Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Before the Christmas Surprise

So I am guessing you’ve noticed the 2-month hiatus that I’ve had from writing on the blog. Sorry about that. I’ll summarize what has gone on and break it into 2 parts. The first will be “Before the Christmas Surprise”

Starting with the week of Thanksgiving, wow, how long ago that was, a great friend of mine came down to visit with me. She spent 3 days at my site to start, all without having any change of clothes since her suitcases did not make her departing plane to Guatemala. Luckily for me and everyone around, she would finally get them on Wednesday in Jalapa where we would find out that the suitcases, which were supposed to be delivered right to my site as soon as possible, would have been delivered the following week, after she would have left. Unluckily for my friend when visiting a family in my site, the family had cow stomach soup to share with us, which is something they rarely afford to buy. Let’s just say the results that night were not that pretty.
So after the 3 days in sight which included participating in a forum against violence toward women and playing soccer with some kids, we made our way to Antigua. The next day, Thanksgiving, we went to Chichicastenango, a beautiful outdoor market, supposedly the biggest in Central America. Besides the market, there was also a Catholic church in which rituals mixed with Catholic and Mayan beliefs were being done. That afternoon, we made it back to Antigua just in time to have our Thanksgiving meal. I made the reservations, not knowing exactly where it would be but knowing that it would be good. Well it ended up being about 20 minutes from Antigua up in the mountains. The meal was served with 60 others on tables and it was great - cranberries, salad, turkey, potatoes, pumpkin pie, stuffing and wine. The only lights were from the candles and the stars. The only difficult thing that night was climbing up the mountain side for 20 minutes to catch our ride back to Antigua after having stuffed ourselves.
The next day we went to Volcan Pacaya, which indeed proved its worth again. As we were climbing up, the guide decided to lead us on some old beds because the path was quite slick since it was full of tiny crushed lava rocks. About 10 minutes after we made it to the part where the lava was coming out of the side of the mountain, it began to move a bit faster and started to go down toward where we just had been walking! Isn’t that awesome (Don’t worry, I don’t think it were possible that it could catch us off guard.). We returned to rest a bit and enjoy Antigua until she left on Saturday.
The rest of the weeks leading to Christmas included having another agricultural product exchange with our “sister community,” being sick for 4 days, having an AIDS parade and forum, going to the PC center to get my annual exam, going to the dentist to get 2 cavities filled (something which I had not had in about 7 years – I was a bit nervous for the reason that I had not done it in a while and for the reason that it was being done in Guatemala. I went to an exceptional place though and the dentist even had a camera he could put in my mouth so that I could see my mouth on a screen. I am pretty sure he was not your average Guatemalan dentist.), baking no-bake cookies, and having a Christmas party with my women’s group in which I made chili for everyone. The chili turned out great and everyone liked it. I mean it’s made with beans, come one.
So for this entire time, I was also scheming with my brother who we would pull of the Christmas surprise. You see, he was the only one in the family that knew since May that I would be coming home on Christmas Eve. What we came up with, you can read in the next blog entry.



The neighborhood kids with whom I play jump rope and soccer.

Sometimes there are obstacles on our playing court.


Me in Chichicastenango in front of the Catholic Church. You can see little bon fires, smoke from incense, candles and flowers; these are all part of the mix of Catholic and Mayan traditions that are done here.Thanksgiving dinner, candle-lit over the open sky on plastic chairsThe volcano... here you can see exactly where the lava is coming out the side of the volcano.So it just so happened that the last night that Emily was here, that they would start preparing for Christmas by commencing the lighting of the Christmas lights in Antigua . It included decorating the whole park in lights, fireworks, a band, an outdoor video, and this picture above. This picture is of a bull, well actually a man in a metal skeleton designed like a bull. The bull had hundreds of fireworks on it. As we were walking through the park, the bull was lit and then began to run through the crowd spewing fireworks in every which direction. The crowds, including us, of course ran away to avoid a direct burn, but everyone was laughing and enjoyed the spectacle. It definitely reminded me of being in Ecuador.






Monday, January 12, 2009

The Christmas surprise





What is this Christmas Surprise? Well, it all began in May when I bought my tickets to come home on Christmas Eve and only told one person, my brother Charlie. Scheming for how we would pull it off did not begin til after Thanksgiving, which was partly for my sake since just holding onto the secret for so long was making me partly insane. How did I avoid the ultimate surprise ruiner, that of my parents coming down to surprise me in Guatemala? Well, I told them that I would be going to Belize for Christmas. I figured that with my brother at home, the situation could be controlled, which it was.

