Well, I took my medicina guatemalteca today. I have been told by multiple people that the side effects of this bacteria-killer is that it feels surprising like there is something killing bacteria in your stomach. Which translates into another day of an upset stomach for me. However, this upset stomach is much easier to embrace knowing it may be the last one for good!
Luckily, another day of an upset stomach translates into a day home from work and a few extra hours to blog about church and the party in el parque central yesterday.
Church this week was filled with sweet moments and sweet sweets! There was no Bible study for jovenes this week at the church, so we joined the adult Bible study, which was lead by a different teacher. I had a much harder time understanding the teacher this Sunday compared to last, but then again the main service was easy to follow! I guess I can settle for a trade-off, not as bad as getting worse. The teacher also wrote a bunch of stuff on his whiteboard, so I copied it down for further study later.
The first sweet moment of the service took place during the class. The Sunday school teacher was talking about putting theory into practice, using the general topic of “love one another” as an example (I could understand that much). He then challenged the class to participate in an activity that I unfortunately didn’t understand, but turns out witnessing it was just as powerful. From what my fluent-in-any-language eyes could gather, people were supposed to spread out within the group and find one person to practice “loving.” Looking across the room, I saw the simplest picture of amor. A young pair of arms wrapped around an elderly body, one young and one old man lifting each other up in prayer.
I also personally felt the sweetness of community when an older man who I met last week came up to me and asked me how my Spanish was going. Although I fumbled through our resulting conversation, he gave me the most encouraging grin and told me I had made good progress.
A sweet smile also greeted me a few rows back from one of the sweetest little girls I have seen. Sporting sky-high pigtails, a polka-dotted shirt, striped leggings and a gigantic fuzzy dog backpack, this little girl kept peering over her mother’s lap to flash a sassy smile my way. It pretty much made my day.
Although this was only my second visit, I knew I had found a church to stay when the pastor announced the new study theme for the month of October—la iglesia. If you remember from my previous post, a big part of my decision to come to Guatemala is to gain an understanding of church culture in Latin America. What better way?!
Much to my surprise, my usual walk back from church brought me straight through the belly of culturala guatemalteca. Every first domingo (Sunday) of the month, vendors come from all over Guatemala with their handmade textiles, paintings, and trinkets in tow. Let me tell ya, these people are pros! From the time I walked through el parque central to go to church and the time I made my way back, the sidewalks became choked with tables, stands, and shelves, all under a rainbow of tarps and umbrellas with just enough space to squeeze your way through.
If you were one of the few lucky ones to squeeze your way through in one piece, and equally congestive challenge awaited you with individual walking vendors waiting at the other end carrying their crates full of candy and arms full of balloons amidst live blaring music and crowds of people pressing in from every side.
Once again, I found out that I am here during one of the luckiest holiday times. I found out that this domingo in particular was not only just the regular craft market, but it also happened to be the weekend of el dia de los ninos and the beginning of the October-long celebration of Quetzaltenango’s patron virgin Rosaria—three culturally rich festivities all crammed into one mega fiesta.
After a brief lunch, I armed myself with my journal, arsenal of pens, and carefully inconspicuous wardrobe to take in this fiesta the best way I know how—people watching. Below are some of the observations I made from my afternoon and evening immersed in this sensory hotbed. I hope my experiences can splay across this page as beautifully as they did my vision.
I also saw that, here, it is impossible to sing or play an instrument without using your entire body. Every member of the band on the enormous stage, from the backup singer down to the marimba player, moved their feet, hips, legs, shoulders, and heads to the vibrant beat. Most impressively, their feet, hips, legs, shoulders, and heads were usually never going the same direction! The blend of the many different instruments and the sway of the different bodies created a beautiful fusion where the experience of the music was greater than just the sound alone could ever produce.
I witnessed smoking’s cultural place in the community of Xela. I haven’t seen many cigarettes in the three weeks I’ve been here so I was beginning to think they didn’t bother with smoking here. However now I think the reason for the absence of smoking in my experience so far was I haven’t been around the type of people who do. I noticed many people smoking during the festival and every single one was a young, affluently dressed and postured male. With this group, it was easy to pick up on the persuasiveness of cigarettes—the style and luxury of being young.
After a few not-so-coincidental occurrences of the same nature, I realized my personal tower of observation was located right next to a popular meeting spot. I watched countless hopefuls sit in anticipation, checking their watch and glancing around anxiously, and saw many a happy couple reunite at the edge of the big stone dome. Sometimes it wasn’t just but a few seconds one couple found each other that another person filled the concrete waiting bench to wait for their significant other. I saw everything from the casual “fancy seeing you here” stroll up to the passionate “it’s been so long” running embrace. It was a sweet reminder of how love is central to all of humanity.
What’s a street fiesta without rides? One of the side streets was home to a dozen or so children’s rides crawling with ninos y ninas. These rides resembled many of the rides I’ve seen growing up at state fairs and city carnivals. Merry-go-rounds, carousels, miniature Ferris wheels, and the like carrying their passengers in cars, cabooses, ships, animals, and mini airplanes. But these rides were also unlike any I have ever seen before because they were mostly manually-driven. No machines or motors, only strong men pulling and pushing them along their circular, horizontal, or vertical paths.
Above all, the most unique thing painted before me was the striking blend of old and new. From the architecture of the houses and buildings to the customs and food families consume every day, the Guatemalan life is a mosaic of old Mayan ancestors, converting Spanish conquistadores, and modern Western figures. My time at the fiesta in parque central yielded a perfect example of this in the form of a tiny old woman and what appeared to be her two grandsons. The woman, dressed in a full traje tradicional, head to toe in hand-woven fabrics wrapped around her frail body, was walking arm-in-arm with her grandsons on each side dressed in their trendy skinny jeans and name-brand hoodies. What was most striking about this picture was this trio appeared as opposite yet natural as the silver grey streaks interwoven in the jet black thickness of her long braid.
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