I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!!! We had our swearing in ceremony at the ambassador's house in the capital on Friday morning. It was a lovely ceremony, all in Spanish, with all of the host families attending. There was coffee, mini sandwiches, and brownies following. I said my tearful good byes to my family, and headed back to Antigua to celebrate with my fellow volunteers. Early Saturday morning I took a 6 hour bus ride to Xela, the second largest city in the country where we spent some time during field-based training. Randomly I ended up going with my friend Becca from Olympia who happens to be in Guatemala at the moment. We survived to bus trip with a family of five crowded in the school bus seat next to me all throwing up into the same plastic bag. It was quite tragic, all were very feverish and the bus was so crowded two of the little girls kept laying there feverish headed in my lap. Had a good time in Xela, visited a Guatemalan friend who goes to the University there, ate a yummy pasta dinner, listened to some live music with a glass of red wine, and headed out to my site at 6:30 the next morning. Traveling is always an adventure here. While there was no one throwing up next to me on the way back, I did have to wait three hours in San Juan for a microbus. Evidently I had missed the last camioneta because I was waiting where they usually come, but that day there was a procession and the streets were closed and the buses were on different routes. After almost panicking that I was going to have to spend the night there, I called my counterpart who called the guy who drives the micro and found out that he was on his way still and I hadn't missed the last ride back. I finally made it to my site at 8 pm after almost 14 hours of travel. Whew. Public transport is wonderful, cheap, but unpredictable.
Yup, here I am at my new site now. It's good so far, my house is awesome…a little "casita" with four rooms above a family compound. It came with a couch, love seat, chair, bed, and some random kitchen stuff. There is a bathroom just outside my door which has a shower and a toilet. To the side of that is the pila, the water containing device with spaces on the sides for washing clothes, dishes, teeth, etc. The house was sort of decorated in a way with lots of Jesus paraphernalia on the walls and a wooden cross with JC above my bed. Other random decorations like a winne the Pooh poster that says "Te amo" and various stuff animals and other tacky knick-knacks. But I'm trying to make it my own. On Sunday night I fell asleep to the singing from the evangelical church nearby and was awoken various times by firecrackers.
The family is very nice so far. There are a ton of people who live there...they didn't even know how many when I asked. There is the matriarch who had 12 children. Three died, and three went to the US, so six live there. Then they all have children and grandchilden. It's fun and chaotic but I have my own space, so that's good. So far I've been eating my meals with them just to hang out and because I haven't bought a stove yet. My first night there was a birthday party for a three year old boy who is adorable. So there were a bunch of family members over and I realized a bunch of people I had met last week were all family. Well, everyone in town is connected somehow.
Work is interesting....I work in an office with all guys and its hard to find my place. Especially since this is all taking place in Spanish, which is good, but way harder when you're trying to work. Using the example of another municipality that started a Municipal Women's Office, we've been trying to adapt that to El Chol. So this morning we went around to various institutions trying to get data , such as women's participation in voting, to justify wanting to start the office. It's slow going, and data isn't readily available, so we have to wait for some people to get back to us. So then we decided to look at women's participation in the COCODEs (community development councils). All of the registration information is in a big book, hand written. So we've been going through that to create a digital database of the registered COCODEs and the gender of the participants to assess the situation. So that turned into a whole other project.
I also adapted a letter requesting to get the ArcView GIS program for El Chol which I'll send to a company in the capital to request the program from the company in the states. This process is supposed to take 4-6 months. Argh.
The town is cool, very small, so it's also awkward with knowing what kind of greeting to give people (hug? kiss? shake hands?) it could be any of those. It's also hard finding the things that I need for my house since its all confusing and stores only care specific things so you kinda have to go around searching. I'm just trying to take everything an hour at a time because I'm in a different mood every hour, depending on what's going on. Its hard being the new kid in town, especially when you're so different.
