Week 5 : Family and Kinship

The individual that I interview was Juan Mateo Colon Puac (also known as Dad). He was born in a small rural town in Tecpan, Guatemala to Juan Colon Sr and Maria Colon on June 10, 1953. My father is the oldest of 9 children that were raise in a predominant Christian home. My father grew up in a close nit neighborhood where a heavy emphasis was placed on family and religion. At the age of 22 my father suffered the tragedy of loosing 5 of his siblings and his father (my grandfather) in a cathastropic earthquake that hit Guatemala City on February 4 1975. At this point my father ceased attending school and discontinued his cross country training and dedicated all his free time to providing for his remaining family.

Regretfully the interview was extremely awkward, from the get-go the interview took place in my fathers study… a place that i've always associated with stern talks and the birthplace of many of my punishments. To furthermore add to the lack of comfort through out the interview my father rarely speaks about his childhood and events that have taken place, over all my father is an extremely reserved person. These factors led to me having to break up the interview in segments that were casually brought up in diner conversations and casual questions in days that followed the initial interview. If this would of been anyone else I would of definitely of concluded a more in-depth interview asking more open ended questions and just letting them keep on talking and providing as much detail as possible.

Coming from relatively poor families my paternal grandparents mentality was heavily based on practicality whether it was in school or what clothes was bought, if it didn't serve a practical purpose then it wasn't worth the time. On the opposing side my maternal grandparents were both city people that enjoyed living in the moment, most of the time they were compelling their children to have fun and to live in the moment. Because of the way my father was brought up and the life experiences that he endured his siblings and friends from the town where he lived most of his life have opted to have small families and have relatively close nit group of friends (mostly childhood friends). The elders are looked after and treated with the utmost respect, not only because they hold vast amounts of memories from life before 1975's earthquake but because that generation is one of the last generations that spoke a Mayan dialect and held Mayan rituals at ruins at the outskirts of town (ruins of Iximche). 

Now due to the nature of life styles that both sides of my family have my parents have always opted for my brothers and myself to spend time with my fathers family. Unfortunately a vast majority of my mothers siblings are scattered over the globe so vie only had the ability to meet them once or twice, on the other hand all of my fathers siblings live in a relatively close area in Guatemala. This in itself poses an inconvenience because we (my parents and my brothers) are only able to spend a few weeks at a time once every few years with them. In my family both of my parents have an equal say in the overall decision making, my father with his practical thinking and my mother with her free spirit seem to balance each other out. It should be noted that this wasn't always the case and i remember a few times in my early childhood that plans blew up in the faces because of such different trains of though, but over time they've grown to depend on each other more and more. At present time on my mothers side any new member that marries into the family is initially treated as an outsider, not because of any ill will towards them but mainly because my mothers family isn't as close as my fathers family so it takes them longer to warm up to the person. On my fathers side any new member that marries into the family is welcomed with open arms but there is a high level of responsibility that is expected out of them, to embrace each family member as they would treat their own mother/father/sibling. No real attitude is attributed towards a specific gender in my family everyone is on the same level. I did have the pleasure of knowing that one of my brothers was named after my fathers youngest sibling that passed away, something that my mother knew but never shared with any of my brothers or myself. I also managed to hear a few interesting stories that wove every day experiences and supernatural undertones, of course my mother warned that it should be taken with a grain of salt (Addito Salis Grano), because she's heard these stories before many times from different members of my fathers family and each time its been told differently. 

Unfortunately there is very little that I know about my fathers side of the family, not due to lack of trying but a cloud of mystery seems to always be present.