Semana Santa

So we’ve seen no Easter bunny; we’ve gotten no baskets full of candy; there’s been no dying of Easter eggs or hunting for them either. But Guatemala is full of many other unique customs and traditions, all very pious as opposed to commercial. The entire week from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday is called Semana Santa, or holy week.

Even before we had reached Antigua we had seen the creation of some beautiful alfombras (literally translated as carpets) and there were many more to come. The most common thing for these to be made of is very fine dyed saw dust, but can also include pine needles, beautiful flowers, candles, vegetables, fruits and other materials. They are made right in the middle of the streets and the dedication the people put into these is amazing; they are truly exquisite. After watching all their hard work we were shocked when we went back to look at them again later and they were gone! The street swept clean as if they had never been. The alfombras are the carpets for the processionals to walk over; made with extreme care, they are an offering to Jesus. Then the people would immediately be back out to start new alfombras for the next processionals.

The processionals. In Antigua there seemed to be at least 4 long processionals each day. You could tell when they were happening by the large cloud of incense preceding them, and the accompaniment of band music that was most closely related to a funeral dirge. The main attraction in these processions were the “floats.” I use that term only because I never caught the correct Spanish word. Unlike floats you might expect in a parade in the US, these are solid wood and heavy, depicting scenes of Jesus and his followers, and instead of being on wheels and pulled behind some vehicle, these are carried by the people. Often looking like their knees will soon buckle under the immense weight, the people happily partake in this tradition as a kind of penitence- feeling a similar weight and pain as that Jesus must have felt as he carried his cross to his crucifixion. Some of these are carried by only children as young as seven, others by men and women- everyone participates. They will carry these floats all throughout the city and over the alfombras until they return to the Church from whence they came.

Similar to the processionals, there would also be reenactments. It is an interesting site when you see 4’7” Guatemalans all dressed up in Roman garb. Donny of course liked it because in this country as he stands in a crowd he can finally be the one to look over people’s heads instead of always jumping up to see what’s going on.

For Good Friday, the most important day of Semana Santa in Guatemala, the festivities start the night before and continue throughout Friday into the early morning hours on Saturday. We began our tour of the city around 11pm where we walk for about 5 hours, seeing the amazing carpets being made and stopping in at the various churches to pay our respects and watch the reenactments like the proclamation that Christ be crucified. At 4am Friday morning the whole town is still up, awaiting the start of the largest processional that would go from 4am to 2pm.

Antigua is one of the most beautiful cities in which to see all of this. They are acclaimed for having the most beautiful and intricate alfombras in the country and people come from far and wide (including Tom, Donny’s friend from Bend that we finally got to meet up with here). The parks and squares are full of street vendors selling everything from delicious food and ice cream to the typical souvenirs seen here. Like being in Chichen Itza for the Equinox, we felt incredible blessed to be able to share this incredible cultural event with our new friends and families here in Antigua.

Estudiamos Español in Antigua, Guatemala por Semana Santa.

Our schooling has commenced, finally! We arrived in Antigua for the start Spanish School during the week of Semana Santa, or holy week (it has surely been our most interesting Easter ever; stay tuned for more on that to come).

We arrived at our homestay the day before classes began to find that it was more of a very nice dormitory for Spanish school students, plus a very large family (still haven’t even quite figured out all the connections or who lives here and who doesn’t). While this wasn’t exactly what we had in mind when signed up to live with a family, our new “mom” is wonderful, the food is great, and the house is comfortable. We also thought it might be an added bonus of having other students to commiserate with about our struggles at communicating, only to find that everyone else seemed to be fluent already (including a pet parrot that can speak better than us). Apparently we missed the memo that you should be an expert at the language before coming to school… oops. Gives us something to live up to. So through most meals we are the mute ones at the table, hoping a question won’t be proposed specifically to us, so we can go on pretending with our head nods and smiles that we know exactly what everyone else is talking about.

But we are not the only ones in Antigua struggling with the language. All around the city you see foreigners (gringos) attempting to speak with a native. You can tell the gringo is new because conversations usually sound the same. The Guatemalan will spout off an entire paragraph of strong Vs, rolled Rs and Ns with the little squiggly thing, and the gringo will answer with the one word he is sure he can pronounce, “Si.” This will be followed by another long paragraph, or possibly just one very long word and then again it will be followed with a little more hesitant, “Si.” It is actually quite brilliant. While “yes” is the first vocabulary world you learn, they actually don’t teach you “no” (which coincidentally in Spanish is also “no,” should have figured that one out) till about week three. So by the time you start to understand what they are asking, you have agreed to pay double the price for the language school, forgo all your meals and have signed up for every top dollar excursion they have. With my Spanish being particularly slow, I think I might have agreed to become their live-in house keeper and given up all rights to my first born as well.

But school is finally starting to help. First we started with the basics- learn the alphabet. It’s been a struggle but we’ve almost grasped it. Brooke then decided that it would be better to jump straight to past participles, subjunctives, imperfect and preterite tenses. Considering I have no idea what these English words even mean, I have decided to stick with, Hola and Grassy-ass. But it’s not like either of us can truly communicate anything without breaking into a full blown game of charades, so I don’t feel too behind.

Really building up that vocabulary is probably what we need the most. Unfortunately though, when they thought up Spanish they decided to make it fun for English speakers and so they made the “A” sounds like “O”, “E” sounds like “A” and “I” sounds like “E”. So when I am speaking I tend to confuse things like “hombre” (man) and “hambre” (hunger). When I say “Tengo hambre” I should be given delicious food (after all, I said “I have hunger”), but instead in my poor pronunciation I say, “I have a man” which in this country (not quite as homophobic as Jamaica, but close) might get me beat up.

