Additional Reading: 'When The Mountains Tremble'

The following excerpt is taken from the book I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala by Rigoberta Menchú and Elisabeth Burgos-Debray:

'I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala' by Rigoberta Menchú and Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. Published by Verso Books, 1983.

A MAID IN THE CAPITAL

"I was incapable of disobedience. And those employers exploited my obedience. They took advantage of my innocence."

When we left the finca, the landowner’s guards travelled behind him. And they were armed. I was terrified! But I told myself, ‘I must be brave, they can’t do anything to me.’ My father said: ‘I don’t know if anything will happen to you, my child, but you are a mature woman.’

So we reached the capital. I remember that my clothes were worn out because I’d been working in the finca: my corte was really dirty and my huipil very old. I had a little perraje, the only one I owned. I didn’t have any shoes. I didn’t even know what wearing shoes was like. The master’s wife was at home. There was another servant girl to do the cooking and I would have to do all the cleaning in the house. The other servant was also Indian, but she’d changed her clothes. She wore ladino clothes and already spoke Spanish. I didn’t know any; I arrived and didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t speak Spanish but I understood a little because of the finca overseers who used to give us orders, bully us and hand out the work. Many of them are Indians but they won’t use Indian languages because they feel different from the labourers. So I understood Spanish although I couldn’t speak it. The mistress called the other servant: ‘Take this girl to the room in the back.’ The girl came, looked at me with indifference and told me to follow her. She took me to the other room. It was a room with a pile of boxes in the corner and plastic bags where they kept the rubbish. It had a little bed. They took it down for me and put a little mat on it, with another blanket, and left me there. I had nothing to cover myself with.

The first night, I remember, I didn’t know what to do. That was when I felt what my sister had felt although, of course, my sister had been with another family. Then later the mistress called me. The food they gave me was a few beans with some very hard tortillas. There was a dog in the house, a pretty, white, fat dog. When I saw the maid bring out the dog’s food–bits of meat, rice, things that the family ate–and they gave me a few beans and hard tortillas, that hurt me very much. The dog had a good meal and I didn’t deserve as good a meal as the dog. Anyway, I ate it, I was used to it. I didn’t mind not having the dog’s food because at home I only ate tortillas with chile or with salt or water. But I felt rejected. I was lower than the animals in the house. The girl came later and told me to go to sleep because I had to work in the morning and they got up at seven or eight. I was in bed awake from three o’clock. I didn’t mind about the bed either because at home I slept on a mat on the floor and we sometimes didn’t even have anything to cover ourselves with. But I had a look at the other girl’s bed and it was quite comfortable because she wore ladino clothes and spoke Spanish. Later on, however, we got to know each other well. She used to eat the masters’ leftovers; what they left in the dish. They’d eat first and she’d get what was left. If there wasn’t any left, she’d also get some stale beans and tortillas or some leftovers from the fridge. She ate that and later on when we knew each other she’d give me some.

At three in the morning, I said: ‘My God, my parents will be working and I’m here.’ But I also thought, I must learn, and then go home. I always said that I must go home. Three o’clock, five o’clock, six o’clock. At seven, the girl got up and came and told me: ‘Come here and wash the dishes.’ I went in my same clothes and the mistress came in and said; ‘How filthy! get that girl out of here! How can you let her touch the dishes, can’t you see how dirty she is?’ The girl told me to leave the dishes, but she was upset too. ‘Here’s the broom, go and sweep up,’ the mistress said. I went out to sweep the yard. ‘Water the plants,’ she said, ‘that’s your job. And then come here and do the washing. Here are the clothes, but mind you wash them properly or I’ll throw you out.’

Of course, I was in the city but I didn’t know the first thing about it. I knew nothing about the city even though I’d been there with my father. But then we’d only gone to one place and to some offices. I didn’t know how to find my way around and I couldn’t read the numbers or the streets.

So I did what the lady told me to do and afterwards, about 11 o’clock when they finished eating, they called me. ‘Have you eaten?’ ‘No.’ ‘Give her some food.’ So they gave me what was left of their food. I was famished. At home we don’t eat as much as we should, of course, but at least we’re used to eating tortillas regularly, even if it’s only with salt. I was really worried. At about half past eleven, she called me again and took me into a room. She said: ‘I’m going to give you two months’ pay in advance and you must buy yourself a huipil, a new corte, and a pair of shoes, because you put me to shame. My friends are coming and you’re here like that. What would that look like to my friends? They are important people so you’ll have to change your ways. I’ll buy you these things but you stay here because I’m ashamed to be seen with you in the market. Here’s your two months’ pay.’ Well, I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t know enough Spanish to protest or say what I thought. But in my mind I insulted her. I thought, if only I could send this woman to the mountains and let her do the work my mother does. I don’t think she’d even be capable of it. I didn’t think much of her at all.

