La Oscuridad

It seems that I brought bad luck with me from the States--hours after I arrived, Guatemala experienced a comprehensive power-outage. The wind was strong, some generators got knocked about and bam--darkness fell over the whole city. Some people were speculating that it was sabotage. The new president, Colom, was elected by a very narrow margin and there are many people cranky about it. It is likely, however, that the power outage was your garden variety act of God. The challenge came when ´M´ and her husband ´H´ came to fetch me for dinner. La Senora invited them in for coffee but had only one candle by which we could see each other. H is Deaf, so lipreading and signing were severely limited. Thank goodness for mama stokar and her gift of a mini flashlight. It came in handy pronto.
By the time we reached H & M´s house, lights were partially restored. It took me a good 4 minutes to fall in love with the entire family, including their chihuahua ¨Bebe¨. They have 1 hearing daughter´C´, sweet as a pie, and aDeaf son ´J´. who was very communicative (via his interpreter mother; I don´t know much Guatemalan Sign Language, GSL, yet.) H is brilliant and is helpful in teaching me GSL. Many of their relatives live in different sections of their building and I got to meet a few. H, M, and I conversed for about 2 hours about Deaf education, philosophies, resources and policies. The two of them are real champions of Deaf advocacy, and I know I´ll learn a great deal from them.