Thanksgiving was wonderful at the US ambassador´s house in the capital. I got up at 3:45 in the morning to catch an early microbus to be able to celebrate and it was well worth it. We ate a classic turkey dinner with all the fixins. It was great to relax at his beautiful home and chill out with other Peace Corps volunteers and decompress after out first week in site. Heading back to El Chol tomorrow morning to roll up my sleeves and do some work!
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Officially a volunteer!
Sunday, November 11, 2007
First visit to El Chol
Well, the mystery and the waiting are over....after applying for the Peace Corps in January 2007, I now know my destiny for the next two years. I spent from Wednesday night until Sunday morning at my new hometown.
Tuesday we met our counterparts at the training center which was a long, awkward, but good day. Imagine meeting the person that you will be working with the closest for the next two years of your life and what its like to make small talk, in another language. On Wednesday morning we took off headed for El Chol in the microbus owned by the muni (like a small van, but you can cram a lot of people). Like oftentimes in Guatemala, I never really know what's going on and you just go with the flow. We went to Guatemala City and stopped at a car repair place to do some routine maintenance. As auto shops are anywhere in the world, of course they found something else wrong and we were told it would be a couple hours to fix it. So my counterpart and the driver went to Pollo Campero for lunch. Pollo Campero is like the national KFC....its a Guatemalan company that is so popular that its now in the US in some places too. (My Spanish teacher joked that flights to the US from Guatemala smell like Campero chicken because their family members living there request it from home. Evidently US nutrition rules don't allow as much fat at the "real" Guatemalan version). When we headed back to the auto shop, of course it wasn't ready yet and we had to kill some more time. Well the mayor of El Chol happened to be in town, so I met him and his whole family right there. I went around with them for awhile in their pickup to run some errands with them. When the microbus was finished, we drove it about a block and it was making bad noises that it hadn't been making before, so we had to go back and wait a couple more hours. Finally we started making our way to El Chol after dark so I wasn't able to see the sites very well.
While I was visiting I stayed with my site mate, another volunteer who has been there for almost four months working in the Youth Development program. I went into the office for awhile on Thursday and Friday and met everyone. In addition to my counterpart, there are 5 other guys who work in the Municipal Planning Office, all between 20 and 23. The muni is actually pretty organized and has a long term plan until 2020. My main work goal will be to start the Municipal Women's Office. So that is pretty exciting. Hopefully I'll be able to work with some GIS and with the COCODEs as well.
El Chol is very pretty and very small. It is quite clean, has a brand new park and a small municipal hotel and market. The people are incredibly nice. You can't walk anywhere without greeting everyone and stopping to have a conversation with them. It is surrounded by green mountainous terrain and has pretty pink sun sets. The main streets are paved and there is even a post office where I can get mail directly. (Ask me and I can give it to you). The first week of December is their feria, or community festival. There are already arcade games and a ferris wheel and food stands being set up. Its a really big deal and people from all over will evidently be there and no one works that week. I'm really looking forward to it and it should be lots of fun.
On Friday afternoon some other volunteers from around the area came and visited so I got to meet them and hang out with them. We had a relaxing day on Saturday where I continued to look for housing options and then I took off this morning. It took me about 4 and half hour to get back to Antigua. I have two promising housing options, so I'm waiting to hear back on how much one place wants for rent and then I'll decide. Nothing is perfect of course, but at least there are options, even though I wish it was set up already.
So this is our last week in Alotenango and we'll be going into the training center almost everyday to finish up training activities. Swearing in ceremony will be Friday at the US Ambassador's house in the capital. I'm so sad to say good-bye to my family and my wonderful fellow trainees but excited to get started.
