A Day in the Life: Guatemalan-German Christmas

So this post might be a little late at this point -- I was conceiving of it about a month ago as a response to a call for posts on a blog I'm mildly addicted to (That Wife). If you're not in a Christmas mood you can always bookmark it and come back in 11 months, though :-)

As background, I have a long-distance boyfriend/partner/marido/hombre/esposo/ch'mil whom I've not really mentioned on this blog. It's a confusing situation, but for the moment, it suffices to say that we spent Christmas Eve/Christmas Day with his family here in Guatemala and it was really great.

It was my first Christmas away from home, but it wasn't sad as I expected, just new. Here are some new traditions we got to try:

Christmas Eve Day, 9 am:
Woken up by the cat-scarf. This is a tradition we plan to replicate in the future.


10:30 am: We give the cat-scarf good-bye snuggles, and go off to begin the gluttony with a delicious brunch at a restaurant in a nearby city. Then we go in search of an elusive flower for boyfriend's mom's Christmas present. On the way, we walk through the market, which is an amazing and complete zoo.


1 pm: Lunch with boyfriend's family. Afterward we wash dishes, nap, and work on the computer, while I wrap a few presents.

4 pm: Family friends come to visit, and leave, and others come. The gluttony continues with tea, coffee, and rounds of spiced chocolate treats from Germany, plus US-style Christmas cookies we bought from a local bakery. At this point I've consumed in one day what in site I usually eat in three days.

7 pm: Mother-in-law and I go off to collect our Christmas tamales from her special supplier. It's freezing outside but I'm warmed by the boiling-hot tamales in my arms, and we admire the Christmas lights in the neighborhoods on our way home. Feels like Christmas.

The tamales come in two kinds: sweet with chocolate, and savory with raisins and red sweet pepper. Around 8 pm we eat dinner. Here are the tamales, or "paches" as they're called here:


11:00 pm: We light the Advent wreath and Christmas tree (German traditions), then sing some carols. Those Germans really know how to serenade their Christmas greenery. I mumble along and pretend to know the words. (I'm pro at this point with all that Mam practice.)


Safety first!:

After singing, we put all the presents on the table, one or two for each person. My boyfriend and I got basically two presents: a nice photo book of Guatemala from his family, and warm winter hats from my mom. (You know you're finally grown up when you get excited about...)

This was really different for me, but sort of liberating. At home everybody gets a LOT of presents, they go under the tree from Santa, and we open them on Christmas morning with stockings. At home we've "down-sized" since I was kid, but even last year seems quite extravagant comparatively.

I have a lot of dear childhood memories, but I admit I liked the one-present idea this year. It's fun to open something, but kind of seems totally besides the point. People in my site don't even really give Christmas presents, although kids might get some fruit or candy.

There is a bigger present coming, after all...

Waiting for baby Jesus to arrive (the fruit/moss/nativity under the tree is a Guate tradition).

Christmas morning, 12:00 am
The streets and skies erupt in pure pyrotechnic joy. For miles in every direction you can hear firework shells echoing in homage to baby Jesus, or perhaps simply in homage to the fact that Guatemalans just really love fireworks. After about five minutes the fireworks stop, and we give each other "the Christmas hug" (also a Guatemalan tradition). Then it's off to bed.

10 am
We roll out of bed, eat breakfast, and spend the morning relaxing. I'm content, but I do think of my mom's sticky buns!

12 pm:
Another round of fireworks. It's amazing how much Guatemalans love pyrotechnics.

1 pm:
We go out to eat for lunch, the big meal of the day. This was maybe the most different tradition for me-- I have never in my life gone out to eat on Christmas day, let alone for pizza! At home we usually eat a sandwich or cereal on our own for lunch on Christmas, then have appetizers and a big prepared dinner with the extended family in the evening.


3 pm:
Unlike at home in the US, Christmas is sort of winding down at this point, and we have another relaxed afternoon: we go for a walk, take a nap, fit in a Skype session with my fam and grandparents at home, and watch Andrea Bocelli's "My Christmas" video through dinner. (Not going to lie that I didn't love every second of it.)

7 pm:
Tamales, round two. We also eat a special German Christmas bread called stollen. (16% butter. yee-haw!)

My brother-in-law's baby Guatemalan fir made its debut this year. Public service announcement: The Guatemalan fir is an endangered species endemic to the Western Highlands, endangered precisely for its excellent Christmas-tree qualities, and its unfortunate propensity to drop seed only once every two years. (And in December, right around the time people would tend to cut them down - tough love, evolution, tough love.)


8 pm:
We capped off the day with an animated Christmas movie, then headed off to bed.

I really enjoyed Christmas this year, and not to sound corny, but I experienced first hand that it really is being with family and being part of their traditions that makes Christmas great, whether they're your traditions or not ! Less is where you are, what you eat, or what you receive...

