Independence Day and travel to Chiquimula

Hey everyone!

Lots has happened since the last post and I am sure I will miss a little bit here and there but I will do my best to recap and make sure I touch on the best of the best. 

On the 15^th was Independence Day and there was a lot of festivities ranging from fireworks that started at 5:00am to meals and parades.  These ‘cohetes’ or ‘bombas’ are just usually used for making a lot of noise to wake everyone up with the sound of a bomb going off.  Parades started early around 8:30am and went right by our house which was great to see all the elementary students in their outfits showing off their schools.  Bands accompanied them keeping an untimely cadence as there was a chaotic sequence to the rhythm and songs being played.  After that we decided to go into Antigua to catch a bigger parade but on the way as we etched up a steep hill, all of a sudden my father looked at me and told me ‘no mas… terminamos’ I looked at him startled and surprised, We were nowhere near Antigua.  ‘Franco necisita empujar…ahorita’ he followed with just as I realized the car had slowed to a crawl and as the sentence finished we were going backwards out of gas on the Inter-American highway!  That was not what really scared me but the fact that I knew the camionetas (public transportation buses that are filled to 100 people plus more that were bought from the states as they were deemed to cause too much pollution.  Also note that these buses are gutted with then put in extra seats where there is no leg room, painted on the sides where is looked like something out of a horror movie and with jacked up air horns that you can hear miles away (this might need a whole other blog entry soon too))were bounding around the corner at any minute did.  Push I did, and will all my might and strength.  To no avail I could not get the car very far so we parked and waited for a while until a cousin came and brought us gas.  Right before we filled the tank, my host dad opened the trunk of the car and took out this tube that was put together with duct tape; I looked at him and had to ask if this had ever happened to him before.  He looked at me and looked at the tube and we both had a good laugh as he rigged his contraption and filled the car with enough gas to get to the gas station.  Luckily we caught a good parade in Antigua where it was incredible.  The central square was jammed packed and the bands were almost competing against one another.  There was one that stood out that had dancers, baton throwers, and just had swagger.  This swagger was something out of the movie ‘Drumline’ where the tuba players were dancing as they played, moving with cuts and abrupt movements, jiving and contorting in movements that made them drip with sweat.  Their outfits heightened the sultry atmosphere with big feathers in all their caps with a deep maroon contrasted by the crisp white of their pants and shoes and gold laced trim.  Puchica (wow) as they would say here.

                All of last week we did field based training where we saw other volunteers in their sites and saw what life could be like.  We went to the eastern part of the country where it is more tropical and a good 30F hotter than where we have our training sites.  It was hot to saw the least.  The area where we went is totally different than the western part of Guatemala.  There is a heavy ladino influence with very little indigenous population.  One thing that did catch my eye over anything and everything else, one thing that I had not seen before in my life was the amount of guns and hand held pistols everyone had.  It was comparable to the wild wild west.  I did see a guy who looked like the punisher from the movies who had a gun on his waste, 5 clips of rounds on the other side and two guns strapped to his suspenders which were located under his armpits.  It literally was like out of the movies. 

                We returned early from out trip by a day and had to cut a free day out a little bit due to a tropical storm that was bearing its way up Panama and into our neck of the woods.  The amount of rain we have received here is unprecedented and Guatemala will be trying to fix all the damage in the years to come. 

This past weekend was a good weekend, a slow quite one where I could relax get some good thinking in and think about  why I want to be here and really what it is that I want to be doing here as well.  There have been some really good days but then some days that just leave you questioning things.  It really is a rollercoaster ride, and for the ride that it is right now, I am enjoying the ups downs and twists and turns.  We hope to learn where our assignments are going to be in on October 14^th, and after that some of our fears will be either a reality or alleviated.   

Hope all is well with everyone!  Much love!

Ps….speaking of twists and turns….had a nice earthquake the other night!  Will write more after another weekend and site visit to the western part of the country!