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 chairs
The 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.
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