A Medias

Muy buenas tardes a todos,

I hope that everyone had a most wonderful week. When I went onto facebook recently I discovered that in the midst of Independence Day celebrations, I totally forgot about Rosh Hashana, so that plus going to Evangelical church last week pretty much officially makes me a not so great Jew. In the great Jewish tradition, however, my Independence Day experience was did include some suffering, so all hope is not lost. The town I am living in has been preparing for Independence Day pretty much since we arrived, with games and food stands sprouting up in the plaza and students missing copious amounts of school to practice marching and performing. This week was the pinnacle of celebrations, with roller coaster rides popping up in the middle of town and a huge stage set-up. On Sunday night we had the first evening of spectacles, with the princess candidates (what celebration is complete without some beauty pageant competition?) strutting their stuff on a stage. There were 7 teenage girls vying for the crown of Ms. Town and Sunday night was the evening of competition, with the girls competing in a ‘Traje de Fantasía’ competition (imagine carnaval in Río, that is the type of clothing they were wearing. Not much skin covered and a lot of feathers), then a traditional clothing competition, and finally speeches in both Spanish and Kachiquel. I went to the center of town around 630pm and left around 930pm and the competition was not near being over because the girls took forever walking up and down the stage. In Guatemalan Mayan society, where women are generally timid and people both dress and behave conservatively, it was really shocking to see 14-15 year old girls on stage in little more than bikinis adorned with feathers (ostensibly every costume had some sort of Mayan symbolism, they were different spirits, but it was a world away from the Mayan ceremony we had experienced the week before). Since I was tired and with Mamatina, I left before the speeches, which I heard were really good (topics included preserving Mayan heritage), but the parts that I saw were like any other beauty pageant with shorter and better fed models.

On Monday night, the town showed up again to celebrate the crowning of Ms. Town and her three runner-ups, Ms. Patron, Ms. Sports, and Ms. Niceness (Srta Patronal, Srta. Deportes, Srta. Simpatía). There was an awesome band playing music called Band Vega, and besides the singers on stage, I was the only one who got my groove on before the princesses took the stage for another 2 hours of strutting up and down the runway.

Band Vega and the lethargic massesPrincesses from 2008-2009 getting ready to give up the throne...but not without a lot of strutting on the walkway

Once again showing my cultural insensitivity, I was unable to understand how people could sit still while awesome music was being played live and then later how they could stand to just sit around for two hours while seven girls walked back and forth on the stage without asking for a little more action or a quicker pace. In the middle of the crowning of the new queens, one of the many firecrackers that were being set-off fell into the crowd and exploded next to a little boy, causing blood to come out of his ear. This caused a slight delay in the festivities, but it did not end the firecrackers and after that event I decided to excuse myself from the crowd and stood further back from the stage. Around 10pm, Band Vega got back on stage and started to play again and I was very excited that finally there would be some dancing. Once again, however, I was disappointed since the crowd continued to stay relatively immobile. After a short break, the princesses came back down and started dancing on stage with members of the Consejo Municipal and Felipe was invited up to dance with them as well. I pretty much had my fill and went home at 11-something, once again missing the most interesting part of the evening. It seems like after I got walked home by Felicia, her mom, and Devon, they returned to the plaza and were invited up to the Mayor’s office where the Consejo Municipal, the princesses, and Felipe were hanging out drinking and dancing.

On Tuesday, Independence Day itself, I watched the local parade and saw tons of cute kids dressed in traditional clothing from all over Guatemala, and then headed over with Mamatina and her family to watch the parade in Ciudad Vieja, the first Spanish capital of Guatemala that is a few kilometers away.

Kids in the local town

Mamatina and Family in Ciudad Vieja

Mamatina’s granddaughter goes to high school in Ciudad Vieja, so together with her parents and two siblings, we headed out in Mamatina’s truck to watch the parade. The most notable thing about Ciudad Vieja is that people there do not dress in traje típico (traditional dress). The girls in the parade almost all wore suits and the princesses from the different schools all wore prom dresses instead of huipil and cortes. When I commented on this to Mamatina she said that it was because in Ciudad Vieja they are ladino, and that she is also ladino because she is from there (she moved to her current town as a child). Mamatina told me that she wears traje típico because for many years she sold artesanía, but she does not identify as indigenous and she does not speak Kachiquel like the women from town do. This was really interesting to hear since as an outsider the only difference between people from Ciudad Vieja and San Antonio is how they dress, and yet culturally they identify very differently.

With Betsy in the back of the truck in Ciudad Vieja

In the afternoon, I decided to participate in the 15 km race along with Devon and Felipe in our town. I had heard about this race the week before and decided that since there was a free t-shirt involved that I would like to participate (it is also a good chance to exercise). We were told that the race would start at two and then ended up not starting until 330pm. Of all the entrants, we were the only people who looked like non-professionals, and I was the only one not wearing running shorts. As I stood there with the handful of other runners (30 or so) in front of the sizable crowd I asked myself why on earth I thought this was a good idea. I do not especially like running, I am terminally slow, and the t-shirt is not that nice. The race was set up to go through town, up the huge hill that serves as the entrance to the town, loop around the next town out to the highway, go back to the center of San Antonio and then do it again. I decided that I would be satisfied with one loop of 7.5 km, since that is already more than I have run since I have been here. From the very start of the race I was dead last in the group and it took very little time on the way up the big hill to lose sight of everyone in the group in front of me. Watching people lining the race path making fun of my slow gait, I was again at a loss for why I had thought this would be a good idea. Unlike in the U.S. where people decide to do races for fun and exercise, the only people who choose to run here are actually fast (then again, this is a relative term, I have been out-walked before so I might not be the best judge). It took me about 55 minutes to do one lap, and I was totally comfortable with my decision to leave it at that. The race served several purposes: I got my t-shirt, ate a celebratory coffee ice cream, and all desire to enter future races has been thoroughly extinguished.

The rest of my week was relatively unremarkable. On Friday we had a presentation in the local middle school that was observed by two Peace Corps personnel, and our feedback was less than stunning (in my quest to stay positive I tried to tell myself that this means I have room to grow and that the next presentation by default must be better). Tomorrow we are heading out to a week of Field Based Training up in Huehuetenango, where we will be visiting various volunteers at their sites and giving a charla (talk) to a group of women. I am a bit nervous about the whole experience, but I have heard that it is usually a fun experience and it really helps clarify what exactly our work will be when we finally go out into the field and the variety of conditions that people work in (thus far we have only seen one volunteer at site). I plan to take plenty of photos, pray that there are no bed bugs or fleas in the hotels we stay in, and hope that the next charla we give is better received (14-year-old boys’ obnoxiousness knows no international boundaries).