A Daily Interaction

    “Good morning, Marta!”

    “Oh, good morning, dear.”

    Every morning begins this way. I stumble into my dorm’s bathroom, half an hour later than planned, as Marta, our cleaning woman, mops the water that’s seeped under the cheap shower curtains.  

    “How are you?” I ask through a mouthful of toothpaste.

    “Oh, you know, my back, it is not so good,” she says, pausing for a minute, touching the small of her back, and glancing at me through her little glasses.

    And so our habitual conversation continues. I had always thought Marta was Mexican, a quick judgment based on her Spanish accent and darker skin. Not until I decided to profile her for a class assignment did I discover she was from Guatemala—a country she had left 26 years ago but to which she someday hopes to return.

    During our interview, Marta gave these details slowly and cautiously. Speaking through a Spanish translator, she seemed unsure as to why I would care to hear about her life in Chiquimula, Guatemala. Years of surface banter by bathroom stalls left her surprised and unprepared for an in depth conversation. The insights she did provide—her friendless childhood with a strict mother, an absent father who refused to accept her as a daughter—were told simply with an unsettling lack of self-pity. So was life.

    As she rubbed her aching shoulders with spotted hands, Marta spoke of her decision to move to Chicago to support her family. Left in Guatemala was her home, her livelihood, and four children in the care of their grandmother. After her husband had left her and begun a new family, Marta sent money as often as possible to support her children’s high school education. She spent her first four years in the U.S. without ever seeing her family.

    “I had an idea of what I was doing, leaving my kids, but I also understood the necessity of coming,” Marta said. “I made myself strong.”

    We only spoke of the interview once after it happened, when she asked me whether my teacher had liked it. I told her she had. I still see Marta every morning, same toothbrush in my hand, same smile on her face. I still say hello and she still calls me dear, like she does with every other resident of our floor. Most of them still think she’s from Mexico.