Survived the holidays, and some bad news

Aside from my post on Christmas this week, I somehow went an entire month without posting, although that wasn't the intention. In quick review, it was a busy but fun month:


(1) I resigned to twiddling my thumbs somewhat during December, with a feria patronal and municipal holiday the entire second week, and 3/4ths of my relevant counterparts on vacation all month;

(2) I dedicated most of my mental energy to finishing out the guide class I started in September (we had classes on plant identification, security/first aid, how to give a good tour, and a field trip to a nearby archeological park);

(3) the entire week before Christmas myself and all the other municipal employees put off anything else that might have been important and scrambled to pull together the inauguration of the mayor's enormous pet project, and

(4) my boyfriend came to visit for two awesome weeks over Christmas and New Year's. Truth be told, we didn´t have to survive the holidays... they were great. What merited some difficulty was processing the news we´ve just received...


The news: On Dec. 16th we were informed by Peace Corps that my group will not be replaced. The same decision was made for El Salvador, and Honduras volunteers will actually be evacuated while PC/Washington evaluates operations there. I may write more about this later, but the bottom line is that the decision was, as far as we know, not precipitated by any specific events in Guatemala that might threaten volunteers. From my perspective there's no reason for folks at home to be more concerned than usual about us here in Guate, as it's more a precautionary measure related to the regional security situation.

I kept to myself about it over Christmas, but I started sharing the news with my counterparts last week, and they are actually pretty disappointed. It brings home what a bummer this really is, and I've started to get a little more anxious about doing them justice and leaving some sort of sustainable momentum. One step at a time is all, though.

On the positive side I've decided to take on two personal projects to help channel that energy: one is the Couch 2 5K program, so that I come back to the States in good shape and ready for summer adventures; the other is post on the blog a lot more frequently, perhaps even every other day or so.

We'll see what these last three months bring! (Wow. Last three months. Thinking that out loud makes me feel like an Edvard Munch painting.)

Christmas at Home (and Now What?)

Hard to believe that it has been over two weeks since I got back from my Christmas vacation tothe US. And what a vacation it was. One thing Peace Corps has given me is the sense of how important it is to take breaks, to have a change of scenery, to say yes instead of no. Home was a much-needed jolt back to broader reality and my broader self.

It was a whirlwind two weeks, full of Christmas gatherings, seeing friends and family, drinking lots of tap water, and eating lots and lots of good food. We also had a few fun outings, to the local childrens’ play museum, an abridged winery tour, a pilgrimage to Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, and two nights at a bed and breakfast for New Years’. It was really fun. The US is really nice, in its own way.

An abridged list of mind-boggling and beautiful things I encountered:

1. Snow
2. My family
3. My brother
4. My boyfriend
5. Gringos everywhere, who don’t greet with ¨good morning¨
6. Speaking English to strangers in public
7. My family’s enormous cats (see picture at right. animals are genuinely ENORMOUS in Central New York)
8. Our Christmas tree
9. Wegmans!
10. The food! : Tofu, salads, take-out, brownies, pecan pie, pizza, lasagna, almond milk, five kinds of cereal mixed together, omelettes and homefries, Veggie dogs and burgers, Mom’s mac and cheese, Grandpa’s pancakes, Tex-Mex food, we could go on...
11. Toilet paper going down the toilet bowl
12. Trash management
13. Drinking water out of the faucet
14. Hot water out of the faucet
    
15. Christmas and its traditions!

Despite the comforts of home, coming back to Guatemala was not as tough as I had thought it might be. Being with family and being in a different culture are two very different things, but each has its own distinct challenges. On January 6 we completed a year in Guatemala, and I feel so accustomed to life here - tortillas and tamalitos, spinning through curves on the micro with reggaton blasting, the dusty countryside, Spanish, the burning sun and freezing nights, waiting, waiting, and waiting some more, my own cooking, the little oases I’ve found here. The maple syrup and nutritional yeast I brought back aren't going to hurt morale, either.

And, there is plenty of work to be done... HOW is just the question. The tough thing right now - I think typical for a volunteer at my stage of the game - is seeing how few concrete projects I have truly rolling in progress after these 9 months – including my Masters’ thesis – and wondering – how will this all work out? I have lots of ideas and smaller starts (as you might have gotten from my previous blog entry on work) but they seem to be constantly modulating based on the changes around me. I feel like I absorb my town's sense of inertia at times, too, which is tempting since waiting gives more time to assess, understand, before making any mistakes.

I've realized that assessing is good, but life is full of mistakes no matter how much thought you give things. And could trying to avoid them so adamantly not be its own mistake, too? This month the not-so-perfectionist side of me is being called to task for the next year, to make leaps and decide directions and make mistakes, to be more proactive here than I've been before. The results might be messy, but it’s really time to get down to work.