I, Rigoberta Menchu

by Rigoberta Menchu

  I worked for more than four months, I think, and received no money. Then she paid me a little. She gave me twenty quetzals and I was very happy. I wanted to keep them for my father. But she told me that I had to buy shoes, because she was ashamed to have anyone in her house go barefoot. I had no shoes. But I said to myself: ‘I’m not going to buy any. If she wants me to have some, let her buy them.’

  I remember that we spent a Christmas together, this maid and I, in this rich house. They were very grand people. We couldn’t address them as ‘tu’ at all, we had to use ‘usted’ all the time, out of respect. Anyway, once when I was just starting to learn and was finding Spanish very hard, perhaps I might have used ‘tu’ to the mistress. She almost hit me. She said, ‘Call your mother “tu”. Me, you treat with respect.’ Of course, this wasn’t difficult to understand because I knew we’re always treated like this. It made me laugh sometimes, but as a human being, these things hurt. I used to go out with the other maid but I tried to keep the little I was earning. I was pleased because I now understood Spanish very well. But since nobody taught me to memorize word by word, I couldn’t say a lot. I could say the main things I needed for my work but I couldn’t start a conversation, or answer back, or protest about something. Five, six months I must have been working there. The mistress never talked to me, and as I knew how to do the work, I didn’t need to speak to her. Sometimes I’d talk to the other girl but there wasn’t much time to chat; we each got on with our own work. But one day I was told not to talk to her and if I did I’d be thrown out. The mistress thought that she was teaching me things, like how to protest, things which didn’t suit her. But I told the other maid on the quiet what the mistress had said. ‘Of course, that’s right, because it annoys her when we answer back. But don’t be silly. Don’t let her push you around.’

  After eight months Christmas came and we had a lot to do, because the mistress told us we were going to make two hundred tamales. We had to make two hundred because her friends were coming and she’d promised to make tamales for them all. So the other maid told her that if she wanted them she’d better set to work herself because we weren’t going to do anything. I was anxious because she hadn’t paid me for two months and she was capable of turning me out without paying me. I was anxious so I said to the girl: ‘What happens if she doesn’t pay me?’ ‘If she doesn’t pay, we’ll leave with one of her jewels,’ she said. ‘We have to leave with something, so don’t worry. I’ll stand up for you.’ On December 23rd, I was very worried about whether or not to do what she asked. Then the master came and brought us some five-centavo earrings. It was our Christmas present. He told us we had to make the tamales because guests were coming. The master wasn’t so violent towards us and he often didn’t know what his wife did to us.

  First they sent us to kill the turkeys. We were told to kill four of them. We killed them, but we had a plan. We’d kill them, and pluck them, but we wouldn’t dress them. And if they rotted, well, they could rot and we’d see what the mistress would do. We were going to ask for two days holiday and if they didn’t give it to us we’d go and spend Christmas somewhere else. But I was anxious. I couldn’t do it then, perhaps because of the way my parents had brought me up. I was incapable of disobedience. And those employers exploited my obedience. They took advantage of my innocence. Whatever it was, I did it, as my duty. My friend had plans but the mistress realized that we were making a real fool of her and she threw her out. She threw her out just before Christmas. She also did it so that I couldn’t leave; but even if I had left, I wouldn’t have known where to go. I still didn’t know anyone. I didn’t know the city. So she threw the girl out, saying that if she caught her hanging round the house, she’d shoot her, she’d plug her with a couple of bullets. But the girl told her she could do the same: ‘Don’t think I wouldn’t do the same.’ They had a terrible row. My friend told me: ‘One day I’ll shoot her; one day I’ll come back and she’ll know what it is to face me.’ Then she left. I had to do all the work. The mistress made me serve everything, and she had to work a bit too to make all the tamales she’d promised. I hardly slept. We made the tamales and we did all the other jobs in the house. But the washing piled up and the house was dirty because there wasn’t time to clean it. It was a big house with lots of rooms. Oh, it was a mess.

  December 25th arrived and I remember that they started to drink. They drank and drank. They got completely drunk. They sent me out at midnight on the 25th to get wine and guaro from the cantinas. I had to walk. I didn’t go very far because I knew that they were all drunk inside but I didn’t know what to do because if I went back, they’d throw me out. I was very worried. I went out but I didn’t find anything. Everything round there was closed. I didn’t go further afield; I just spent the time walking round the streets, thinking of my home. We might have had hard times because we had very little, but I’d never suffered like I was suffering in the house of those rich people. I went back and they said: ‘Did you bring the guaro?’ ‘No I couldn’t find any.’ ‘You never went. That girl has given you ideas. You used not to be like that, you weren’t as badly behaved as most Indians are, not like the girl who left.’ And they started discussing the Indians they had at home, saying: ‘Indians are lazy, they don’t work, that’s why they’re poor. They’re always making trouble because they won’t work.’ They began talking, half drunk. I put up with it, listening to them in the other room. Then the mistress said: ‘Here’s a tamal for you so you can try out my handiwork.’ And she left me a tamal. I was so angry I couldn’t bear it, I didn’t even bother to look at the tamal she’d left me on the stove.

