Friday Night Blog

So it's Friday night and time to blog. Things in Guatemala have been crazy for the month of September. Let's start with the weather. So much rain. Rainy season is terrible. However, it has led to a lot of time in my apartment and site. Lots of dinners with Don Pedro and Dona Mercedes. Lots of Tae Bo. Lots of Cat time. Manchitas is so cute and big. Love her so much... I'm thinking she might be done with her mess making. She better be. Anywho, the rain led to lots of terrible landslides, some fell on actual buses and of course Tecpan was right smack dab in the middle of that. Luckily no one we know was injured and every was safe, dry, and unharmed. Along with the rain cutting into the work schedule everyone was preparing for Independence day celebrations. September 15th is a big deal in Guatemala and I think all of central America. Celebrating 189 years of independence from Spain since 1821.

This means school serves even less of a purpose than normal. Everyone learns to bang a drum or play a portable xylophone. How cute? NOT. Not when they practice every day the same terrible songs and who ever is the instructor has no musical background whatsoever. Ok that sounds mean but really I watched a lot of parades and heard a lot of bad music. The xylophones are just dumb instruments to begin with. It just sounds like a bunch of baby toys going off at once. Then the drums are played by mostly boys and I literally think the "Band Director" instructs them to beat their drum as hard as possible. Evident by students carrying drums that are taped back together. I will give some schools credit. They try and some had some fun songs or tricks. But for the most part it was a little glimpse of torture. Imagine the Macy's Thanksgiving day Parade with really bad marching bands. It was still fun because it's so unbelievably hilarious. Anywho, parades were held Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Sadly it rained Wednesday night preventing the fireworks show. However, we got to hear plenty of fireworks because it doesn't have to be dark for them to be used. In fact they love that popping noise that sounds like machine guns for most holidays... Including birthdays. If someone really wants to wish you a happy birthday, they'll set off fireworks you can't even see in front of your door at 5 am.


It was fun to see schools that we work with and cheer for them in the parade. Same with seeing the Grandchildren. All in all it's been a fun holiday time.

Lauren and Betty take on Guatemalan Parades


The little Drummer Boy


Guatemalan "Float" that plays music for people to dance to