Pedrano Family and Culture
Many people think of their culture as the best way to live life and they rarely if ever think about a culture and life outside of their own. However, when someone has the courage to step outside of their world and look into the world of another they will find that not every place is the same and that while some practices are different they all coincide properly to create a world just as useful as our own.
In Pedrano cultures the people spend most of their time caring for their children and families. Most of their time is spent ensuring that children and elderly people have everything that they need and that the household is in proper conditions for all. In the ethnography Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town Christine Eber discusses these ideas and the fact that family is very important to these individuals. In this society, men and women both work daily. It is typical that the men spend their days working in the fields and the women spend their days in and around the house caring for their children and family (Eber, 2000). Men spend their days in the milpas, a field cut out of the jungle, collecting corn and other crops so to feed their families. This is done because corn is a main staple in the diet of Mayans (Eber, 2000).
Although it may seem that the men work harder because they are out in the field most of the day in the hot sun picking corn and other vegetables, women work just as had in their own way. When the corn is brought to the house after being picked the women have to then go about processing this corn into various dishes to feed their families. Women make hundreds of tortillas a day with the corn they are supplied. Because of the fact that the lady in this novel has a large family she, along with her daughter, must tie their shoes twice a day. About 200 tortillas are made daily in order to keep all family members fed (Eber, 2000).
Women and men are not the only people who work in the Pedrano society. Children also work to make sure that the society runs smoothly. The children do not work in the same capacity as the adults but they make it so that their mothers and adult women have more time to do the jobs that they need to do. When children to get to be an older child around the age of eight or so parents will begin to request that they help out. Children will typically be expected to help will smaller children and ensure they do not get into anything and they will also do chores around the house so that their mother has less to worry about since feeding the family takes much of their time (Eber, 2000).
In this Mayan town, the family is set up so that the children go to school unless their family needs them, in which case they will stay home and assist their parents. It is also