Party Planning and Buena Vista Corazon

Oriana’s birthday is on Friday (7/11) and we had been wracking our brains for what to do. We talked about holding the party at our house. Here’s our inventory: we have four chairs, two forks, two spoons, one medium frying pan, one pot and 4 plates and 4 bowls. Seriously, I’m not sure what kinda party we’d have been able to pull off.

In our chats with farmers and their families, Daniel’s wife, Maria, immediately offered to host the party at her house—and help us cook. It was a huge relief for us. We, of course, financed the cooking, and chair rental. So, we worked it out and the party was set for Friday at 6 pm.

In the same conversation, Maria gave us some of her AWESOME tamales. Here in Guatemala, tamales are wrapped in a banana/plantain leaves instead of corn husks. Maria sells some 400 tamales every Saturday.

We invited Angelica, Daniel’s oldest (she's 22), out with us to go see Buena Vista Corazon. Buena Vista Corazon is the band of Ignacio something or other. Ignacio, was a famous singer in the Buena Vista Social Club—he lives here in Antigua. And plays gigs three times per week. We’d invited Angelica to come out with us before—but I think she was scared. This time she accepted, and we planned to meet up in a little while to catch a van downtown.

Then we stopped home and ate a tamale each. I got one with a little bit of pork in it—it was tasty. Oriana kept complaining that hers was spicy. I didn’t believe her. Then she spit out part of a very spicy chile. I said to drink some milk. That helped a little, but then she proceeded to run up the street to the bakery to buy some bread. It might not sound funny—but it was. Especially given that I like chile (spicy stuff) and she doesn’t. I probably would have enjoyed the chile tamale, where her lips were burning for the next 20 minutes.

Oriana calmed down and Angelica came over. We headed into Antigua and walked over to Studio 35—a bar I didn’t think I would like—but it’s a cool space. We got there a little early, but all the good tables were already taken. So, we settled in at a table towards the back of the room with the stage, ordered drinks and chatted.

After a while, the band started—we had seen Ignacio on the way into the bar. He was wearing a shirt with his name on it. I guess everyone’s approach to marketing oneself is a little different.

The music was fantastic and people were getting up and dancing. There were some professional dancers—or just very talented. I’m not sure I can distinguish between the two. They were dancing way better than I would be able to—even if I took lessons. I hadn’t been to a place with live music since living in Los Angeles, so this was a treat.

I think one of the most interesting parts of the evening was people watching. The bar was packed with foreigners. I’m starting to develop disdain for people who travel and can’t speak the language. Americans tend to be the worst type of travelers. It seems that Americans expect that people all around the world speak English. That just ain’t the case. Also, it seems that all that travelling Americans want to do is drink and eat food. It is becoming painfully obvious that of the previous Americans our neighbors have met, very few of them want to learn about Guatemalan culture and food.

Americans walked into the bar and looked for empty tables, just like we did, and then stood right in front of our table, blocking our view. Eventually, a flock of Americans walked into the bar and we realized this was our tour group from Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday’s tour group were high school students from Santa Cruz, CA. They were a fantastic tour group—asking tons of questions and sorting coffee like professionals, albeit significantly slower. They were the first tour that Oriana and I did by ourselves—and so I think there was a little more attachment. Anyhow, since there weren’t anymore seats, they kinda crowded around our table. Oriana and Angelica went to dance and I held down the fort.

After the second set, Angelica looked like she was going to pass out. Most of the farmers’ families wake up between 4 AM and 5 AM everyday—so it’s no wonder that at 10 PM, she was exhausted. We said goodbye to our Tuesday tour group and made our way back to San Miguel Escobar.