But really, we have learned a lot and are getting better every day. Not only are we taking advantage of one on one instruction for five hours a day, we are also studying on our own for another three or four. We’ve also had the chance to look into organizations we and The GROW Initiative can link with in the near future. Learning the language first is a must before we can really do any good here in this beautiful country, and we are well on our way.

Here at last, here at last!

So some people might be recalling, “wait, weren’t they supposed to start their grand adventure in Guatemala? In what.. January?” Well, yes; but plans change (frequently) and now we are here! We made our first land border crossing from Mexico into Guatemala without incident (amazing, no large fences to scale!) and boarded one of many “chicken buses” we would take throughout Guatemala. Chicken buses are essentially re-vamped US school buses from back in the ‘80s now painted 30 different bright colors with luggage piled high on top and full to the brim with locals. While we didn’t see any chickens, it is possibly because they are just squished into the few available cracks between people.

Our first night was in Huehuetenango (just say Way-Way, took us long enough to get it) then on to Cunen and the warm hospitality of Reina and Napallo, friends that we served with in Peace Corps Jamaica that had re-uped to serve again, this time in Guatemala where they’ve been a year and a half already. So we got the inside scoop on things while getting our bearing, learning some more Espanol, seeing their wonderful pueblo, and getting some work done. There was also the experiences of buying from the local market and trying new exotic fruits (how do you say in Spanish.. “can I try that liquidly brown mushy thing in the bag over there?”). All of it, OK most of it, was fantastic. We can’t say enough about there wonderful meals (everything from scratch), their patients with our first of many Spanish lessons, and their care as we learned the hard way “when they say don’t drink the water, then DON’T DRINK THE WATER!”.

Since our school was not starting until April 6, we had some time to explore Guatemala (and celebrate Brooke’s birthday). Guatemala has many natural treasures and top among these is Semuc Champie where beautiful turquoise waters cascade down from pool to pool and we swam in every one of them. We also got our exercise in as there was an incredible hike to a near aerial view from the top of a mountain. There would be more water in these pools but most of the river above roars into the earth to travel below our tranquil swimming holes and comes out in caves we got to go exploring as well. The spelunking was done with candles only which you often had to hold above your head as you swam through the water, exploring the far reaches. Besides all this fun there were also swings going out over the water from high up branches and a bridge to jump off of.

Our last stop as tourists was in Lanquin where we found a little slice of paradise at El Retiro hostel where a river runs by thatch-roofed huts and provides a perfect place to cool off after warming in a hammock. Traveling through Central America you join a self selecting bunch since not just anyone would pick up and go tromping around a developing country, and we are glad to be in the midst of some amazing people. It was a pleasure meeting many new friends (and seeing old ones) and we know there will be many more to encounter as we continue on our journey. But now it is now time to buckle down and start Spanish school, where we can finally learn if people here are in fact saying “Hello, welcome to our country and have a great day!” or putting a curse on us.

The Other Mexico

So my first thought as I sat down to write this was that it would be fun to write this blog all in Spanish. But then it hit me. Wait a minute, I don’t know Spanish. Then it hit me again (this time a little harder). That sucks! Yes, Spanish would certainly come in handy considering Brooke and I have finally left the gringo friendly confines of Mexico’s Caribbean Coast and have just recently spent the last four days traveling through Central Yucatan and Chiapas on our way to Guatemala.

Actually though, for as little (poco) Spanish as we speak (hablamos) we have done quite well for ourselves. Of course we owe part, if not all, of the credit to our incredible CouchSurfing hosts, Pedro, Rolando, and the rest of the San Christobal crew, as they made us feel right at home in our new surroundings and helped us see their cities better than any guide book could ever do.

We certainly would have experienced the wonderful tastes of the Yucatan without Pedro’s love of his city and the local flavors that his favorite restaurants have been serving him since his childhood. He would lead us into this sometimes fancy looking, sometimes no more than a little hole in the wall, where we would order from a menu that could have been Greek as easily as it was Spanish. But without fail, we always ended up with an incredible meal that left us eager to dash off to the next thing that we must see or eat. Sometimes we even got to try items without Pedro’s suggestions. You see, Brooke loves to call new Spanish words when she recognizes them. Unfortunately when these words happen to be menu items and you are dealing with the fastest waiters and cooks in the world (yes, even faster than your local El Rancho), it meant that we would soon have a new piping hot meal or cool drink delivered to our already crowded table. But oh well, what can you do? We just had to bare it and force down more fantastic, mouthwatering, Yucatan cuisine. It is a tough life.

After eating our way around Merida with Pedro (along with the times spent at cenotes and Mayan ruins) we were compelled to keep moving, this time on to San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas. San Cristobal is one of the most beautiful cities we have traveled to, although all of a sudden we found ourselves needing jackets. The city has a lively produce market where you can find absolutely everything and craft markets as well (too bad we can’t get anything as our packs already weigh too much!). Coming into the home of Rolando and Mark and Hugo, it was more like entering a wonderful hostel- all sorts of people, some full timers, some long-timers, some not quite sure, and some just there a few days like ourselves. These three are CouchSurfer’s extraordinaire. We were first welcomed with a delicious vegetarian breakfast and such warmth from everyone. Mostly there we just enjoyed walking around the beautiful city, sitting on the steps of the cathedral and taking in the sights and sounds of our surroundings, or hanging out in their inner courtyard lined with hammocks. Definitely a Mexican treasure that needs to be revisited.

So muchas gracias to all our amigos nuevos. Your generosity has made our trip and this world a better place.