View from San Francisco el Alto

Lovely isn´t it? So grand!

Meet Ingrid

Ingrid is a friend of mine. She´s about 14 years old, but 14 in Guatemala is practically an adult. She came over one night to help me cook spaghetti.

Tamascal

The Tamascal, left, is essentially a sauna made out of stone. The Tamascal is a part of the ancient Mayan culture and is still used today as a place to bathe in. My host family during training always used the Tamascal, but for whatever reason it kind of scared me (it also looked like it would be dirty inside - this was when I was still adjusting). I never tried the tamascal until I returned to visit the family in July, and IT WAS GREAT. The heat and steam is created by burning wood in a small hole that is part of the tamascal´s structure but sectioned off so that those inside don´t feel the fire directly. One enters naked and bucket bathes using a tub of warm water already inside. Only a candle lights inside making the experience very soothing and almost spiritual. In fact, according to Mayan spiritualism, the Tamascal is the place where the ancestral spirits reside. They say that a cold or sickness represents one being punished by the ancestors for doing or saying something wrong. To cure oneself of the cold and to reconcile with the ancestors the tamascal is the solution. Newborns are also placed in the tamascal to meet their ancestors.

Back to Training Host Family

I returned to visit my host family during training at the end of July and then again in August to celebrate their Fería. The following pics are of these two visits, one included pizza making.

More Fería

Left to Right:
Table of Sugar, my co-worker Maynor and his younger brother Hector (identical!),
the crowd during the fería, two pictures from inside the town chuch

Fería List Continued...

Left to Right: video games and foosball,
greasy fried chicken and french fries, pirated DVDs, worthless plastic toys,
and typical bolo passed out on the street

It Wouldn´t Be a Fería Without…

left to right: men in drag, men dressed as sheep (chivos), woman selling roscas, peanuts, corn on the cobb

The Guatemalan Fería, in most places except the bigger cities, is what most North Americans would consider a really bad county fair. But for many Guatemalans the Fería is the one time all year that they are able to cut loose. The office jobs of the larger cities like the capital Guatemala adopt a work routine similar to the states; 9-5 and free weekends. However in the campo, jobs revolve around agriculture and small tiendas whose hours seem to be about 7:00 or 7:30 until there’s no sunlight, including all day Saturday and a half day on Sunday. Therefore it’s easy to understand how those accustomed to the campo lifestyle don’t have the concept of free time used for relaxing or fun social gatherings. In my town free time is spent doing more house work or, if you’re an evangelical, going to church. But I have to be honest and say that there´s always work to do – manual labor kind of work. Let’s look at my former host family as an example. The father is a school teacher who teaches both the morning elementary-aged kids, and the afternoon high school kids so he probably makes a decent salary, but is still far from wealthy (most teachers only work either mornings or afternoons, and out of necessity, fill the other half of the day with another job). This is the interesting part about Guatemala: even though Ignacio has a legitimate job, his family still feels that it’s financially beneficial and worth all their extra effort to also grow milpa (corn) on three different fields, and raise lifestock (pigs, a cow, and chickens). One would think, or maybe just me, that with a job the family could save their agricultural efforts and buy the items that they harvest or even, dare I say it, have some free time to enjoy life! This is where I believe Guatemala lets its citizens down: those with jobs and decent salaries still need to do more to survive.

So anyway, back to the Fería. It was interesting to feel the excitement of the town; this was their chance to relax! My town had three ferris wheels (ruedas) brought in, a huge one and two smaller ones for children. La rueda is the biggest attraction of the Fería. La rueda to Guatemalans is like some insane rollercoaster to us. When I first saw how fast the ferris wheel was going, I just about died … is it safe when the ferris wheel goes fast enough to give you butterflies? I took the risk anyway, which actually was a big risk in a country where the safety standards are no where near those I´m used to. I felt like I had to, I mean this is their version of a rollercoaster! Luckily my seat didn’t fall off and I survived. I walked around town all day with one of my teachers Maynor and his younger brother Hector (exact look-alikes) where I was able to come up with my ´It Wouldn´t be a Fería Without´ list.

