Guatemala Journal Dec 26, 2005

Guatemala Journal December 26, 2005 Christmas comes a little slower in Guatemala than in the US. It took all week for the Christmas lights to go up. The house next-door put up a spectacular display of lights over their façade that twinkled and played “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” We had a wonderful Christmas party on Friday for all the families that house students, complete with a Posada around the local plaza. We lit candles inside red plastic cups and blew ceramic whistles as we marched out into the night, four students bearing the nacimiento (manger scene). When we returned to the school, we stood outside the door singing the traditional plea for a room, while those inside sang the reply, “go away, there is no room.” When the door was finally opened and we came in, they set off firecrackers in the street and fireworks on the roof plaza. We sat down to a feast of Christmas tamales and Ponche, a wonderful concoction of chopped pineapple, papaya and coconut that has bubbled on the stove in huge vat with water for a few hours. The school gave each family a gift basket filled with all the goodies required for holiday celebrations. Most of the families that house students depend on the 280 Queztales (about $35)per week that the school pays them to house us, so the cookies and chips were welcome. I´ve always wanted to be part of the group that makes Christmas tamales, but, of course, I grew up in the wrong ethnicity. This year I was able to join a group of women who giggled and gossiped while they worked. I didn´t understand everything, but I got it when they asked if I had a boyfriend. When I said no, they wanted to know if I wanted a Guatemalan boyfriend. I declined. Colleen (a student who lives with the family next door) told me later that the part I didn´t understand was their suggestion that having a Guatemalan boyfriend is a good way to learn the language, especially the parts of the body. The women had ground the rice for the chicken tamales earlier in the day, and the achiote paste that seasoned the chicken. Colleen and I helped assemble them in the banana leaf wrappers. Then we washed corn husks for wrapping the cambray, sweet tamales with raisins and colored sugar inside. We learned how to wrap and tie them, but not as well as the women who have been doing it all their lives. They whipped them together so fast you couldn´t even tell what exactly they were doing. Lila and Mari-Jose and I visited with two families after the tamale making, arriving at our second destination at midnight, just in time to hear the whole town set off their firecrackers and light up the sky with rockets of every variety. We sat down to sweet wine and tamales and cake that was soaked in rum. Wow! We exchanged our own small presents at 2:30 am, and slept til 10:00 am Christmas Day. Lila and Mari-Jose got a color TV and DVD player for Christmas. Mari-Jose has not taken her eyes off it since. She tried to set up the DVD player, but couldn´t get it right. I was no help, there were no instructions in English, and my electronic skills are shaky at best. The teenaged boys next door (known affectionately as El Guapo, “Handsome”) had been showing off their DVD´s when we had been there the night before, so I suggested to Mari-Jose that she ask el Guapo for help. The youngest son came over when he woke up later in the day and set it right up, explaining what she had done wrong. Mari-Jose and I spent the day watching American movies with Spanish subtitles. It was fun. I was reading the story of the Annunciation in Spanish and English Christmas morning, and singing the Annunciation from Holden Evening Prayer. It is one of my favourite pieces of music. Mary´s song of justice finally coming to birth has a different sound to me in Guatemala. It makes me sad to realize that not much has changed in these 2000 years. I see the poor every day here. Climbing on the local bus with the indigenous people makes me aware every time that they often live in squalid conditions. There is a particular smell that comes from living in a mud house. It is not offensive, but it is distinct. A Mayan man and woman were at the Christmas celebration we attended. They had their new baby, wrapped in several layers of white blankets. He might have been the one to save his people from the way that they looked at him. Does every family who lives in such conditions hope their son will be the one to change their world? I wonder.