Tuesday we met our counterparts at the training center which was a long, awkward, but good day. Imagine meeting the person that you will be working with the closest for the next two years of your life and what its like to make small talk, in another language. On Wednesday morning we took off headed for El Chol in the microbus owned by the muni (like a small van, but you can cram a lot of people). Like oftentimes in Guatemala, I never really know what's going on and you just go with the flow. We went to Guatemala City and stopped at a car repair place to do some routine maintenance. As auto shops are anywhere in the world, of course they found something else wrong and we were told it would be a couple hours to fix it. So my counterpart and the driver went to Pollo Campero for lunch. Pollo Campero is like the national KFC....its a Guatemalan company that is so popular that its now in the US in some places too. (My Spanish teacher joked that flights to the US from Guatemala smell like Campero chicken because their family members living there request it from home. Evidently US nutrition rules don't allow as much fat at the "real" Guatemalan version). When we headed back to the auto shop, of course it wasn't ready yet and we had to kill some more time. Well the mayor of El Chol happened to be in town, so I met him and his whole family right there. I went around with them for awhile in their pickup to run some errands with them. When the microbus was finished, we drove it about a block and it was making bad noises that it hadn't been making before, so we had to go back and wait a couple more hours. Finally we started making our way to El Chol after dark so I wasn't able to see the sites very well.
While I was visiting I stayed with my site mate, another volunteer who has been there for almost four months working in the Youth Development program. I went into the office for awhile on Thursday and Friday and met everyone. In addition to my counterpart, there are 5 other guys who work in the Municipal Planning Office, all between 20 and 23. The muni is actually pretty organized and has a long term plan until 2020. My main work goal will be to start the Municipal Women's Office. So that is pretty exciting. Hopefully I'll be able to work with some GIS and with the COCODEs as well.
El Chol is very pretty and very small. It is quite clean, has a brand new park and a small municipal hotel and market. The people are incredibly nice. You can't walk anywhere without greeting everyone and stopping to have a conversation with them. It is surrounded by green mountainous terrain and has pretty pink sun sets. The main streets are paved and there is even a post office where I can get mail directly. (Ask me and I can give it to you). The first week of December is their feria, or community festival. There are already arcade games and a ferris wheel and food stands being set up. Its a really big deal and people from all over will evidently be there and no one works that week. I'm really looking forward to it and it should be lots of fun.
On Friday afternoon some other volunteers from around the area came and visited so I got to meet them and hang out with them. We had a relaxing day on Saturday where I continued to look for housing options and then I took off this morning. It took me about 4 and half hour to get back to Antigua. I have two promising housing options, so I'm waiting to hear back on how much one place wants for rent and then I'll decide. Nothing is perfect of course, but at least there are options, even though I wish it was set up already.
So this is our last week in Alotenango and we'll be going into the training center almost everyday to finish up training activities. Swearing in ceremony will be Friday at the US Ambassador's house in the capital. I'm so sad to say good-bye to my family and my wonderful fellow trainees but excited to get started.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Elections and random things for your imagining
Here I sit in a lovely cafe called Bagel Barn in Antigua using free wireless internet on my friend's laptop sipping a gigantic cappucino. I feel so at home, like I'm in Seattle. We're writing some final reports of our training activities and coming down the home stretch on this part of the Peace Corps adventure. Yesterday was a lazy Sunday hanging out around Alotenango...enjoying life among three volcanoes for the last week. I went around and got more music for my ipod from my friends and am now loaded up with 2500 songs and a ton of reggaeton to get me through. I started the painful process of organizing all my papers, books, and STUFF in preparation for packing. I'm going to try to take as much of my stuff as I can when I go visit my site for the first time on Wednesday.
It was election day, but people were pretty apathetic and didn't really want either candidate. My family told me it was like choosing between cancer and AIDS. Turns out that a fellow by the name of Alvaro Colom won over Otto Perez Molina. The hottest issue was security, which is bad here. You can check out the NY Times take on things at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/world/americas/05guatemala.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
A few funny images for your imagining...
In this country people like to advertise things over loadspeakers blasting from vans or trucks. Any product really, cell phones, fresh fruit, you name it. So one day while Kelly and I were running, a van with a loudspeaker past us and called out things like "Way to keep up your figure. Let's go ladies!" It was quite hilarious.
There are lots of sounds to be heard from my bedroom; this country is never really quiet. For example, I fall asleep and wake up to dogs barking, roosters crowing, conversations heard completely clearly from the street, firecrackers, church bells, pick ups screeching, wind blowing through election propaganda banners, tuk tuk honking, camioneta breaks and honking and aydantes yelling "Antigua!"
