Antigua loves to party!

I can't believe that I have finally come to my last week. Learning Spanish and being a student again has been such an amazingly fun, enriching and healthy experience for me. Being a real adult again is going to be so difficult. If you don't go the route of having children, who are you in life, after you've figured out who you are at work? How do you find opportunities for personal growth? How do you meet new people who might enrich your life and help you to improve? I guess you could get yourself a life coach; or you can grab life by the horns, get out of your comfort zone, and travel. I know that I'm getting down to the end of every adventure when I start writing thank-you cards. I gave out my first two yesterday to my beloved cooking teachers. God I'm going to miss being taught a new recipe every Tuesday 😩

One of Thomas's bucket list items for being in Guatemala was to see a film entirely in Spanish. I can't say that I disagree with him, because foreign language films are one of my favorites. It just makes it a bit difficult for me because I wish that it were subtitled, even in a language I don't speak. We ended up picking the perfect day because it poured so much that there was a level of rain in the street that my corgis would have needed to swim through. It just so happens that the movie theater is right next to the only Guatemala mall I've ever seen. Of course, I told Thomas that we had to take a trip through. You can see him eating crêpes on the left. It was on this day that I realized that Thomas and Mike were going to get along famously. Can't tell it from the photo, but that crêpe is stuffed with Nutella. Yuck. There are only 3 foods that I try to avoid in this world: colored icing, sprinkles and Nutella. Anyway, I could wax philosophic about the mall for at least an hour. It is a totally fascinating intersection of Euro-American and Guatemalan culture. There were the fun, healthy things like ball pits, slides and children's rides… but there was also the most appalling intersection of enormous quantities of fried food and sugary soda beverages. Generally I don't see Guatemalan people eating nutritionally-absent American fast food but, like so many places in the world, moving up means moving towards an American diet. You all know my level of Spanish, but it was very clear that going to the mall was a family outing or a treat. Something that might only happen once or twice a year for most families. Again I'm left wondering how exactly I feel about this, and then I wonder if I have the right to feel anything at all.

As for the movie, it was 1000% the right choice. I've never seen any of the previous minion movies, and this was their origin's story. It was set just around the year of my birth and so the soundtrack was actually amazing. I was also surprised how much I enjoyed the minions themselves. There's a possibility that I'll have to go back and see the first one.

If you ever get the opportunity to come to Antigua, Guatemala, you'll definitely come and see the yellow arch. I realize it's not in this photograph, but it is right behind Henry, my roommate who had his 18th birthday a few weeks back, and me. Usually there are a lot of women and children selling items right in front of the gates that lock them away until Holy Week, Semana Santa. Henry was terrified that I was going to drop my cell phone because I had to squeeze it past the gate and chicken wire to get this photo properly. If you remember from an earlier blog, I saw the Paso, or float, at the Cathedral of San Francisco. Well, here are the Imagen or sculptures that will be carried on the float. I'm serious, one of these days Mike and I are going to have to come back to see the Holy Week festivities.

Happy July 25th!! You may think that I, like so many of my students, are just excited because I don’t have to go to school this Monday, but really I’m excited because it is Antigua’s Birthday!!! Just a reminder, Antigua Guatemala City was originally founded as ‘Santiago de Guatemala’. So the Patron saint of Antigua Guatemala is Santiago, and the birthday celebrations in Antigua are called ‘Día de Santiago Apostol’ or Saint James’ Day. I hope that you will enjoy the photos and videos that are to follow because I certainly enjoyed seeing this parade. The first thing that I want to address are the people in the middle, protesting. There were a ton of signs and they ended up marching before the parade. I did some rough translating but was not entirely sure what the issue was about. The only thing I knew is that the people in the crowd were really for their cause. Later on I found out that the government of the municipality surrounding Antigua had closed an animal slaughter plant in a neighboring Pueblo. The people in the village were very upset because this business was their primary source of income. The business and other people in the area were upset because having a slaughter plant so close ensured a higher quality of meat. In the end it's really just a privilege to be able to share one day with the people of Antigua as somewhere between a tourist and an extranjera.

I’ve traveled to many tropical locations but never have I been lucky enough to hear someone playing a Conch before. This gentleman was one of the first performers in the parade and he certainly did a great job announcing the other performers. Embouchure is used to produce the haunting tones that you can hear in the video. Conch blowing has a long musical history. There is one shell in France that dates back 12,000 years to the Magdalenian culture from northern France. These instruments have been created from many species of large marine gastropod shells, but some of the more commonly used ones include Triton’s Trumpet, Helmet or Bonnet Snail varieties, and Snails in the family Strombidae, commonly known as “true conchs”. The one in the video is a Triton’s Trumpet. If you are a fan of the movie Alien, then you have heard an Indian conch shell sound run through an Echoplex tape delay machine. It is found in the scene where the crew of the Nostromo land on an alien planet, only to find the Xenomorph's eggs. You can hear a clip of this if you click here XXX.