  A whole crowd of people came and they took out all the expensive china. I was worried about having to spend two days washing up because I always used to think about the work coming up. They got out all their china, all their most modern things. Everyone brought them shiny presents, everyone who came had big presents for them. They gave presents to their friends too. They were all delighted. But I was sad because my friend wasn’t there. If she’d have been there, we might not have had to put up with all this. We might have found another solution, perhaps we’d have gone out. Later the mistress said: ‘There are no more tamales. We’ll buy you another one tomorrow.’ And she took away the tamal she’d given me. She needed it for one of her friends who’d arrived later. I just couldn’t bear that. I didn’t say anything to her. It wasn’t that I wanted to eat it. I didn’t feel hurt because I hadn’t eaten it but because they’d given it to me as if they rejected me, as if to say, this is what is left over for you. And even then she’d taken it away. That was very, very important for me. I told her I didn’t even want to eat it.

  The mistress left and I went to sleep. I shut myself up in my room saying, ‘They make the mess, let’s see how they deal with it. I’m not going to pick up any plates or do anything.’ And the mistress started shouting for me: ‘Rigoberta, come and pick up the plates,’ but I didn’t get up. I was really stubborn and went to sleep. Of course, I wasn’t asleep. I was thinking of our humble way of life and their debauched life. I said, ‘How pathetic these people are who can’t even shit alone. We poor enjoy ourselves more than they do.’

  So the day passed. They slept all through the 26th. So who had to pick up the plates? Who had to clean the house? Who had to do everything? Me. If I didn’t do it the old bag would throw me out. I got up early. I picked up all the plates, I picked up all the skins of the tamales that they’d thrown away, and I piled it all up in one place. This took almost to midday. I didn’t know where to start: whether to wash up or clean the house? I didn’t feel much like doing anything, because of all the work in front of me and just thinking of me having to do it all. The mistress got up and asked: ‘Have you prepared lunch?’ I said: ‘I don’t know what we’re having to eat,’ because I didn’t know anything about it. ‘Ah, you’re not like Cande,’ she said. (The other maid was called Candelaria). ‘Cande had more initiative. You’re just here to eat. You can’t do anything. Go to the mark
et and buy some meat.’ I didn’t know where the market was. ‘Excuse me, Señora, but I don’t know where the market is.’ I could say straightforward things like that, but I couldn’t say a lot of other things. ‘Oh really? You Indian whore. You know how to make trouble, but you don’t know how to do or say anything else.’ She was very foul-mouthed. I took no notice and didn’t even stop. I went on working although she kept on talking all day long. Then she called a neighbour in to complain to. She said her maid was useless and robbed them blind. I knew I wasn’t stealing their food but that I paid for my keep with my work. In the end, she could do nothing and had to send her neighbour to market to buy everything. They made their meal, I didn’t make anything. I’d been suffering from not having eaten for about two or three days, because I hadn’t even had one of the tamales we’d made with all that effort. I’d gone without sleep to make them. We’d take some out of the oven and put the next lot in, and so on. I told myself–I’ll never forget this part of my life.

  December passed. And I went on working. All the work from Christmas set me back by two weeks. All the new clothes and all the new china they’d got out just piled up. The house was dirty. I had to do everything. The mistress pretended she didn’t notice. She’d get up and go out. She didn’t even complain so much, because she knew she needed me to do it all. That’s when I thought: ‘I must get out of this house. I must go home to my parents.’ She gave me two months’ money. It was forty quetzals. With this and with what I’d already saved, I thought, I can go home to my parents satisfied. It wasn’t very much, perhaps, but it would help them. I told the mistress: ‘I’m leaving. I’m going home.’ She said: ‘No, how can you? We’re so fond of you here. You must stay. I’ll put your wages up, if you like. I’ll give you a quetzal more.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ve made up my mind to go.’ I was announcing my departure, unfortunately. I say unfortunately because a terrible thing happened: one of my brothers arrived and said: ‘Papá is in prison.’

  XV

  CONFLICT WITH THE LANDOWNERS AND THE CREATION OF THE CUC*

  ‘Gather in your grain and seeds and collect the young shoots, because times of drought and hunger are approaching. Sharpen your weapons because it will not be long before enemies, hidden behind mountains and hills, will espy with greed the expanse and richness of these lands.’

