Una boda Guatemalteca

Somehow I had made it up until now without attending a Guatemalan wedding...but this one just couldn't have fallen on a better day.

Saturday morning we left at 7am to go do more restoration work in Ciudad Vieja, where the mudslide destroyed Eduardo's house. I worked all morning in one of his neighbor's homes, breaking up and shoveling wheelbarrows of mud out of what used to be a bedroom (now filled with a 5-ft solid wall of compacted mud). After an exhausting morning of shoveling and blisters, I scarfed down the reveultos and tortillas the local church group made for the volunteer workers, and headed back to San Bartolome, mud-covered, exhausted, and looking forward to a shower and a nice long nap. When I opened the gate to my host family's house, though, I walked straight into the neighbor boy's birthday party, and despite my mud-covered appearance, was immediately ushered to take a seat at the table and eat the food quickly thrusted in front of me. After my second lunch, I watched the birthday piñata…which was particularly painful because Christian, the birthday-boy, was turning one, which means that his young invitees doing the piñata-ing were little more than nudging the thing with the stick (and Guatemalan's make their piñatas STURDY). So it took about 45 minutes for the blessed thing to break (thanks to the only older cousin in the crowd). After that was cake, and finally I excused myself and went into my house. But before I made it to my bedroom, my host mother found me and asked me to accompany her to a wedding in an hour. She said I had plenty of time to shower and look nice. With no real excuse, I couldn't possibly say no. So I made myself presentable and off we went to the church.

This wedding (a Catholic one, of course) started with a mass at 4pm, but we just showed up around 7 for the after-party in the adjoining church hall. They had a professional marimba band playing, and we all toasted the newlyweds with painfully sweet champaign, ate pepian (it's a traditional wedding food….basically like barbecue beef with tortillas and rice), and watched the newlyweds dance their first dance. It was lovely, and I was stuffed, but no cake!! No wedding cake?! At that point I don't think I could have even eaten it, but a big wedding and no cake? I guess they choose here…you have a cake to serve everybody, or you have a big marimba band and pepian. I can imagine that these parties are extremely costly, especially since you're expected to invite the entire town. But I'm glad I went, and I when I finally got home around 9, full-bellied, I fell straight into bed, where I slept like a baby.