Christmas
Writing now with yet another holiday post, after a nice two days spent celebrating Christmas in different ways. I started out in a pueblo called Pasac Segundo, in a municipality called Cantel which is just outside of Xela. Its more or less the countryside, populated by indigenous people, mostly Quiche. I went out there to spend Noche Buena, or Christmas Eve, with a family that works with the volunteer organization I work with. Quite a different experience than Im used to in so many ways. There are kids everywhere, and the family working on preparing a typical dinner. We made a traditional item called Pache, which on Christmas consists of a Rice Flour concoction, chicken or steak in a tomato sauce, and a raisin, all wrapped in a banana leaf and baked. Yum.
We also had a fresh turkey, which my friend Mateo helped to kill and pluck. Ive never seen an animal killed before, let alone eaten it the same day. It was really good, and we ate it in a sauce called Pepian which i mentioned earlier on this blog. The family was incredibly welcoming to us, and I had various conversations about all types of things with the family and their various kids and grandkids. At midnight, the tradition is to light fireworks, or bombas, and this was crazy. Lots of young kids, running around without supervision, lighting fireworks. Beautiful, also quite scary. And so different from something that most people in the States would allow. At one point, the two year old girl in the picture below was pointing a sparkler directly at me…
Christmas day I spent with some friends I have made locally, on the roof of a building, eating, listening to music and enjoying the sunshine. They are good folks, teachers, djs, an internet cafe owner. Its good to know people in a town who are the same types of people I would know at home. They made me feel very welcome as well. Afterwards, I was the Bee Movie, overdubbed in Spanish, sans subtitles or the voice of Jerry Seinfeld. Not quite the same as home, but a nice Christmas Day Activity.
Otherwise, life continues in Xela. I made a great Pepian with the people at my hostel and a local woman that works there, have been speaking Spanish a lot and continuing to work on my projects. Ive been on some nice hikes, heard some nice Cuban Son music, shared lots of music and had some fun nights out. Guatemala continues to feel quite comfortable, though tomorrow I leave to Chiapas, Mexico to explore a bit, spend NewYears Eve, and, of course, eat some tacos.
I sincerely wish everybody happy holidays of the various types, and of course Happy New Years. As always, please keep in touch, it warms my heart to hear from my friends and famly back home.
Adios y que se vaya bien!
Josue.
Anna says:
Hi Joshua,Happy New Year to you too! I don’t have your email address could you send it to me? Gracias.
December 28th, 2007 at 1:24 am