I couldn't resist putting this video in and taking the time to talk a little about the arch... which is properly named Arco de Santa Catalina, the Santa Catalina Arch. It's a shame that the parade was not going in the other direction because in reality Volcán Agua should be framed in the back. The crazy thing is that it is so far from what I will remember from Antigua, but it is just ever present in literature, photos and evidently parades. All of the floats in the parade are created by school children and their parents, so I appreciate the time and effort that went into preparing for this parade. Since 1694, the arch has had its home on Calle del Arco, “street of the arch.” Tourists will imagine that the arch was built just for them, but the truth is far more interesting. You can hardly tell now, but on either side of the Arch there was a convent, the Convent of the Virgin and the Convent of Santa Catalina. Both are cloistered orders where the sisters took vows of seclusion, but the nuns needed to visit one another for religious and educational purposes. In order for the nuns to cross the street discreetly, an arched bridge was constructed. Like so much in Antigua, the arch has suffered major damage during the earthquake of 1773. The French-style clock was made by Lamy & Lacroix and was added in the 1800's and I would love to have the job of winding it every three days, but the clock has been out of commission and no one seems sure if and when it will be repaired.

The people of Antigua are incredibly diverse, as you can see from the amazing variety of performances that are in the parade. There are typical things like brass bands and baton twirlers alongside the inevitable religious displays, but there are also creative and artistic displays that let you see the soul of the people here. I wish that I had a proper video of it, but if you look at the top left-hand photograph you'll see people holding parts of a flower. There were about a dozen of these, all different, and it was one of the most creative things in the entire parade.

Many women all over Guatemala honor their ancestors by wearing differently patterned traditional cloths. If you knew what you were looking at, you could tell where a person was from by the pattern of their clothes. I’ll get more into the clothes later. For now I just want you to enjoy the ladies dancing in their woven garments.

I couldn't let my blogs in Guatemala end without a shout out to the Tuk Tuk. These adorable little vehicles ramble around Antigua at alarming speeds. Joke is that if you go to the grocery store for eggs, never take a Tuk Tuk home unless you want scrambled eggs. Visitors and locals alike take them but the unusual thing is that Ubers are actually cheaper, they just take longer to arrive so the Tuk Tuk is a common travel method. I've actually only taken them a couple of times, usually home from the grocery store, but if I lived here I would have one like these!!! On the street where my host family lives, there is a gentleman who fixes Tuk Tuks for a living. I'm telling you, if I lived here I would own one and convert it into a convertible Chicken Bus-decked out mode of transport!!!

When I first arrived in Guatemala, I knew that I wanted to buy a traditional outfit so that I could wear it during spirit week at school. It's so hard for my Guatemalan students to find a sense of connection in a place as foreign as Methacton, or Pennsylvania, or America, and I hope that putting on a piece of home will help them to see that there are people in their new school who value and understand the traditions and customs of Guatemala's rich ethnicity and history. Now that being said, it's entirely possible that it would never have happened if I hadn't met Libni. She is a student and a pharmacy worker at the same clinic that Thomas volunteered with. You can see a photo of her with her mother and grandmother above. I was so lucky that she was willing to come from her hometown of Santa Catarina Bobadilla to help me. Just a little side note, she doesn't speak any English so not only did she have to put up with teaching me how to shop for traditional clothing, but she also had to put up with my terrible Spanish. She was so incredibly gracious and kind, shepherding me through the market and the one million choices of traditional clothing that one finds there. She was even kind enough to come out to dinner and spend some more time with me. I will truly treasure this long evening because it is just so lovely to walk and talk with another professional young woman in her language. Well, in her language with long pauses to think of how to phrase things, and a bit of help from Google Translate. I want to tell you more about the traditional clothing because so many women in Guatemala opt to wear it despite its high cost and difficult maintenance. The skirt, which is a long piece of fabric (sometimes more than 5 feet) that is wrapped and folded to fit each person, is called a corte. The traditional square-cut blouse, which is open on the sides and one-size-fits-all is called a huipil. Finally the belt, which is wrapped several times very tightly around the top of the corte and huipil is a faja. It is colored differently on both sides and holds the entire thing together. Often a shawl is draped over one shoulder, often used to carry an infant, which finishes off this amazingly colorful and beautiful look. It can take a woman 6 months to complete a simple version of this garment. If you look closely at my huipil, you will see a depiction of the double-headed eagle. The two opposing birds can represent good and evil, past and future, or heaven and earth. It is perfect for me. Wearing the traje is not just an aesthetic gesture by many Guatemalan women. It is an affirmation of self. Rigoberta Menchu, who wore her traje when she received her Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, noted, “When I wear my traje I feel connected to my roots, I am showing the world my cultural identity and where I come from.” If you ever get the opportunity to shop for one, you will quickly realize that each symbol or pattern was specifically chosen and woven by a unique woman. These design, and vibrant color illustrates the rich Maya culture that is still thriving after thousands of years.

