I love the women's group. And they love it when I wear traje, the traditional dress. "Ch'ina us li po'ot, Seño Ana," they say, giggling. How pretty your huipil, Miss Ana. Last week, donned in corte, I hiked up to Tzibal for our celebration/meeting of the pila project, sweating in my ten pounds of thick corte. With the funding in place, a group of five of the women, the "buying committee," went that day to negotiate and put a deposit on the pilas. They wouldn't let me come this time; they said that if the owner of the store saw me, he'd assume that we came with lots of money and try to sell us the materials at the "Gringo price." So I stayed home and met them later to celebrate. When I arrived they were already waiting for me, and had prepared me a refacción of cold omelet-with-hotdogs-and-chicken. Quite unpalatable, but I gobbled it down like a true chapina. Then a few of the women stood and gave me formal thank you speeches, most of which were far too long and drawn out for me to follow in Q'eqchi', but that melted my heart anyway.
After a nice hiking-outing to Semac on Thursday, I spent the rest of Holy Week in Campur, enjoying the downtime, the continuous smell of Frankincense that filled my house, and the four or five daily procesiones in which a giant Jesus or Virgin Mary figurine was marched past my house by a few dozen purple-clad men, women, and children.
Today on my way back from morning English class during which I elaborated on the Easter Bunny and other Godless/capitalistic aspects of an American Easter, I stopped by one of my favorite street vendors to buy a bean-stuffed tortilla (tayuyo) for my lunch. "¿Solamente el tayuyito, Seño Ana?" The ever frequent use of the diminutive still makes me chuckle. That, and the Guatemalan tendency to make a verb out of absolutely anything. Tayuyar, perhaps?
Hiking in Semac with Christina
Easter Sunday procession
No comments:
Post a Comment