Silly girl, rabbits are for food!

Many an event, both humorous and other, has occurred since I last wrote in this here blog. Saturday was Guatemala´s independence day so the entirety of last week was spent going to parades and concerts, setting of fireworks, and going to the fair. Our teachers took us to a parade Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday and let me just say, one was enough! A Guatemalan parade, at least in Xela, consists of almost every student from almost high school in the area (and there are a zillion) marching down the street in their school uniforms, led by girls wearing really short skirts and high heeled boots semi-salsa dancing with sticks that have bells on them and followed by sad little marching bands that could rarely carry a tune and were completely overpowered by xylophones. The first parade was cute, the second ehh, and the only thing that saved me from pulling my hair out during the third one was the excitement of the crowd (this one was actually on independence day and there were masses of people lining the streets and rooftops). Still, if I never hear a xylophone again in my life, I´d be A-ok.

Friday was really cool. We went on a field trip to a town called Momostenango where we visted a family of rug-makers. Their house was awesome, and very earthy and serene and close to what I imagine pioneers living in years ago. They told us/showed us how they sheer the sheep, clean the wool, spin the yarn, dye the yarn, and use this cool machine to make the rugs. AND they let us try! That´s right, I spun yarn and helped to make part of a rug! It was so cool! It´s pretty much magical how they make yarn, if you´ve never tried, I suggest putting it on your list of things to do before you die. The machine just pulls the wool into yarn like ¨Presto! There´s your yarn!¨ It´s crazy! They also had a big cage full of rabbits so I went over to pet them and one of the little boys walked by so I asked, ¨Are these pets?¨ And he said, ¨No, they´re rabbits.¨ So I laughed to myself and asked, ¨So, do you, um, eat them?¨ And he looked at me like I had a monkey growing out of my head and said, ¨Uh, yeah.¨ Everyone got a pretty good laugh out of that one. So then we we did a little shopping and ate a fabulous lunch of freshly made tortillas that were cooked over an open fire, cheese and beans. And the señora let us try our hand at making tortillas!!!! That is definitely a skill that non of us even came close to mastering during our afternoon in Momo but it was really fun! Friday night the maestros made dinner (thank heaven we didn´t have to cook this time!) and it pretty much blew our attempt out of the water. Then we went to a concert and watched fireworks as we rung in independence day.

Sunday we went to Samantha´s church and it was really cute and welcoming and the sermon was really good. It´s really fun to see where everyone will be living and working this year and it makes me really excited for the coming year. Sunday night David and Jeneanne invited us over to their house for a fantastic dinner and it was so nice to have familiar food. . .lasagna! My fav!! Yesterday we went to the fair with the maestros and had a really good time even though the rides were a little on the sketchy side. I think sketchy rides are more of a fair thing, though, and not a Guatemalan thing and kind of add to the overall excitement. On one of the rides my friend Jairo looked at me and said, ¨You have a deformity in your eye.¨ I was like, ¨Huh? No, that´s a freckle.¨ Then he asked me if I ever got made fun of at school for it. It´s a tiny little imperfection in my left eye, no cause for jokes. Maybe you had to have been there for it to be funny, but it was.

So that´s all I can think of right now. Oh yeah, just a word of advice, never tell a foreign host mother you like to eat anything that comes from the inside of an animal, such as liver. There´s a story behind it but I´ll just leave it at that.

We´re going to the Xelaju Super Chivos soccer game tomorrow. Should be fun. Then a trip to Coban this weekend to visit where Sarah will be living.

Must get going now, I´ve got a lesson in churro making.