It Wouldn´t Be a Fería Without: (in no particular order)
1. Men in Drag - interesting for such a conservative culture with established gender roles
2. Men dressed as Sheep - I tried to get the exact history behind this but I´m still confused by the explanations I received
3. Roscas – A traditional Fería food in almost all of Guatemala, a rosca is hardened sweet bread topped with sesame seeds, and can be made from cinnamon or milk.
4. Peanuts – another traditional Fería food
5. Delicious Corn on the Cobb – so delicious until they top it with mayo or crema, some green substance that I think is spicy, and ketchup.
6. Video Games and Foosball – for whatever reason Ferías are not complete without a lot of video games and fooseball tables
7. Pirated DVDs – Pirated DVDs are available in abundance in Guatemala and are GREAT quality. There are movies in the theatres in the states that are on DVD here. So bad and so illegal, but kind of amazing the whole business of it down here. Pirated DVDs aren’t specific to Ferías but it wouldn’t be a Fería without a DVD dealer taking advantage of the large crowd to make a sale.
8. Bolos/Bolas – Bolos or bolas are town drunks that drink so much (or very little of almost pure alcohol called Quetzalteca) that they lay in the street passed out in drunken stupors. When I first saw a bolo I thought he was a dead man in the street, and after realizing he was alive and getting over the initial shock, I assumed that he was homeless, but after more bolo sightings I realized that these are family men! Most of the men passed out in the street have wives and many kids at home. I even witnessed a mother and her young daughter with the help of three men and a truck come to pick up her passed out husband on the street. What’s worse is that this bolo culture is acceptable! No one’s really alarmed at seeing grown men passed out on the street covered in sweat, urine, flies, and sometimes vomit. The drinking culture here doesn’t include the concept of social drinking. Women in my town don’t drink, but the men drink with the goal of not being able to function. I know this because I’ve asked people and they’ve confirmed- it’s more macho to drink a ridiculous amount. So of course during Fería where people cut loose any way, there was an increase in the amount of passed out, senseless bolos, and even some bolas – unfortunately.
9. Tables and tables of cheap, worthless, plastic toys – basically at Ferías people think it’s the perfect opportunity to sell junk in the form of plastic toys. I don’t understand why this is appealing.
10. Extremely Greasy Fried Chicken and French Fries – There must have been about 10 Fried Chicken and French Fry stands all next to each other. This is a perfect example of the infamous ¨street food¨ that has been known to cause all kids of sicknesses, mainly intestinal problems and serious diarrhea. I don’t even really see how the food is appealing when you can actually see the food baking in the thick, yellow, bubbling grease. The grease has heart attack written all over it.
11. Insanely, Ridiculously Loud Music – I want to say that this is a cultural thing because aside from the Fería there have been several times where I’m at some event and the volume is just unbearable. I always look around for others who are maybe offended by the volume but no one else ever seems bothered. During non- Fería events there’s no concept of background music that permits conversation, so how could I expect that music at the Fería would somehow be manageable? What was worse, my town thought it would be cool to have two bands of equal volume play right next to each other. What?!! Whose idea was that? So not only was the music beyond unbearable, but one had difficulty deciphering one band from another. Not to mention that the bands played all day starting at 9:00 in the morning. What’s even weirder to me is that most people don’t dance; they just stand in a large huddle watching the five or six couples who do feel like dancing. However I got the impression that the only people who dance are drunk, so that the crowd is really there to see how funny looking the drunken people are. It’s more an amusing event than one meant for the dancing enjoyment of everyone.
12. Tables and Tables of Really Sugary Candy – walking by this table I got the impression that it only sold hardened sugar in different colors. I ended up tasting something with a coconut flavor that was delicious. Why was it delicious? Because it was loaded with sugar! Thank goodness this is strictly a Fería food.

I know it seems that I´m ragging on Guatemalan Ferías, and maybe I am, but hopefully next year I´ll know what to expect and will appreciate it more!

So Now They´re Nice To Me?

I stopped by my former host family´s house the other day to say hi and use their computer. To my surprise Isabel offered me lunch, free of charge. When I was living with them I got the impression that they really didn´t want to feed me, even after we established the cost of Q3 per meal, and I really don’t think I made the whole thing up in my head. Now that I´m out of the house I´m getting free meals, the kids actually smile at me instead of acting really awakward, and today Yadira asked me how I was doing like she actually cared! My status I guess has been boosted somehow. Ignacio even asked me for help in sending an e-mail, where before it seemed that he didn´t trust my advice enough to even ask it. Very interesting. The family was never mean to me, but they weren´t eager to make me an honorary 7th member.
While living with the family I was so bitter at them for charging me Q3 per meal after I had been eating with them for almost a month, that I purposely rarely ate with them again even when I was hungry (for those of you who don´t know, I can be stubborn sometimes). Lacking my own stove, there were nights when I was starving and really wanted to ask for a meal but couldn´t do it. So imagine the irony of the following. Isabel offered me the free meal, and based on the food issues just described, I really want to dig in and eat it all. The food looked great and by chance I asked her what the meat was (I had assumed chicken patty) – she tells me it´s COW TONGUE!!!! How funny! Needless to say I could only bring myself to eat one small piece, and even the accompanying rice tasted like the meat (this could´ve been my mind) so I didn’t even eat the free meal that I felt I deserved (for having been a good tenant that paid extra when they asked me to instead of telling them off which is what I really wanted to do). I told her that I wasn´t accustomed to eating cow tongue, which is the truth, and she seemed to have understood.