FELIZ COMALAPA
Last weekend was my first full weekend in Comalapa! It was wonderful being able to spend it with Juanita. On Sunday she invited me to go to her sister’s children’s house for lunch. The house is in a part of town I have yet to venture around, it was such a beautiful walk! The winding roads reminded me of a scene in The Return of the Cat from the Studio Ghibli movies. Comalapa is crazy big. 48,000 people to house!
Their house just had 3 confirmations the day before so all the decorations were still up. Aside from decorations, there were no other remnants of the fiesta, they cleaned up fast!
We had a great big lunch with tamalitos, arroz, res, and a delicious jugo de tamarindo. It was a big family with the two, super adorable young children who ran around from room to room throughout lunch, and even stopped to chat for a bit towards the end.
They have such a beautiful, blooming garden!
This week we officially finished moving everything out of the Volunteer House! Roberto and the crew did a bulk of the work and I am so grateful for that.
On Tuesday, a volunteer arrived for their week visit. While I waited to greet them in the center of town, I saw this cute little pup who I have seen around town. I noticed her when I saw someone shooing another dog away. She was behind that dog and saw the interaction and, to me, seemed to internalize the interaction. She changed her direction, walking away with her head down, sniffing around until she climbed up the church stairs and laid down in the sun. This pup reminds me of Ani, so the scene tugged at my heart a little bit more. At one point, while she was laying in the sun, I caught her eye and she stared back at me for a bit.
On Wednesday, I made and jarred some lemon marmalade! It was about a 3-4 hour process, but super fun and worth it! This endeavor all began because I had visited the super market and checked out their fridge section for the first time (before I never wanted to tempt myself since there was no fridge in the volunteer house), and there was cream cheese! Naturally, my next steps were to buy tortillas and a jam to go with. Because there is also a lemon tree at Juanita’s, I decided to save some money and try it out. Now I have lemon marmalade! Unfortunately, I have already finished my cream cheese… of course.
On Thursday, a group of us went to play billiards- my first time here in Guatemala! The billiards is in a room in the back room of a clothing shop. It was awesome.
Friday is market day and the night before I had heard that the start time is typically around 6am so I woke up early and went to try my luck for some breakfast before work. Perks of now living nearby the center!!! To be exact I now live about 3 blocks away from the market.
It was a beautiful day. The streets were bustling with people preparing their stands, while there were some already set vendors. I found a spot that had pan, cafe, chocolate, and chuchitos. It has been getting colder each night, yet during the day the sun is a force to be reckoned with. This morning felt perfect with a hot coco in hand to watch as the day began.
Chocolate y chuchitos! They have chocolate con leche but I forgot to specify when I ordered. Next time!
As I write, I just now realize that I got to watch both the sunrise and sunset yesterday! Truly a great day.
Towards the end of work, I went to help collect rocks, for the house we are constructing, in a nearby river called Pixcayá. Sadly, I did not have my phone on me so I do not have pictures to show. The area was beautiful. We were surrounded by hills. One hill had various crops growing and two of us climbed up to watch the sun pass behind the hills in front of us. At the top sparrows circled around us, chirping songs as they came by. The whole scene was pretty magical.
Where I got my sunset view was when we got back to the house to unload the buckets of rocks. It was the epitome of golden hour. Roberto’s house, the corn fields, the houses in the distance, everyone was shining gold. It was not until then that I realized that it had been awhile since I saw this kind of sunset. Roberto told us about how in Mayan stories they would think of these sunsets (ones without any clouds blocking) as being the time to which the sun was giving people the strength to wake up the next day to begin again.
I cannot help but think about how lucky I am to be here all the time- at every turn in the streets to a different colorful block of houses and tiendas, at every smiling face following a hello, at every sight of a corn stalk, and there is so much corn!
Today I watched another sunrise, more proper, focused and on top of the highest floor (where the house’s water tank sits).
In town, all before 12:30pm, I saw a wedding, a traditional dance with shimmering costumes and masks, and a performance of Pok ta’Pok (I looked this up and did not get to confirm if this is what it is called here). ‘Tis the season for festivities! And Comalapa gets hella festive.
Everyday you can find these holiday decorations being sold. They have everything!
Cute little Christmas tree on my way to work!
As promised, here are some more photos of the center’s Christmas tree set up.
Thank you for tuning in this week!
All the love,
AThanh
See more blogs written by Bryana while at Long Way Home, spending time in Guatemala, and the the experience in Comalapa at the link below.
https://brynaantonia.wordpress.com/guatemala/