Speaking of camionetas, I've decided that a good personal safety strategy is to never get on a bus that has posted in the front "Yo manejo, Dios me guia" (I drive, God guides me). Essentially, there is a sense of fatalism here where people think that their lives are more guided by outside influences and God rather than their own actions. When this comes to bus drivers, they think that the driving responsibility is God's, not theirs, which obviously poses various safety risks. There is this one spot on the road from Antigua to Alotenango where the driver always turns off the lights inside the bus when its night time. Its a surreal experience to be speeding down the highway, packed in, listening to blasting ranchero music, and not being able to see a damn thing. Those are moments where you do a reality check and think about "huh....I'm really in Guatemala".
I find young couples with the girls dressed in traditional woven Mayan clothing and the boys sporting modern Abercrombie shirts very interesting. Traditional clothing is much less common in males due to the persecution of the indigenous people during the war. It is still quite common for females, which results in an image that seems to clash. Every time I see one of this couples hugging or making out in the street I just stare for a moment and think about it.
The other night Kelly and I had an incredible experience doing yoga at night on her terrace. I spread out my Barbie beach towel and under the clear night sky full of stars we did yoga. In the upside down poses you could see upside down volcanoes silhouetted against the night sky. It was a bit windy and almost knocked you out of the balancing poses. Wow. I've never enjoyed a yoga session that much. Magical.
You have to be careful wherever you go for the little things like tripping and hitting your head on ill-placed window sills. There are random holes in the sidewalk that people in the states would sue you over. I cant tell you how many times I've come close to whapping my head on the windows, poles, and other randomness hanging around when you're not paying super close attention to where you're walking, not to mention the little street dog presents scattered about.
On the sides of the highway, men cut the shrubs and grass by hand with machetes, not lawn mowers. Very large swaths of land, with machetes.
It was election day, but people were pretty apathetic and didn't really want either candidate. My family told me it was like choosing between cancer and AIDS. Turns out that a fellow by the name of Alvaro Colom won over Otto Perez Molina. The hottest issue was security, which is bad here. You can check out the NY Times take on things at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/world/americas/05guatemala.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
A few funny images for your imagining...
In this country people like to advertise things over loadspeakers blasting from vans or trucks. Any product really, cell phones, fresh fruit, you name it. So one day while Kelly and I were running, a van with a loudspeaker past us and called out things like "Way to keep up your figure. Let's go ladies!" It was quite hilarious.
There are lots of sounds to be heard from my bedroom; this country is never really quiet. For example, I fall asleep and wake up to dogs barking, roosters crowing, conversations heard completely clearly from the street, firecrackers, church bells, pick ups screeching, wind blowing through election propaganda banners, tuk tuk honking, camioneta breaks and honking and aydantes yelling "Antigua!"
Speaking of camionetas, I've decided that a good personal safety strategy is to never get on a bus that has posted in the front "Yo manejo, Dios me guia" (I drive, God guides me). Essentially, there is a sense of fatalism here where people think that their lives are more guided by outside influences and God rather than their own actions. When this comes to bus drivers, they think that the driving responsibility is God's, not theirs, which obviously poses various safety risks. There is this one spot on the road from Antigua to Alotenango where the driver always turns off the lights inside the bus when its night time. Its a surreal experience to be speeding down the highway, packed in, listening to blasting ranchero music, and not being able to see a damn thing. Those are moments where you do a reality check and think about "huh....I'm really in Guatemala".
I find young couples with the girls dressed in traditional woven Mayan clothing and the boys sporting modern Abercrombie shirts very interesting. Traditional clothing is much less common in males due to the persecution of the indigenous people during the war. It is still quite common for females, which results in an image that seems to clash. Every time I see one of this couples hugging or making out in the street I just stare for a moment and think about it.
The other night Kelly and I had an incredible experience doing yoga at night on her terrace. I spread out my Barbie beach towel and under the clear night sky full of stars we did yoga. In the upside down poses you could see upside down volcanoes silhouetted against the night sky. It was a bit windy and almost knocked you out of the balancing poses. Wow. I've never enjoyed a yoga session that much. Magical.
