This past weekend Oriana and I were quite busy. On Saturday, we woke up and took our time getting ourselves together. We read in the morning--and it was sunny for the first time since we arrived.
Then we got a call from two of the As Green As It Gets staff--Laura and Erin (boy) who invited us to tag along to a barbecue of another ex-pat in Guatemala who had just moved into a new house. We gladly accepted. So we took the bus down to Antigua and met Laura and Erin at La Bodegona--the grocery store and picked some grill-appropriate food. We proceeded to get lost while looking for the house and eventually found it after a 20 minute detour.
The food was good, and the party was fun. We ended up playing catch phrase in a mixture of English and Spanish. We left the party and then Laura ably guided us through the market to the appropriate bus to get to San Juan del Obispo, where we would be guests of Roberto Barrera and his family at a huge festival in honor of the Eucharist (I think).
The bus rides are always interesting. First of all, try to imagine old school buses where the aisle in the middle only spans about 6 inches. Then imagine packing 3 people in every seat on the bus--with some folks hanging over into the aisle. Lastly, imagine me trying to twist and contort my body through a sea of people without knocking people over with my hips. I am blessed with hips, but they do not come in handy in this situation. So, on this bus, I ended up standing in the aisle for the majority of the ride. Also, I am one of the tallest people on the bus, so everyone expects me to hold onto the bar on the ceiling of the bus, which is not comfortable at all.
It gets better. Then sometime in the middle of every ride, the bus boy (literally the bus driver's helper) pushes his way through the endless rows of people to collect the fare from everyone. When he comes through it is an entirely uncomfortable situation by any American standard. You have to embrace the fact that you have ZERO personal space when you get on these buses.
Anyhoo. So, we arrive in San Juan del Obispo to witness the hustle and bustle of preparation for the nights festivities. There were all types of games and food stands--a DJ stage setting up and a big band setting up on either side of the park. In the park, there was very little evidence of any religious foundation for this festival.
But, once the evening was hopping, our tour guide for the evening, Jorge, Roberto's 21 year old brother-in-law, walked us all over the town looking at the different altars dedicated to various parts of Jesus' coolness. I'm still a little cloudy on what exactly we were celebrating--saber--slang here for 'who knows?'
Here are some pictures of the altars:
I proceeded, during our walking tour, to develop an urgent need to find a bathroom--I'm not sure what I ate that didn't sit well--but I was pretty sick. That started around 8:30 pm. I managed to hang out for another hour before deciding that I would need to go home--and not stay with the Barrera family. Everything turned out well. We met up with the As Green As It Gets jade artist, Francisco, whose wife made me some basil and lemon tea. I'm not sure it helped, but it sure didn't hurt. They both helped us find a cab to take us back to our house a couple villages over--which was very difficult given that about the entire population of the town was at this festival.
That was the end of Saturday--making it home alive at the end of a long day was an accomplishment.
Stay tuned for Whirl of a Weekend: Part Two...
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