Happy
Independence Day everyone! I’m sitting in an internet café drinking a surprisingly
decent cappucino (usually they just taste like cinnamon milk, but this one has
a tinge of coffee to it!) Today is Guatemalan Independence Day, but most of the
celebration took place yesterday in the night. There are more free concerts and
parades today, but the main craziness was yesterday. Independence day here is
not like 4th of July – here it is a weeklong celebration involving a travelling carnival, parades full
of dressed up school children and bands ( every day!) and free concerts
everywhere. There are also the traditional fireworks at midnight on the 14th.
They are set off right in front of the municipal building, less than 15 yards
away from a huge throng of people. I have a small burn on my hand from a piece
of falling firework.
Last night ( the 14th) I went out
with the girls from the place I’m volunteering at, and met a bunch of other foreigners
who are living in Xela. I’ve been speaking a lot of English… I need to find
some Guatemalan friends pronto or my Spanish is going down the drain! We went
to one of the concerts and then at midnight returned the parque central in
order to see “el grito de independencia”. I was under the impression that the
mayor gave a toast and then everyone started screaming. Not exactly… the mayor
does give a speech but I couldn’t hear it, and there is no screaming!
Apparently everyone who could see the mayor sings the national anthem or
something like that but I was nowhere near close enough. The crowds were
insane. One thing I did get to see ( though at the time I had no idea what it
was) was the carrying of the liberty torch – relay runners carry live torches
across Central America to celebrate freedom from the rule of Spain. They ran
across the park, and at the time all I thought was “that cannot be safe” and
only realized what it was when I researched Guatemalan Independence today!
Today was pretty tranquilo, I just
went to see some more of the parades with one of the girls from work. The
parades are pretty entertaining – one of the funniest things is I think they
had around 15 different beauty queens, ant that was just in today’s parade.
Xela is obsessed with beauty pageants – not only are there the normal beauty pageants,
such a “Senorita de Quetzaltenango” and the Maya traditional equivalent (Instead
of a sparkly dress and a crown she wears traditional dress and braided hair
with ribbons) but there’s also Senorita Deportes, Senorita Deportes del Liceo,
Ms. Municipal Company’s Girlfriend, etc. They all walk in the parade – in sky
high heels I might add.
The parque all decorated for the festival!
A view of the big church with the mountains in the background
The parade, with food stalls in the background.
new word: espeso = strong ( as in coffee or tea)
pan: 1! What self control... although I am about to have dinner
Fabulous photos
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