You have to be careful wherever you go for the little things like tripping and hitting your head on ill-placed window sills. There are random holes in the sidewalk that people in the states would sue you over. I cant tell you how many times I've come close to whapping my head on the windows, poles, and other randomness hanging around when you're not paying super close attention to where you're walking, not to mention the little street dog presents scattered about.
On the sides of the highway, men cut the shrubs and grass by hand with machetes, not lawn mowers. Very large swaths of land, with machetes.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Site Assignment and Day of the Dead
So! We received our sites... at last after a long period of excruciating waiting shrouded in secrecy. I will be spending the next two years of my life in a very small pueblo called Santa Cruz El Chol in the department of Baja Verapaz. Looking at a map of Guatemala, El Chol is betwwen Guatemala City and Coban a couple hours from the department capital of Salama. The climate is supposed to be warmish-temperate and it sits at an altitude of 1000 meters above sea level. The whole municipality, including rural areas, has about 9000 people, with about 3000 that live in the town itself. It is a mostly Spanish-speaking ladino (metizo, mixed) community but the nearest other towns are evidently very indiginous and speak the Mayan language of Achi'. It's only about 90 Km from the capital, but half of that is on unpaved dirt roads with not so frequent transportation. There are some pictures of the town that you can see at http://www.inforpressca.com/santacruzelchol/index.php. The website is in Spanish, but theres tons of neat info and just click on the picture to see the gallery. I will be working in the Municipal Planning Office and with a variety of community groups. My mayor was reelected, so the entire administration will hopefully not be changing much come January. I'm very excited to get there and get to work and start intergrating myself all over again. Right now its still a huge unknown. I will be very sad to leave Alotenango, my current host family, and my fellow trainees. Mostly everybody is in the Western part of the country far, far away. There is one volunteer in the Youth Development program in my site and there are some other current volunteers close to me, but Im the only one from my training group in that department. Our counterparts from the host agencies will be coming out to the training center next Tuesday to meet us and then we will go out to our sites for the first time with them on Wednesday and stay there til next Sunday. We are supposed to start searching for a place to live and start to get to know the community. I'm very excited, but really just have no idea about what to think.
This whole process is a little crazy because you think you're joining the Peace Corps and going to be all independent and everything, but then you realize that you feel like you have way less control over your life than you did in the states. You sign up for Peace Corps, they tell you the country you'll be going to and then assign you your site with very little input in the process. I'm not used to feeling such a lack of control over my life....I've always decided where I want to live and work and all of a sudden that decision isn't up to me anymore. Its a bit odd.
Kelly and I have started calling great days here, GGD's: Good Guatemala Days. Yesterday was definitely one of them. It was November 1st, was Day of the Dead/All Saints Day and it was incredible. It is the day where everyone celebrates and honors ancestors and friends and family who have passed away. They decorate the cemetaries and graves with flowers and colorful wreaths and pass the day in the cemetary with their families eating picnics and listening to music. There is a big tradition of flying kites to communicate with everyone in heaven. They are brightly colored and made out of crepe paper and every little kid in the street has one. I started the day by going to cemetary to check things out in the morning. There were tons of peopel paying tribute, cleaning up grave sites and the crosses marking them, and of course, a sky full of kites. In the US, cemetaries are sad, somber places that may give you the creeps and people generally avoid. Here, they are a bit more....festive (?)....and natural. Not that death is a happy thing by any means, but there just seems to be a healthier outlook on it. There is just so much more respect and acknowledgement of it. It might have to do with the fact that Guatemalans are very fatalistc and know that death is unavoidable whereas Americans think that their lives are in their hands and have more control and death is to be feared. Just interesting the different takes on it.
