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Women Only
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Straight Female / 68
It Has Been My Calling, A Non Descript Village On The Mountain
After finishing my degree I joined the Peace Corp and ended up on the mountain side in Guatemala teaching personal hygiene, nutrition, first aid. The village was poor, subsistence farming. When I travelled to the city looking for support, money, supplies. I met a guy, obviously very rich. His family owned a beautiful country house which looked up on the mountain where the village lay. I fell in love with him, didn't respect myself, and I found myself pregnant a couple of months later.
I was an ordinary girl, not from a pedigreed family, marriage was out of the question. I was returned to my home, pregnant wasn't a condition I could be in and stay in the Peace Corp. I stayed in touch by mail, after the baby was born he came up to meet him. He signed the papers recognizing him as his son. I received money every month, my allowance was more than my father's wages.
One day I picked up the paper, and a small note caught my eye. The volcano on which the village was had erupted. I was overwhelmed by concern and called my son's father. Long distance then was an expensive luxury. He took the call, promised to call that night, with any information he could gather.
His report was sad, the small village had been ruined. I begged him to bring me down. I left our son with my parents and flew to the city, where he met me, he did not have good news. The next day he took me up there. Many villagers had survived, their homes and fields had not. He looked at me, I asked with my eyes, he told me he would offer to move them to their coffee plantation.
We did get married, three years after our son was born. I moved with my son to live in the country home with a view of the mountain. In time the villagers returned, first the men to clear the fields, then the women and children. Over the following years our family grew to include two more boys a two girls.
Everyone is much older, including the villagers. I had money to help them, and a school was built, a medical clinic, a water well, and help with a market for the extra production from the fields. You can say I adopted the village, and my husband humoured me.
Well, we have grandchildren, we travel between our children's homes and ours. The village, it's doing fine. My husband? He married an ordinary girl, with ordinary ideas.
I was an ordinary girl, not from a pedigreed family, marriage was out of the question. I was returned to my home, pregnant wasn't a condition I could be in and stay in the Peace Corp. I stayed in touch by mail, after the baby was born he came up to meet him. He signed the papers recognizing him as his son. I received money every month, my allowance was more than my father's wages.
One day I picked up the paper, and a small note caught my eye. The volcano on which the village was had erupted. I was overwhelmed by concern and called my son's father. Long distance then was an expensive luxury. He took the call, promised to call that night, with any information he could gather.
His report was sad, the small village had been ruined. I begged him to bring me down. I left our son with my parents and flew to the city, where he met me, he did not have good news. The next day he took me up there. Many villagers had survived, their homes and fields had not. He looked at me, I asked with my eyes, he told me he would offer to move them to their coffee plantation.
We did get married, three years after our son was born. I moved with my son to live in the country home with a view of the mountain. In time the villagers returned, first the men to clear the fields, then the women and children. Over the following years our family grew to include two more boys a two girls.
Everyone is much older, including the villagers. I had money to help them, and a school was built, a medical clinic, a water well, and help with a market for the extra production from the fields. You can say I adopted the village, and my husband humoured me.
Well, we have grandchildren, we travel between our children's homes and ours. The village, it's doing fine. My husband? He married an ordinary girl, with ordinary ideas.
