Well it's back to school for me today, and the weekend was a lot of fun. On Saturday I was getting some stuff ready for the party Christmas Eve. There was a group of former and current students at the school that had the run of the house they were staying at for a couple weeks. The family had gone to the USA for a couple weeks and they were allowed to have partys. We all brought something to bring to the party, although my contribution was kind of lame, just a cake bought at the bakery. There was turkey, vegetables, squash, salads, cheese and tomatoes, desserts, mashed potatoes, etc. Basically everything you could ever want. There were twelve of us, so it actually felt like Christmas. One of the girls even brought the paper hats! Later on we had a gift exchange of silly gifts. Two of the gifts were firecrackers and fireworks which were a lot of fun later on. At about 10 we tried some of the pyrotechics on the roof balcony. It first started with a few pretty flaming things, but soon progressed into sending bottle rockets at the neighbouring house. It took a while to figure out how to aim those things but we eventually got it figured out. The other people were more than happy to fire back their stash of ammunition back at us, but with seemingly more powerful versions and with more accuracy. It is quite a tradition in Guatemala to light firecrackers and fireworks all year long, but especially for Christmas and New Year's. At the end of the fireworks war, our side was losing and out of ammunition so we had to retreat inside, however not without casualties. Emily ended up with a hole in her shirt from one of the bottle rockets. I must say though, it was a blast!!
Later on in the evening just before midnight we came back outside to watch one of the most incredible spectacles I have ever seen. For 30 minutes there were countless fireworks and firecrackers going off all over the place. By the end it was so smoky it wasn't possible to see the other side of the city. They were being lit from every street throughout the city. Most of them were individually pretty common fireworks, but the sheer amount was amazing.
On Christmas Day I went with Harold, Martha, and Katherine from the school to a town called Totonicapan. There was supposed to be a big parade or something. We caught a cab from Xela directly there so we wouldn't miss anything. We got there pretty fast as the cab driver was passing everyone he could. At least this cab driver didn't try to demand more money when we arrived, so I don't have to hate all cabbies in Gautemala now. There were people all over the place, most of them dressed in their best clothing for Christmas. We watched a bunch of mascots dancing in a square. We saw Sponge Bob Squarepants, Wonderwoman, Superman, etc. so I guess it wasn't exactly a very traditional event unless we missed something. (Which we probably did because we had to find some food for lunch, and by time we ate, the party was all over.) We looked around the street markets for a while and eventually decided to go back to Xela. I jumped on the bus first and while I was boarding it started pulling away without the others. He did stop though and let the rest onboard fortunately! Only about 10 minutes down the road however; the bus was stopped and two policeman got on the bus to say everyone had to get off the bus. At first I understood that they wanted some money for themselves, but eventually we determined that the bus driver was drunk so he wasn't allowed to keep driving. We got off and got most of our money back and had to walk about 1 km to the next main intersection where we caught another bus. The next bus driver was okay apparently and we arrived without incident although the ride was extremely bumpy. Good thing we had seats! In town we had to get yet another bus (microbus) to get back to the central square. Back safe and sound, and even though we didn't see much it was an interesting adventure and actually kind of fun.
Today back at classes we were supposed to have a lecture on human rights in Guatemala, but the lecturer didn't show up, so instead one of the teacher's gave us a tour of the municipal cemetary. It was a huge place and were many interesting historical facts to learn about it.
There are some photos here taken by Martha. She has much better pictures than me, so if you want you can try to find me in some of them.
Martha's Photos
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