So here is how it played out. On Christmas Eve, I left from Guatemala for Dallas, where I had to wait 7 hours for my next flight. The wait was excruciating. I could hardly get to sleep that night as it was. About 45 minutes before my plane left, I called everyone in my family while they were celebrating our traditional Christmas Eve meal at my uncle Hen and aunt Cathy’s house. I did not want to call because I knew I would have to answer all kinds of questions about my time in Belize. They asked, “How long was your bus ride?”, “What is it like there?”, “How warm is it?”, “With whom are you staying?” and other such questions. I had prepared for these questions, though, and had already formulated the answers. I said “It had taken 17 hours by bus and it was a bit cloudy today but was 80 out.” “I was with other volunteers from Guatemala and we were staying right on the beach. It was beautiful.” Besides calling to wish the necessary “Merry Christmas” to all my family members on my dad’s side, I also called because there was a tiny glitch to our plan. It was definitely our weakest point but something that could potentially be easily resolved. Leaving from Dallas at 7:30pm would get me to my hometown at 11:00pm. Taking about ½ an hour to get home from the airport, I was thinking I would arrive to my home somewhere between midnight and 12:30. That was a bit of a problem though as my family, as usual, were going to midnight mass at 10:00pm. It would probably get done a little after 11:30, which would not allow me to get home before my family did. So I had to think of something to buy time. When I was talking with my parents and sister, I asked them to do me a favor. I asked, “Do you think you could do me a favor? Down here in Guatemala, we do all our celebrations at midnight. Some people from my community want to know what it is like at midnight there in the United States. Could you go downtown after mass and take some pictures of the Christmas tree with you all next to it?” Well, they said yes, and with Charlie helping the cause by chatting about things like fog lights with a friend and my dad after mass, my time I needed had been gotten.

OK, so now I am back to me in Dallas. It’s about 10 minutes from departure time and we still have not boarded when they announce that there are some minor mechanical problems with the aircraft, something which can mean anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours. I stayed calm, bought some subway, and came back to find that they would board me and we would take off only 15 minutes late – Thank you God. I got in at 11:15 where family friends of ours waited for me. I tell you, I have to give them once again a huge thanks. There are not many people who want to do that that late at night, let alone Christmas Eve night when most people are in their homes. So they brought me home. They helped bring my suitcase inside and situate some gifts according to what was said in the videos I had made for my family to watch as part of the surprise. So with the piñata and painting in the barn, they left me. I cleaned my snowy tracks in the kitchen and headed upstairs to prepare my small bag of gifts, also something that would play out in the videos I made. I opened my suitcase to find that one of the gifts had been opened by TSA. I hurriedly wrapped it using the same paper and ankle wrap I found in the room. I set the bag out, turned out the lights, and the moment that I sat down in my closet I heard my family walking through the door. Phew! My heart was just pounding. So they got settled and Charlie told them about the video I had sent him through an email and how I had wanted that they watch them before they went to bed. They began the first video, which is just below.







After watching the first video, Charlie runs up stairs, grabs the bag, and glances at me in the closet to make sure I am there and not passed out from the intense suspense that is gripping me. They open their “small gifts” and then watch the second video, which is just below.















So after watching the second video, I hear Katie, my sister, yell “Joey!” because she and everyone else are frustrated that they have to go outside to the cold to see what is out in the barn. They do go, though. Charlie makes sure he is the last one to go out and before he leaves yells upstairs, “Come down, come down, come down” so to let me know when to make my way down the stairs just behind the door to the kitchen without being heard. You see, that is why I had needed my family to go out to the barn, so that I could come down the stairs and position myself immediately behind the kitchen door without being heard.

They find the piñata and painting, which was a surprise for my brother, and then come in to watch the final video in the kitchen. That video is just below.



















The part of the video where I ask if they noticed if there were anything in common and I pause, the singer sings the words, “I’ll be home for Christmas.” I ended without saying what the surprise was. When I say, “Because my last surprise is…”, I open the door to the kitchen, walk out, and surprise everyone. Luckily for me and you, my brother stuck a camera in the corner to watch the surprise unfold and save it forever. It had to be split up because of it’s size, but runs from when my family is going out to the barn after watching the 2nd video all the way to when I surprise them. The videos are below.



































Well, I tried to put on the 3rd part of ¨The Christmas Surprise¨ in this entry, but was unable to. I had to put it on a different post just after this one. You should be able to get to it at this address: http://joejonaitis.blogspot.com/2009/01/christmas-surprise-continued.html. If not, try looking it up. It is under the title "The Christmas Surprise Continued.¨

The Christmas Surprise Continued

Well, I tried to tag this video on the other post, but it just would not go. In fact it actually took me over 2 weeks just to post this video. Hopefully the suspense did not get to you and that you were able to find it OK.

The third part of the Christmas Surprise....








Now wasn't that cool!