Quiquil's daughter

Like most natives of the remote province of Huehuetenango in Guatemala, Eufemia is surprised that I am familiar with her home territory. I spent a short period of time working in a clinic in Barillas, where the road stops as it winds through the mountains north of the capital, Huehuetenango. There, you are as likely to hear K'hanjobal on the street, an ancient Mayan language, as Spanish. Now, for whatever reason, there are many Guatemalans from this region in our town. They work the lowest of the low jobs. Eufemia is a seamstress. She had 5 children at home with the help of a midwife in her home town of Quiquil, the site of a 1981 massacre of 32 people. Humble and reserved, she labors to give her children a chance of doing better than she. Today I see Eufemia for a routine physical and advise her on exercise...which must seem strangely foreign to a person who grew up with physical labor from daybreak until dusk.