The Holidays

My host family and I began our Christmas holiday with a cross country road trip to attend a quinceanos in Xela. We did some sight seeing along the way (there sure are some gorgeous mountains here!) and then had a good ole time at the party. Then I spent the week in Xela for the YAV’s Christmas retreat. As always, it was wonderful to see the gals and we had a great time celebrating Christmas American-style (complete with a pretend Christmas morning and homemade Christmas dinner!) before experiencing Christmas a la Guatemala. After the retreat, I spent a couple days in La Antigua Guatemala before meeting up with the fam. in Guatemala City.

We spent Navidad with Irma’s goofy aunt and cousin who were an absolute trip and really made our visit fun. I helped them make tamales (mushed up corn with sauce, meat, and some other stuff wrapped in banana leaves- sounds gross but they’re actually really good) and they had a good time picking on me because mine were really messy and looked like they’d gone number 2 in their leaves. Christmas Eve is the big day here and we went to a cousin’s house to celebrate. We danced, ate, and set off some fire crackers until midnight. At midnight on Christmas Eve it’s customary to set off fireworks and then eat tamales. I’m pretty sure no one strays too far from tradition because it sounded like World War III started outside! I have never seen or heard so many firecrackers in my life! It was awesome!! Then we all hugged and wished each other a Feliz Navidad and ate tamales while the little kids opened their presents. Christmas Day we went to an ex-aunt/sister-in-law’s house for lunch and I spent the afternoon playing twister and hide-and-seek with the little cousins. Apparently, it’s also tradition to set off more firecrackers on Christmas day at noon and again at six, specifically red firecrackers that look like 20ft long snakes! They were huge and really loud and rather scary if you happen to be a foreigner who’s not familiar with such traditions!

After 2 weeks of vagabonding around Guatemala celebrating this and that, we finally moseyed on back to Coban where I hardly had time to breathe before the New Year’s festivities began. We rung in the New Year with a prayer and thanksgiving service at church and then had a bon fire and set off firecrackers (yes, Guatemalans really like pyrotechnics. . .) at home. It was really nice to bring in 2008 with all of the new friends that I have made in Coban. On New Year’s Day we went to lunch at a friend’s finca and I learned how to milk a cow! You may not know this, but milking a cow has been on my list of things to do for quite some time. Sadly, however, it was somewhat disgusting and left me rather disappointed. Me, being the product of the suburbs that I am, didn’t know that a cow’s utter is nothing more than a huge, warm, hairy nipple (and this one had moles, eww!) and I was slightly grossed out and kind of felt like I was violating her. Oh well, at least I started off the new year by trying something new!