by Philip Gould
I said my decision to remain in this home was a matter of “compromise” because the room that I was offered was a maid’s room, there was no doubt about that. The room was on the ground level at the end of a long dark corridor situated next to the water reservoir at the back of the house. There was no natural light in the room; the windows that existed were blacked out (I suppose for privacy sake) or gave onto the interior of the house. What the room did have was its own bathroom, consisting of two tiny spaces, one for the toilet and one for the shower. I didn’t look too closely when I accepted the accommodation. I discovered, however, the first morning I used the bathroom that the commode was designed to fit the bottom and proportions of a maid, who, by force of circumstances in a Mayan society, would have been a small woman not more that four feet four inches tall. By contrast I stand six feet three inches in my stocking feet. Sitting down and getting up from that toilet seat was an ordeal and a menace to my arthritic knee. I engaged that daily encounter with the miniaturized porcelain for the next ten days with trepidation and resignation for I could not bear the thought of yet another change of residence. This was the underside of my stay in Antigua, Guatemala. (4/11/09)