She went off to the market. She came back with a corte. It was about a couple of yards long. The simplest there was. She also brought a simple huipil which must have cost her two-fifty or three quetzals. She must have got the corte for fifteen quetzals or even less, perhaps only twelve quetzals. She didn’t buy me another belt, I had my old one. And she said she didn’t buy me shoes because two months’ pay wasn’t enough. Then she gave me the corte. I had to tear it into two so that I could keep one of them to change into. I tore it into two parts. Now, I’m one of those women who can weave, embroider, and do everything. When the other girl became more friendly, she asked me: ‘Can you embroider?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Can you make blouses? I’ll give you some material. I’ve got some thread and if you like you can make a blouse.’ And she gave me some material to make a blouse. Anyway, I tore that corte in two and changed right away. The mistress said, ‘When you’ve changed, go to my room and make my bed.’ I went to change, and she made me have a bath. I came back and started making her bed. When I’d finished she came to check my work and said, ‘Do this bed again, you didn’t make it properly.’ And she began scolding the other girl; ‘Why didn’t you show her how to do it? I don’t want mobs of people here who can’t earn their keep.’ We started to make the bed again. I didn’t know how to dust because I’d never done it, so the other girl taught me how to dust, and how to clean the toilets.

And that was when I discovered the truth in what my grandmother used to say: that with rich people even their plates shine. Well, yes, even their toilets shine. At home we don’t even have one. I was really very distressed, remembering all my parents’ and my grandparents’ advice. I learned to dust, wash and iron very quickly. I found ironing the hardest because I’d never used an iron before. I remember how the washing and ironing used to pile up. The landowner had three children and they changed their clothes several times a day. All the clothes they left lying around had to be washed again, and ironed again, and then hung up in the right place. The mistress used to watch me all the time and was very nasty to me. She treated me like.. I don’t know what…not like a dog because she treated the dog well. She used to hug the dog. So I thought: ‘She doesn’t even compare me with the dog.’ They had a garden and I sowed some plants. I used to do this at home so I got on really well with that. That’s what I saw every day. The time came when I was working really well. I did all my jobs in a trice. I didn’t find it difficult. I had to work for the two months that the mistress spent on my clothes without earning a centavo.

I didn’t go out either although on Saturdays the mistress said I had to go out: ‘Come on, out of here. I’m fed up with servants hanging around.’ That made me very angry because we worked, we did everything. We probably didn’t work as hard for our parents as we did for that rich old woman. But on Saturdays, she’d say: ‘Out of here. I don’t want to see heaps of maids around.’ That’s what happens to Indian girls in the capital. On Saturdays we were allowed out in the evenings, but it was preparing their maids for prostitution because we were ordered out and then we had to find somewhere to sleep. We went out on Saturdays and came back on Sundays. Thank Heavens the other girl was really decent. She said; ‘I’ve got some friends here. We’ll go to their house.’ I went with her. But what if I’d been on my own? I wouldn’t have had anywhere to stay, only the street, because I couldn’t even speak to the mistress to tell her not to throw me out. I couldn’t find my way around the city either. So the other girl took me to her friend’s house. We went there every Saturday to sleep. On Sundays, we’d go back at night because during the day we were allowed to go dancing, to the dance halls and all the places where maids go in the capital.

The sons of the house treated us very badly. One must have been about twenty-two, the next about fifteen, and the youngest about twelve. They were petty bourgeois youths who couldn’t even pick a duster up, or clear anything away. They liked throwing their dishes in our faces. That was our job. They threw things at us, they shouted at us all the time, and treated us very badly. When the mistress came home–and goodness knows what she did all day–she’d do nothing but complain. ‘There’s dust on my bed, there’s dust here too, you didn’t shake this properly…the plants…the books…’. All she did every day was complain. She just inspected everything and slept. Then at night she’d say, ‘Bring me my meal, I’m tired.’ And the other girl, who she said was much cleaner, took her her meal in bed, with hot water to wash her hands. She took everything to her. In the morning, the father and the sons all shouted from their beds for us to fetch their slippers and all the other things they needed. At breakfast, if any of their favourite food was missing, they’d make a terrible fuss. And they had talks about our wages: ‘What a waste of money, these girls can’t do anything.’ The mistress was like a parrot. The other maid relied on me a lot. She realized that I wasn’t hostile to her but always helped her with lots of things.

