man left her with the baby. Meanwhile her employers who lived a bunch of years in the states-- he was born in Louisiana-- and who are grandparent age decided to let her keep the baby. They don´t pay her much at all but she has plenty to eat and is healthy and works in the house and can stay with her little two year old. It has been good for me to watch as I am thinking about how adoption works for everyone involved because although the boy has not been officially adopted, something like an adoption has happened where the owners of the house deeply love the little boy like his mother loves him, and where they care for him a lot economically as well.

I met with the social worker last week and recorded a great interview with her. This afternoon, she is going to set me up with a long interview time (hopefully) with a woman who is about to give up her third child in adoption, a kind of unique situation. The offices there have been remodeled so the walls are thin and sort of open, but it is MUCH more private than it was when I was down here in May and everything was under construction.

This week is our week together to really do a lot of interviewing at the court house. Then, this weekend, this taxi driver is going to take me to Rabinal and Salama, where he is from. Finding him was very lucky because those are places that I have studied and thought about a lot. It will be an opportunity to think about the forced transition away from subsitance farming that happened during the 80s. The taxi driver really wants to talk about this hydroelectric project that Rios Montt made and hes going to take me to the site of a model village where everyone was to relocate.

I have gotten back in touch with a young woman who works as an assistant to an adoption lawyer. Shes great and Im so lucky to know her both because we can go out together as friends and because she knows so many stories. So, things are shaping up, and that is the word from here.