After the cemetary I went home for the long anticipated lunch of fiambre. It a traditional dish made on this day taht is basically a giant salad of every meat you can imagine and picked vegetables. For example: chicken, tongue, three kinds of sausage, hot dogs, ham, salami, olives, corn, peas, colliflower, carrots, peppers, beans etc. Its all mixed up in a vinegar-type juice and has both Kraft and powdered cheese on top and parsely as a garnish. VERY interesting. I ate the whole portion (and again for lunch today), but didn't exactly enjoy it and mostly just took it down to be polite. Its such a huge process to make and very expensive. My mom and the whole family was working on it for days chopping and preparing everything and it was finally all put together in a giant plastic tub that is also used to wash clothes at times. Basically, they made a s*&@ load and then sold some, gave some to neighbors and family members, then we eat the rest. Its quite the event.
After lunch we all piled into my host dad's pickup truck and drove to the town of Sumpango, about an hour away, for their famous gigantic kite festival. Gigantic in the fact that theres tons of people, but also gigantic kites that are about 40-50 feet across. They are increible works of art with very intricate designs telling the story of Mayan histories and referencing the war and humans' relationships with nature. Those ones dont actually fly, but rather are displayed with huge bamboo poles supporting them from the back. The subjects of the kites were impressive and very moving. They had words on them that translated as
Guatemala has not stopped suffering for the cruel violence where we have lost our loved ones day after day.
Guatemala cries and struggles, searching for peace.
We want to live together with nature as our grandparents lived.
Oh mother earth! What have you done to man to make him harm you?
It was so cool to see so many people there all in awe of them. We went in later afternoon when the shadows were getting long and the sky was turning pink and it was so impressive. There was a carnival-like atmosphere with great music being pumped out over loudspeakers. There was a diverse mix of people in traditional and modern clothing. Walking up to the cemetary and to the place where the kites were displayed on top of the hill there were mobs of tightly packed people like any great carnival. And of course, wherever there are people, there are people selling things. Tons of jewelry, clothing, and FOOD. There is a whole array of dulces tipicos, traditional sweets, that they make. Basically any fruit cooked in sugar or anything sweet and fried. My family treated us to atol, a thick warm sweet corn beverage kind of like cream of corn soup with sugar and to some tostadas. It was fun to get out of Alotenango with my family on a little excursion. The whole day Kelly and I just kept looking at each other and smiling and saying how happy we were to be exactly where we were and how lucky we are to have to opportunity to see stuff like this.
That night I went out with my host sisters and cousins to go sing at people's houses and demand more dulces tipicos. I guess its some what of a twist on trick-or-treating. We drove around to various houses in Alotenango and a group of about 20 of us sang songs (none of which I knew) along with the blasting car stereo. You have to really earn the sweets by singing really loud and really long, and then eventually they come to the door and you take a picture with them and they give everyone something to eat. There were tons of drunk men stumbling home from the holiday of drinking in the bars through the dark streets. At one point, the local crazy man came along with a gigantic knife and a crazed look in his eyes. We all freaked out but he passed by us without even glancing over. The words for knife (cuchillo) and for spoon (cuchara) are very similar so I got confused and said, "oh my god that man has a giant spoon!" That broke the moment and everyone laughed and thought it was hilarious. It was great to paddle around with everyone and get to be part of their tradition. It was a long and fabulous day that made me love Guatemala even more and I get all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about it.
This whole process is a little crazy because you think you're joining the Peace Corps and going to be all independent and everything, but then you realize that you feel like you have way less control over your life than you did in the states. You sign up for Peace Corps, they tell you the country you'll be going to and then assign you your site with very little input in the process. I'm not used to feeling such a lack of control over my life....I've always decided where I want to live and work and all of a sudden that decision isn't up to me anymore. Its a bit odd.