There were times when we’d really had enough. One day the other maid and I agreed we’d start being difficult. She said: ‘If the mistress complains, let her complain.’ And we stopped doing certain things just to annoy her. So she got up and shouted at us, but the more she shouted the more stubborn we became and she saw that that wasn’t any use. The other maid said: ‘Come on, let’s leave and find another job.’ But I was worried because I couldn’t just decide like that; I didn’t know the city and if I counted on her, she might take me somewhere worse. What was I to do? Soon I realized that the mistress spurned this girl because she wouldn’t become the boys’ lover. She told me later: ‘That old bag wants me to initiate her sons. She says boys have to learn how to do the sexual act and if they don’t learn when they’re young, it’s harder for them when they’re older. So she put in my contract that she’d pay me a bit more if I taught her sons.’ That was the condition she’d imposed, and that was why she was so hard on the girl: because she’d refused. Perhaps she nursed the hope that one day I’d be clean–she always said I was dirty–so that one day I’d be all right to teach her sons. That’s what she hoped, that lady. She mistreated me and rejected me, but she didn’t actually throw me out.

I remember that after I’d been in that rich man’s house for two months, my father came to visit me. I’d been praying to God that my father wouldn’t come, because I knew that if he did, what a dreadful reception he’d get! And I couldn’t bear my father to be rejected by that old hag. My father was humble, poor, as I was. He came, not because he had any time to spare to visit me, but because he was left in the city without a single centavo in his pocket. He’d been to see about the business of our land. He said they’d sent him to Quetzaltenango, then to El Quiché, and then they’d asked to see him in the capital and the money he’d brought for the trip had run out. So he hadn’t got a penny. When my father rang the bell, the other maid went to see who it was. He said who he was. She told him to wait a minute because she knew what her mistress was like. She told her: ‘Rigoberta’s father is here.’ ‘All right,’ said the lady of the house and went out to see my father. She saw how poor he was, of course. He was all dirty. Well, he would be because he’d been travelling to many places. That’s what it’s like for the poor. She went out to look and came straight back. She told me: ‘Go and see your father but don’t bring him in here, please.’ That’s what she said and I had to see him outside. She told me plainly not even to bring him into the corridor. He had to stay out in the yard and I explained the situation to him. I said the mistress was very nasty and that it disgusted and horrified her to see my father and that he couldn’t even come into the house. He understood very well. He was used to it because we’re rejected in so many different places. My father said: ‘My child, I need money. I’ve nothing for anything to eat or to get home with.’ But I still hadn’t finished the two months that I owed and hadn’t a penny to my name. I said; ‘The mistress had to buy clothes for me and docked me two months’ pay for it. I haven’t earned a single centavo.’ My father began to cry and said: ‘It can’t be true.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘everything I’m wearing the mistress bought for me.’ So I went to the other maid and told her my father had no money and I didn’t know what to do; I couldn’t ask the mistress for money as I couldn’t speak Spanish. Then she spoke to the mistress for me and said: ‘Her father hasn’t got a single centavo and needs money.’ The girl was very tough and would stand up to anyone and anything. She was really angry with our mistress and said: ‘She needs money and must be given some money for her father.’ Then the mistress started saying that we were trying to get all her money off her, trying to eat her money up, and we couldn’t even do our jobs properly. All maids are the same. They’ve nothing to eat in their own homes, so they come and eat us out of ours. She opened her bag and took out ten quetzals and threw them into my face. I took the ten quetzals and told my father that I thought she’d take another month’s pay. It will be another debt, but this is what I can give you. So my father went home with ten quetzals. But the other girl just couldn’t stomach this. She was really hurt by it and she often said that if the mistress complained, she would stand up for me. She had a plan, because she was leaving anyway. She began a resistance campaign against the mistress.

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 market 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.’

About I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala

Authors: Rigoberta Menchú, Elisabeth Burgos-Debray (Editor) and Ann Wright (Translator)
Publisher: Verso Books
Year: 1983

I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala rose from a weeklong marathon of interviews with Menchu, conducted by the Venezuelan anthropologist Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, the book’s editor, in Paris in 1982. The book was eventually translated into twelve languages, including English in 1984, and introduced into the curriculum at several prominent universities, spawning a flurry of dissertations. In human rights circles, Menchu’s name gradually became familiar. In 1992, Menchu won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the general public became aware of her and her cause. After she won the Nobel Prize, Menchu became a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and launched a human rights foundation.

About When the Mountains Tremble

Directors: Newton Thomas Sigel & Pamela Yates
Year: 1983
Studio: Skylight Pictures
Countries: Guatemala, USA
Languages: Spanish, English

A documentary on the war between the Guatemalan military and the Mayan population, with first-hand accounts by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.