Sunday, April 11, 2010

Easter and On

It’s been a pleasant couple of weeks here in site. It’s still weird to be split up from the group and not having my life mimicking that of others, but I’m doing my own thing and I’m happy with it. My first week here was Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is the biggest religious celebration here in Guatemala. The month leading up to the week before Easter is full of processions and prayers, mainly on the weekend. I feel like I’ve mentioned this before, but my favorite part are the alfombras, really elaborate “rugs” made out of flowers, fruit, sawdust, sand, and other items that the parade floats and those carrying them walk over. Hours of work go into these alfombras, but it only takes minutes to destroy them and make them a blurry mess of trampled stems and flowers and mixed up sawdust. The important part is in making them, which is usually a family affair and also shows one’s love for God. My new family got together, aunts, cousins and all, with my host parents and sister to make a rug on Friday morning for Good Friday. We all got up around 5:00 to make it before it got really hot and sunny out. The day before I had gone with my host mom and aunt to the market in Xela to buy some palm fronds, flowers and coroza (not sure how it’s spelled) to make the rug with and it took us a while to find what we wanted because there wasn’t a whole lot left. We used the palm fronds to make the base of the alfombra, and we made a flower basket out of sawdust and coroza and put flowers in it. It was really pretty. I walked around to see the other rugs in the area and there weren’t a whole lot. Apparently over the past couple of years people just haven’t cared enough to make alfombras for the procession of Jesus and Mary. However, there were some really elaborate ones by the church that the youth in the community had put together, including a really beautiful one of Jesus carrying the cross made out of sawdust. The procession set out from the church at noon or so and my family waited for it by our alfombra. This procession was much more elaborate than the previous ones I had seen in Pastores and Antigua. There were actors portraying Jesus, the guards, the thieves, the women in the crowd. When the procession got to the corner where we were waiting, they stopped for the actors to portray a woman offering Jesus water and the guards abusing him. Once it passed, we joined the procession and walked up to the Calvario, stopping at little shrines along the way to recite prayers, thus making the procession move fairly slowly. Once we got to the Calvario, the same actors then reenacted the crucifixion, even putting the thieves and Jesus on crosses. It was hard to see because tons of people had shown up and everyone had umbrellas opened because it was really sunny out, but I got the gist of what was going on. Later on we followed the Jesus statue to the house where it will be for the next nine days until it returns to the church. The family that is hosting the statue had a large lunch for us. Good Friday was a lot more interesting here than it ever was in the U.S. That night there was another mini procession of a float where Jesus was in a coffin to symbolize his death that would on Sunday become a float with a risen Jesus on it to represent his resurrection. There was also a Maximón effigy that is a pretty interesting tradition around here. Maximón (or Saint Simón) is a pagan saint that smokes and drinks. There was an effigy of him sitting on the sidewalk on Friday in a hat and clothes with a cigar in his mouth and signs around his neck. He represented Judas Iscariot and later he was burned, but I couldn’t find where he was being burned so I missed it. Holy Week also meant eating lots of sweet bread, hearing lots of evangelical churches’ services late in the night and lots of people just hanging out because there was no school throughout the week and most people didn’t have to work later in the week. There was no mention of an Easter bunny or Easter candy. I miss the candy part but not the bunny.

Other than the craziness that was Holy Week, it’s been pretty tranquilo here. I love the weather in this area-it’s nice and cool in the evenings and in the morning and it gets pleasantly warm during the day. It has also started raining nearly every afternoon, a sign of what’s to come in the rainy season. I’m just looking forward to having less dust everywhere. I’ve gotten into Xela a few more times. On Monday I went in with my partner, Yuna, to see the NCAA final game with some other volunteers. Then on Wednesday I went again in the morning to get some food from Hiper Paiz (which is the Guatemalan equivalent of Wal-Mart-I even think it’s owned by Wal-Mart). On Friday morning Yuna and I had our first meeting with the directors of the schools we’re working with the talk about the program and what we’re hoping to accomplish and to set up a schedule for visiting the schools in the next several weeks. It was a successful meeting and everyone seemed ready to accept us as a part of the schools over the next two years. They were participating and seemed like a happy, fun group of people and we have 21 school visits scheduled through the end of next month, so we’re ready to get started working. To celebrate Yuna and I went into Xela to get a nice lunch from the Indian restaurant (SO good-I can’t believe I have quality Indian food twenty minutes away), to explore the bookshop (tons of used books in English and in Spanish), to find the Mennonite bakery (again, SO good and something I never would have expected to find close to me-I got some cupcakes for my family and a chocolated-glazed, cream filled doughnut, which I never expected to find in Guatemala), and to explore La Democracia (a large market, much like the streets of Kampala, where you can find stores or stalls selling pretty much anything you need, from animal feed to socks, underwear to food). I really like Xela-it’s a big city, but it’s more tranquilo and safe than Guatemala City but offers pretty much the same mix of things. There is a nice theater that has productions on the weekends, several clubs that have live music, places to dance (and to learn), lots of restaurants and bars, two malls, a Mennonite bakery and a place to buy good cheese, and even a zoo. It will be fun to explore more over the next several months when I can and I’m finally starting to find my way around, at least from the central park to the bus terminal and mall. Though living close to a city is what I didn’t want from my PC experience, and I know I’m going to spend more of my money on food and other things because of it, it will be nice to have it close if I need to get away and I’ll learn how to budget myself.

I’ve also been spending lots of time with my family and just hanging out around town. The kids always want to do something, whether it’s drawing, playing cards, or playing computer games. Then there’s the t.v., which we watch together sometimes, though I often see what’s on at night before going to bed. Instead of CNN in English, I just have Fox News, which I still refuse to watch, though I might break down soon because watching CNN in Spanish gets frustrating sometimes. Seeing Glenn Beck yelling about something just made me angry-I’ll just need to avoid it around 3 or so when he’s on. Yesterday I went from watching Fuego en la Sangre, the really horrible telenovela that is finally ending, to watching Jeopardy (so happy to find it on here), to watching Borat (which made me realize just how bad globalization can be sometimes). I also cooked for my family the other day, making tuna fish casserole (my host sister had commented about how she loved tuna), which was very well received. If I can find eggplant I’ll try making that again. I’m excited to be on my own and cooking everyday, though I’m sure I’ll have less energy once I start visiting schools next week.

That’s pretty much all I have. Once I start school visits, I’ll probably have more to write about. Until then, I’m just relaxing and getting everything organized and ready for working with the schools.

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