Before I embark upon my travels in Guatemala, some final photos from Pachalum. The Municipal Women’s Committee had a final goodbye lunch for me on my second-to-last day at one of the ladies’ house. The food was good and Luz María, my old counterpart who came along, brought her adorable one-year-old son who decided he was ready to start driving a vintage Land Rover.
Rodrigo up close in Ron Ron
On October 27th, after far too many goodbyes and tears, I finally left Pachalum (quite literally sobbing the whole way from Pachalum to the next municipality 9 kilometers away, it was all very sad) and went back to Peace Corps to put in my final paperwork and officially become an RPCV. There was last minute drama with my SPA project with some finances that I had calculated erroneously and then some checks that needed to be rewritten, all of which was a huge headache and which is apparently par for the course with all projects. It really makes me wonder how much I want to get involved in international development work since my $2,700 grant caused so much grief. On the other hand, my friends who are continuing as Peace Corps Volunteers asked me in my last days in Guatemala if I was sad about leaving, and I honestly answered that the SPA project and the never-ending headaches it caused made me look forward to leaving a lot more.
I remained in Antigua for four or five days finishing up paperwork and then hanging out with friends. On the night of our official Close of Service (COS), nine of us volunteers who stayed until the last day (Peace Corps gives permission for volunteers in good standing to leave up to a month before the official COS date, so of the twenty-eight or so of us who finished, only eleven were still around on October 29th) went to the new house of a volunteer who decided to stay on for another year in Antigua working with other NGOs to celebrate Halloween and the end of our service. At midnight we had a countdown for the end of our service and from that moment on I was a free woman again.
COS group at midnight October 29th in Kamille’s House
My last two weeks in Guatemala were definitely weird no longer being a volunteer – after having to report my whereabouts for two years every time I spent a night out of site, I was now free to do whatever I wanted! So I went to Sumpango.
Sumpango is a large town close to Guatemala City that is famous (along with Santiago Sacatepéquez) for the HUGE kites people make to fly on Day of the Dead (Todos los Santos, November 1st). My new sitemate, Sahisha, did her three months of training in Sumpango, so she invited me to go with her to see the festival and spend the night with her host family. I figured that kites would be entertaining for maybe an hour or so and then I would be bored, but I was completely wrong. The Sumpango kite festival is probably one of the coolest things I have seen and I highly recommend that anyone who wants to go to Guatemala plan their trip around the start of November to go to Sumpango or Santiago for a day.
All around Guatemala (and southern Mexico) families go to the cemetaries on Day of the Dead to decorate the graves of loved ones and give offerings. It is customary to make special sweet bread and to have lunch with the dead family members. In Guatemala, the start of November is also the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the windy season (the winds come from the North and push away the clouds in un-official meteorological report fashion). The winds make for great kite-flying weather, so like you saw in the last post from Pachalum, children all over the country make or buy small kites and fly them (apparently, this is also common practice in Europe during the month of November, it is just a windy time of year.)
Santiago and Sumpango are like the McDonald’s of Guatemalan kites - they supersize them. The tradition of making HUMONGOUS kites in Sumpango comes from the ancestors. Legend has it that many years ago, evil spirits came to bother the good spirits who came home to visit their families on Day of the Dead in the cemeteries. In the 1980s, the kite competition was started as a way to re-establish cultural values that were being lost due to the Civil War. Every year, there is a different theme for the festival and groups of 35 men work together over the course of months to make their kites out of tissue paper with frames made out of bamboo or sugar cane. It takes around 45 6-hour days of consecutive work with 35+ men to make a kite. According to a pamphlet I was handed, the estimation of cost to make one of the kites (including not only tissue paper, but also work hours, etc) is approximately Q44,690.00, which is $5,586.25 (using a Q8=$1 exchange rate).
The kites come in various sizes, with the largest kites (10 meters and larger) only judged according to appearance/artistry, medium-sized kites (3-6 meters) judged not only on artistry but also on their ability to fly, a category of uniquely-shaped kites that are judged on their artistry, and finally a children’s category that is ‘small’ kites (1 – 2.5 meters). The kites are judged by a panel of five to seven people and I do not envy their work, as you can see, the kites were amazing.
Kites from afar
All the kites were set up on the football field in rows. The smallest kites were in the first rows and the larger kites in the back rows. In the morning, while the children’s kites competed, we walked through the kites on display. Except for the very largest, all of the kites were flown in the afternoon.
Channeling my inner tiger with Sahisha with a smaller kite
Kites from not so far
You can see that some of the kites had really cool cutouts. The wind actually damaged a lot of the larger kites by the afternoon, so the cutouts were a good design technique to let the wind go through.
Close-up of kite, Sumpango reppin
A small cutout section of a large kite
Another super cool HUGE kite
This kite and the next one were just for display, not for flying.
Next to a tall kite
With Sahisha and other PCVs with a kite that was in the flying category
After going around all morning, we went back to Sahisha’s house for lunch and on the way back to the football field, we saw the cemetery even more decorated and family’s celebrating and eating on the graves.
More décor at the cemetary
Back on the field, we paid Q10 to sit in some bleachers that were set-up to watch the kites in action. This was an excellent investment since most of those kites did not end up flying. They would get a running start, sail for a minute or two in the air, and then dive into the crowds below. It was really entertaining to watch and not be in danger of getting a bamboo stick to the head.
Running the kites to fly
Each group had three tries to make their kite fly, and most of them did not make it.
After an hour or so, three kites were in the air. There seemed to be litmus of some sort, with kites that were able to get to a certain height in liftoff making it and maintaining in the air. These three kites were really high up in the air and stayed there for a long time.
Meanwhile, back in the display section, kites that were not flown were taken down around 5:30pm.
By the time we left the fairgrounds, only one kite was still in the air and it was high. I wonder how the kites that go that far up ever come down since there is a lot of pressure on the rope. The man holding the kite had his hand wrapped in shirts to prevent injury, but still, I think his hands got pretty beaten up.
Kite with moon
Holding onto the rope for the kite, a family affair
Sumpango was amazing and I hope that I get the chance to go to Santiago next year. Apparently the feeling is totally different in the two towns – Sumpango feels like a fair, while in Santiago the kites are run through the streets and they are not as large.
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