Overall I haven’t had any problems living with Magdalena. I marvel at how she can open her house to a stranger, feed them wonderful food, give them her keys, trust and freedom, and be helpful about giving directions, etc. (even though she teases me relentless for always getting lost and always being on the computer). In return (and by nature) I’ve tried very hard to be a perfect guest: to be polite and appreciative and animated when I’m with her (the last of which is hard work for someone like me) and to stay out of her way, and to help with dishes, and to be neat. I’m pretty much always in my room working when I’m not at school.

I was worried about how it would be to live with someone with whom you also work and who also happens to be your boss. With the wrinkles I’ve mentioned, it’s been, so far, good. She is a bit bossy and yet she doesn’t flaunt her years of experience and try to micromanage. She understands the importance of finding things out on your own. So overall, I’d say we’ve made a human connection and have some good laughs and a tenuously peaceful domestic arrangement.

But it’s strange: one one hand she speaks as though she’s informal and casual — “this is your house,” she tells me — but in other ways I feel that she is watching me to see if I’ll fuck up. I left the bathroom light on one time. For maybe ten minutes. It was pointed out to me. Minor infractions have been brought to my attention, like not using Reyna’s or her mugs or seats.

Worse has been the increasing pressure I’m getting from Reyna. Is this a cultural or personal problem? Who knows? Maybe if you have to ask “who knows?” then it’s cultural. But she resents my being here and is more and more making it know.

She is in her mid- to late-seventies, completely illiterate, and has been working for Magda’s family for thirty-five years. She seems a little dim mentally. She has a strident voice that slices through conversations in progress and grabs the attention of her victim. She has no family save for a comadre whom she visits on weekends. This house, in her mind, is her house, and I am an intruder. That’s my perception and it has been confirmed by Magdalena. She’s almost animal in her behavior with me: watching me with suspicion. When I’m working in the house she’ll come up to my room and sit on my bed and speak to me in her difficult-to-comprehend Spanish, most of which I don’t catch. It’s always when the Maestra is away. She’ll tell me I shouldn’t use a certain cup for brushing my teeth but only this other one; when I made my bed I didn’t pull my blanket up far enough: when I brush me teeth I can’t use the purified water; when I made tea I have to use tap water. Today she came into my room and demanded that I evacuate so I could clean. I’m not positive, but I think she was trying to get me to change my own sheets. I was working. That’s not my job.

I understand, I think, “where she’s coming from.” But her unpleasant bullying is intensifying. Now that I’m not taking Spanish class I’m working here a lot. But in her mind it’s her domain and I’m intruding. Further, when I’m here she has to work harder, not just because there’s an extra person in the house but because i am witness to whether or not she works. She has, I’ve heard, a tendency to be lazy.

Despite my understanding that this house is her only life, it has become more and more unpleasant for me to be here. I’m starting to feel the depression return. Part of it comes from being on someone else’s turf, continually watched, continually criticized — in a language I know only well enough to know I’m being criticized — and all this when every minute I’m trying to be as easy a guest as possible. It’s too much like what I went through in Nepal, after which I had a breakdown. I’m scared. So there’s the dual badness going on: the surface level of a woman who wants me gone, and asks the Maestra when I’m leaving (she either thinks I don’t understand what she’s saying, or she doesn’t care) and picks on me like a playground bully. And the emotional level of what that has done to me in the past: sent me spiraling into the darkest moments of my life.

Today at lunch was the worst, when I actually didn’t take it well. Reyna had cleaned my room, which she does to all rooms on a Friday. Everything was put away except for several stacks of teaaching books on my bureau. There’s nowhere else to put them. There were no clothes on the floor, my bed was made, no pile of dirty plates. It’s a small room in which I stash my things as neatly as I can.

So during lunch I could tell they were talking about me: mi sala y mi ropa de camineta [sheets]. They were laughing. And then I heard it: they called me flojo. Them’s fighting words. Magda translated it as “messy” but I happen to know it really means “lazy.” I am neither. I am ALWAYS working. This woman comes into my room while I’m working and asks me to leave, so I leave my work stuff where it was.

I don’t know why, but it really upset me. And I followed up with a question: what do you mean I’m messy? Apparently I leave my things all over. “I DON’T leave my things all over.” I had no sense of humor. Because I’m working SO HARD every second to be a good tenant, yet it’s never good enough. Not one single thing of mine is anywhere but in this room.

Had this been the first such encounter — had the nagging of my mild personal habits not been building for the last two weeks, and had I an escape, or a friend — perhaps I wouldn’t be so bothered. But it is really driving me crazy. I want to leave town this weekend, though Magdalena has a hike planned that I’d like to take. She has a lot of wonderful things planned that I really want to do, like see the ruins near hear. Yet I also have the urge to get away on my own: jump a bus to Puebla or Mexico City (I can’t leave without spending time in the latter) or Taxco de Alarcón in Guerrero. I just wanna blow this popsicle stand whenever I can, though I’m dedicated to doing the best teach I can in between.