Kelly and I have started calling great days here, GGD's: Good Guatemala Days. Yesterday was definitely one of them. It was November 1st, was Day of the Dead/All Saints Day and it was incredible. It is the day where everyone celebrates and honors ancestors and friends and family who have passed away. They decorate the cemetaries and graves with flowers and colorful wreaths and pass the day in the cemetary with their families eating picnics and listening to music. There is a big tradition of flying kites to communicate with everyone in heaven. They are brightly colored and made out of crepe paper and every little kid in the street has one. I started the day by going to cemetary to check things out in the morning. There were tons of peopel paying tribute, cleaning up grave sites and the crosses marking them, and of course, a sky full of kites. In the US, cemetaries are sad, somber places that may give you the creeps and people generally avoid. Here, they are a bit more....festive (?)....and natural. Not that death is a happy thing by any means, but there just seems to be a healthier outlook on it. There is just so much more respect and acknowledgement of it. It might have to do with the fact that Guatemalans are very fatalistc and know that death is unavoidable whereas Americans think that their lives are in their hands and have more control and death is to be feared. Just interesting the different takes on it.
After the cemetary I went home for the long anticipated lunch of fiambre. It a traditional dish made on this day taht is basically a giant salad of every meat you can imagine and picked vegetables. For example: chicken, tongue, three kinds of sausage, hot dogs, ham, salami, olives, corn, peas, colliflower, carrots, peppers, beans etc. Its all mixed up in a vinegar-type juice and has both Kraft and powdered cheese on top and parsely as a garnish. VERY interesting. I ate the whole portion (and again for lunch today), but didn't exactly enjoy it and mostly just took it down to be polite. Its such a huge process to make and very expensive. My mom and the whole family was working on it for days chopping and preparing everything and it was finally all put together in a giant plastic tub that is also used to wash clothes at times. Basically, they made a s*&@ load and then sold some, gave some to neighbors and family members, then we eat the rest. Its quite the event.
After lunch we all piled into my host dad's pickup truck and drove to the town of Sumpango, about an hour away, for their famous gigantic kite festival. Gigantic in the fact that theres tons of people, but also gigantic kites that are about 40-50 feet across. They are increible works of art with very intricate designs telling the story of Mayan histories and referencing the war and humans' relationships with nature. Those ones dont actually fly, but rather are displayed with huge bamboo poles supporting them from the back. The subjects of the kites were impressive and very moving. They had words on them that translated as
Guatemala has not stopped suffering for the cruel violence where we have lost our loved ones day after day.
Guatemala cries and struggles, searching for peace.
We want to live together with nature as our grandparents lived.
Oh mother earth! What have you done to man to make him harm you?
It was so cool to see so many people there all in awe of them. We went in later afternoon when the shadows were getting long and the sky was turning pink and it was so impressive. There was a carnival-like atmosphere with great music being pumped out over loudspeakers. There was a diverse mix of people in traditional and modern clothing. Walking up to the cemetary and to the place where the kites were displayed on top of the hill there were mobs of tightly packed people like any great carnival. And of course, wherever there are people, there are people selling things. Tons of jewelry, clothing, and FOOD. There is a whole array of dulces tipicos, traditional sweets, that they make. Basically any fruit cooked in sugar or anything sweet and fried. My family treated us to atol, a thick warm sweet corn beverage kind of like cream of corn soup with sugar and to some tostadas. It was fun to get out of Alotenango with my family on a little excursion. The whole day Kelly and I just kept looking at each other and smiling and saying how happy we were to be exactly where we were and how lucky we are to have to opportunity to see stuff like this.
That night I went out with my host sisters and cousins to go sing at people's houses and demand more dulces tipicos. I guess its some what of a twist on trick-or-treating. We drove around to various houses in Alotenango and a group of about 20 of us sang songs (none of which I knew) along with the blasting car stereo. You have to really earn the sweets by singing really loud and really long, and then eventually they come to the door and you take a picture with them and they give everyone something to eat. There were tons of drunk men stumbling home from the holiday of drinking in the bars through the dark streets. At one point, the local crazy man came along with a gigantic knife and a crazed look in his eyes. We all freaked out but he passed by us without even glancing over. The words for knife (cuchillo) and for spoon (cuchara) are very similar so I got confused and said, "oh my god that man has a giant spoon!" That broke the moment and everyone laughed and thought it was hilarious. It was great to paddle around with everyone and get to be part of their tradition. It was a long and fabulous day that made me love Guatemala even more and I get all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about it.
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