Friday, August 15, 2008

Neighborhood Meeting

On Monday Mike was sick. He never showed for work until a few hours before his class and then just to tell me he couldn't teach. I had to teach his class, It went rather poorly as I wasn't prepared and it turns out I'm nor familiar with such concepts as "past perfect" and "past participles". On an interesting aside, a girl from the class had spent three years in Salem and had friends from Mt Angel and Keizer.

As I finished my class Brenda arrived for a visit. She had offered to cook dinner, so we went to the dispensa to buy some food. On our way home we ran across Rennie and Hefa and Brenda remarked on how personable she found them. We came home to a bed-ridden Mike and a kitchen full of dirty dishes as the water had been out again for two days. No more had I set down my things and set about making dinner than there was a meeting in a few minutes to discuss the water situation.

It turned out the entire neighborhood had been without running water for a month. I was able to gleen from the discussion that when they were planning the Colonia, the well had been approved to supply water for a set amount of lots. It turns out the dueña (landlady) has sold more than that amount of lots. Great. Also, it seems she doesn't have any intention of correcting the situation. Even better.

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Friday, August 8, 2008

La Cofradía

Last weekend I found myself in Sacapulas for the fair there. While there were to be typical fair games and Ferris wheel, etc, the real draw for me was to see the ceremony of Diego's cofradía in honor of Santo Domingo.

Roberto and I arrived late in the afternoon at a covered area where an idol of Santo Domingo stood in front of a flower-strewn altar with pine needles spread around it on the floor. An ancient-looking man played chirimía, a kind of windwood that sounds like a bagpipe chanter, over the stumbling rhythm of a large drum.

After a time, a man and a boy emerged from a room behind the altar dressed head-to-toe in elaborate red costumes adorned with beads and sequins, complete with red mustachioed masks and thuribles. Diego explained to me that they were at once symbols of the Spaniards and of demons. After a while other men from the cofradía, dressed in nice suits, arrived and began a procession with the idol through the town, the musicians and Spanish demons dancing back and forth in tow.

As they left it began to rain. I sat with Roberto and his daughter Julia under the tin roof and waited as the clatter of the rain grew to a thundering din of great buckets from the sky. Water falling from the roof became a curtain and the gutters ran like hoses.

After a about an hour it subsided and a little later the cofradía returned with two more idols. Men spread pine needles throughout the space while members of the cofradía draped a new robe over one of the idols and placed all of them in glass cases over the altar. They sat on three benches surrounding the room and were each in turn served shots of Quetzalteca, a local liquor that packs a punch and tastes like vodka. Between the perhaps twenty-five of them, they downed nine quarts of the stuff.

After some speeches and formalities, dinner was served to all of beef broth and tomales and a marimba band began to play. People danced hand-in-hand in circles of five or six. After a dance with Julia, it was time to go.

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Thursday, August 7, 2008

Mayan Queen

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="388" caption="Sweet Victory"]Sweet Victory[/caption]

Upon returning to Santa Cruz I went straight to the tunelón, a cavernous multi-use space with a great arched roof of corrugated metal that used to be an armory. That evening there was to be a competition to select the next Mayan Queen of Santa Cruz Del Quiché and Enlace had named its own Petrona Tzul as its candidate.

After a long introduction on the part of Jenny and another MC, each candidate went along a catwalk to a stage at the front of the arena walking in a dancy sort of way that I soon learned was called "estampa foklórico". Next, they each performed a routine with the help of some peer, highlighting particular aspects of Mayan life and culture. After that, they began to each give a speech. As the speeches were in K'iche' and there were quite of few candidates, I decided to leave after two of them.

The next morning I learned that Petrona had won!

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