{"id":2387,"date":"2021-06-02T15:24:42","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T19:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spanglishvoces.com\/?p=2387"},"modified":"2021-06-02T15:43:28","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T19:43:28","slug":"abuelas-kitchen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spanglishvoces.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/02\/abuelas-kitchen\/","title":{"rendered":"ABUELA&#8217;S KITCHEN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAve Mar\u00eda Pur\u00edsima!\u201d I hear her scream, followed by the clatter of pots and a loud thud.<br \/>\nI fear the worst. My grandmother is not the woman she used to be \u2212 that warrior spirit of<br \/>\nour home, who was all-knowing and all-solving. For some time, I have been gripped by<br \/>\nforeboding each time I see a small sign of her decline. It will not be long before someone has to<br \/>\ncare for her. Will it be me?<br \/>\nI run to the kitchen and the first thing I see is the bleeding carcass of the hen, scattered in<br \/>\npieces on the floor: one bony leg here, another one over there. Behind it, thrown askew, are the<br \/>\nlarge stockpot and the rainbow of tubers she has hacked at all morning for our sancocho.<br \/>\nI scan the narrow entryway to the kitchen, desperately looking for my grandmother. I<br \/>\nhold onto the edge of the counter, trying not to slip on the oozing crimson on the ground.<br \/>\n\u201cAbuela? D\u00f3nde est\u00e1?\u201d I say. My shaky voice and the use of the formal tone betray my<br \/>\nfear. I have returned to my four-year-old self when my mom first dropped me off for a sojourn<br \/>\nat my grandmother\u2019s mountain cottage in the Venezuelan Andes.<br \/>\n\u201cListen to your abuelita,\u201d she said while combing down every loose strand of hair as if by<br \/>\nmaking her little girl pristine, she could somehow smooth over the car wreck that was our broken<br \/>\nhome. \u201cRemember that you have to address her as \u2018usted\u2019. They\u2019re very formal in this part of<br \/>\nthe country.\u201d<br \/>\nI thought I had won the battle to address my grandmother with the casual Caracas habit of<br \/>\n\u2018tutear,\u2019 or to speak in the informal tone to all, regardless of age, back in my teens. But here I<br \/>\nam, using the formal tone as if pleading to the saints to stop the inevitable.<br \/>\n\u201cI\u2019m here, mija,\u201d she calls faintly from the corner. I continue, trembling.<br \/>\nThen, I see her. There, on top of the breakfast table, dripping wet and shielding herself<br \/>\nwith a worn-out wooden spoon sits my 72-year-old grandmother.<br \/>\n\u201cIt\u2019s under the kitchen,\u201d she says.<br \/>\n\u201cWhat is, Abuelita?\u201d I say, stifling my laughter. This woman has survived hunger, buried<br \/>\nchildren and weathered the continuous conflict that plagues our country, always emerging<br \/>\ntriumphant, with the steel fa\u00e7ade of one who dares the world to throw any adversity their way,<\/p>\n<p>because nothing can knock them down. I never thought I would see her like this, robbed of her<br \/>\ndignity by a nemesis so small that it fits under the kitchen.<br \/>\n\u201cLook, over there,\u201d she says, puckering up her lips and pointing with her mouth, in that<br \/>\nVenezuelan gesture that I find so amusing after living in Canada for so long. \u201cThe rat was huge!\u201d<br \/>\nI look her in the eye and we both explode with laughter.<br \/>\nIt took a rodent for me to learn that my heroic grandmother is human like me.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-2397 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.spanglishvoces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/AliceMChacon-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"168\" height=\"168\" \/>Alice is a Venezuelan-Canadian writer of fiction that blends magical realism with the political upheaval and inequality that has scarred the South American country in the past two decades. She has a Journalism and Mass Communications degree from the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello and an MBA from UBC Sauder. Alice started her career as an English-language reporter, editor and correspondent in Caracas, during the early years of Chavismo. She lives in Toronto, where she works in product management and is currently working on her first novel, a coming-of-age story set against the turbulent years of Hugo Chavez\u2019s rule.<\/p>\n<p>Follow her on Instagram:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/aliceswritingstory\/\">https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/aliceswritingstory\/<\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAve Mar\u00eda Pur\u00edsima!\u201d I hear her scream, followed by the clatter of pots and a loud thud. I fear the worst. My grandmother is not the woman she used to be \u2212 that warrior spirit of our home, who was all-knowing and all-solving. For some time, I have been gripped by foreboding each time I [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[78,181],"tags":[864,399,851,855,235,184,811],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.13 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ABUELA&#039;S KITCHEN - Spanglish Voces Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spanglishvoces.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/02\/abuelas-kitchen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ABUELA&#039;S KITCHEN - Spanglish Voces Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cAve Mar\u00eda Pur\u00edsima!\u201d I hear her scream, followed by the clatter of pots and a loud thud. I fear the worst. My grandmother is not the woman she used to be \u2212 that warrior spirit of our home, who was all-knowing and all-solving. For some time, I have been gripped by foreboding each time I [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.spanglishvoces.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/02\/abuelas-kitchen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spanglish Voces Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-06-02T19:24:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-06-02T19:43:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.spanglishvoces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/0001-13114583604_20201114_075520_0000-1024x1024.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alice M. 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