I did see Libni again, thanks to Thomas. We went to Santa Catarina, her pueblo, to go swimming. It was the best. We were able to meet her cousins and just relax. We played so many pool games that I have not done since I was a child. We threw 1Q coins into the pool and retrieved them. We raced end to end and played volleyball without a net. Her little cousin was the referee and poolside ball retriever.

At some point, when we were not looking, the soccer game being played on a field behind the huge fence in the picture above ended. All of the young players piled into the pool area. They were playing until the winning team saw their coach. They piled out of the pool and, with great effort, grabbed him and threw him into the pool. It was a privilege to just watch these young men have fun. We needed to leave in the early afternoon because we were set to see Antigua and Xelajú Municipality play at the Antigua stadium in the evening. Trust me, after 4 hours swimming with Libni and her cousins, I needed a nap.

Gosh, there's so much going on here!! If you don't care about football, drinking in the street and a whole heck of a lot of fun, you should probably just skip over this entire section:) Thomas's house father Fernando invited all of us to go to the Antigua game in Guatemala City, a week before this entire event took place. Unfortunately Guatemala City was having a bit of a time, and by that I mean not a good time for extranjeros. So when it came to the game between Antigua and Municipal in Antigua City, he was incredibly excited to take us all. Thomas told me to meet him at 5:30 and we were going to drink at the bar. He failed to understand that the bar meant the street in front of a tienda. Let me just tell you that there was an incredibly amazing rotating cast of characters who came up to enjoy the cervezas and tequila. We went to enter the game and got distracted by Fernando grabbing an Antigua flag and saying, "Let's go in the back door". Interestingly, the back door was closed for this game and so we had to go back around to the front. Fernando said No no, don't buy a ticket, just come this way; and then suddenly we were part of the band. I mean this very literally because I came in behind a guy playing a sousaphone, another one playing a horn ripped off a bus, and several playing drums.

This was an incredibly cool turn of events because who doesn't want to be part of a band. The only thing that was cooler is that about 50 steps into the stadium I whipped out my phone in time to see the first goal of the entire game from the corner post. I mean goals are great, but maybe his butt's a little bit better. You are all incredibly lucky because I'm only going to put a single video in here of the other second-coolest thing that happened in the stadium.

Everybody who goes to stadiums knows that the stadium lights are the brightest lights in the city. Of course if you are the brightest lights in the city, you attract the most beautiful moths in the city. Mike just happens to be here narrating while I write this blog and he said, "That's also why the chicks flock to the stadium. Not for the players, for the moths." There's a reason we got married.

At the game I found out that it was Fernando's birthday on Monday. This all comes together because after the game he asked us all to come back to the "bar". We drank, hung out, cheered the home team's bus as it left, and gave the metaphoric finger to the opposing team as they left. We stayed at the bar until almost midnight. When the cops say Move it along, in Guatemala you just do. Fernando of course said the night can't be over, come back to my house for a few more. If you take a look at the photograph above of Thomas the day after at a lovely restaurant in Antigua, you'll understand how long the party really was. If you stay posted for the next blog, I hope that you'll get to see Mike and myself have another super cool soccer experience because Antigua is playing their biggest rival next Wednesday, August 10.

This set of photographs might be one of my favorites from the entire trip. I hope you remember that my host family had the most adorable dog named Aladar. On my next to last Monday, I was taking one of my roommates to get his clothes washed at the lavandería. He had not closed the front door to our house, and Aladar was running around near us. I didn't entirely pay a lot of attention to this because he was often out and about in the neighborhood. Halfway to school, Henry turned around and took a photograph because Aladar had followed us that far and he thought it was cute. Well, it didn't end there. I went to school, turned around, and there Aladar was. Running around like a crazy dog on the terrace and then in my classroom. I called Henry and said, "Please come and take him home." He really was the loveliest roommate, so he came and tried… Three minutes after he left with Aladar on a leash, Aladar was back curled up under my desk. He had the "I'm not here" look. At this point I had no choice but to tie my bandana on and take him home. It was a 30-minute round trip but in the end, it doesn't matter about school if your house dog is there because no one is learning then. I have blue hair in a conservative city but the one thing that no one will forget is the day a dog came to school with me because he loved me so much. I'm going to leave my part of the blog where it started, with me and Volcán Agua. Seven weeks go by so fast, but Mike is here so we get one week of new adventures.