  —Popol Vuh

  This was the first time my father went to prison. My brother said, ‘We don’t know what to do for him because the lawyers say Papá will be in jail for eighteen years. We need money to get educated people to help us.’ In Guatemala this is what happens with the poor, especially Indians, because they can’t speak Spanish. The Indian can’t speak up for what he wants. When they put my father in jail, the landowners gave large amounts of money to the judge there. The judge in El Quiché, that is. There are several levels of authority. First, there is the military commissioner. He sometimes lives in the villages or is based in the town, and he tries to impose his own law. Then there is what we call the mayor who represents the authorities that administer justice when they say someone has broken the law. Next come the governors who govern the whole region, each province. And finally, there are the deputies–God knows who they are! To get to see the military commissioner, you first have to give him a mordida, that’s what we call a bribe in Guatemala. To see the mayor, you have to get witnesses, sign papers and then give him a mordida so he will support your case. To see the governor you need not only witnesses from the village, and money, but also lawyers or other intermediaries to talk for you. The governor is a ladino and doesn’t understand the language of the people. He’ll only believe something if a lawyer or educated person says it. He won’t accept anything from an Indian. The mayor is a ladino too. But he’s a ladino who’s come from our people. The military commissioner is also a ladino although this varies a bit, because in some places the commissioners are Indians who have done military service and lived in the barracks. There comes a time when they return to their village, brutalized men, criminals.

  My father fought for twenty-two years, waging a heroic struggle against the landowners who wanted to take our land and our neighbours’ land. After many years of hard work, when our small bit of land began yielding harvests and our people had a large area under cultivation, the big landowners appeared: the Brols. It’s said there that they were even more renowned criminals than the Martínez and García families, who owned a finca there before the Brols arrived. The Brols were a large family, a whole gang of brothers. Five of them lived on a finca they had taken over by forcibly throwing the Indians of the region off their land. That was what happened to us. We lived in a small village. We cultivated maize, beans, potatoes and all sorts of vegetables. Then the Garcías arrived and started measuring the land in our village. They brought inspectors, engineers and Heaven knows who else; people they said were from the government. In Guatemala if it’s to do with the government, there’s no way we can defend ourselves. So they came and started measuring our land. My father went round collecting signatures in the village, and they held meetings. Then he went to the capital, to the INTA, Institute Nacional de Transformación Agraria de Guatemala: Guatemalan National Institute for Agrarian Transformation. But the landowners and the government had made a deal to take the peasants’ land away from them. When my father went to protest about the way the landowners were forcing us off our land, the people in the INTA asked the landowners for money to be allowed to go on measuring. On the other hand, they gave the peasants a piece of paper which, according to them, said they didn’t have to leave their land. It was a double-sided game. They called my father in. Papá used to be…well, I don’t mean foolish exactly because it’s the thieves who steal our land who are foolish…. Well, they asked my father to sign a paper but he didn’t know what it said because he’d never learned to read or write. In fact, the paper said that the peasants confirmed, once again, that they would leave their land. This gave the landowners power, since he, the community’s representative, had signed the paper. My father went back again to protest, this time through some lawyers. The INTA people and the lawyers started getting fat off us. Many lawyers wanted to help us and offered us different sorts of help. They said we were doing the right thing. The peasants trusted them but realized afterwards that they made them pay through the nose, even for a simple signature. My father dedicated himself entirely to our community’s problems. The INTA told my father: ‘You must get engineers to measure the land and then you’ll be the owners of the land you live on. Don’t worry, grow what you want. Don’t worry, go ahead and clear the undergrowth because the land is yours.’ With this encouragement, my father went home and called meetings in the village.

  We were very happy and went on working until the landowners arrived with their engineers again. Our little bit of land has probably been measured something like twenty times, if I’m not mistaken. Engineers after engineers. What I can’t forgive, and this is something that has contributed to my hate for these people, is that they said they came to help us. My father, mother, all the community, were very distressed. They were ladinos. They couldn’t eat our food, our tortillas with salt. If we didn’t feed them well they would probably favour the landowners. So we treated them very well, out of fear. We gave them our best, our fattest animals. We’d kill chickens for them to eat. Our community, which never bought so much as a bottle of oil, had to buy them rice, oil, eggs, chickens, meat. We had to buy coffee and sugar, because they couldn’t eat panela. Our community never ate these things. We all had to go to town. The village got together, gave in their ten centavos and with this collection we bought what was needed. Earning ten centavos is hard for us, it’s earned by a lot of sweat. It was worse when the inspectors stayed a whole week. When they left, the village breathed a sigh of relief and we were much poorer. We didn’t eat meat. They did. They got their information with no difficulty. They went to the further points of our land and, of course, needed someone to go with them. But our people have no time to spare. It was my f
ather who gave up his time because he loved the community, even if it meant we often had nothing to eat at home. My mother felt responsible for looking after these men. She saw how in need our neighbours were. So my mother stayed at home and said to us, ‘You children go and work because I have to attend to these men.’ My parents attended to them because, as leaders of the community, it was their responsibility–they were the most important people in the village. They looked after them very well. My mother even made them small tortillas because they couldn’t eat our large ones. She had to make ones to suit them. So neither of my parents could work while those men were there. Our neighbours contributed what they could, but they didn’t have very much. We couldn’t speak Spanish. My father spoke a little, just enough to understand the inspectors. The INTA used to send for him. They sometimes made him go to Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango, El Quiché or to the capital just to sign a piece of paper. You can imagine the cost of those journeys in food and transport. And on top of all this, we had to pay the lawyers who shuffle the papers.