January 3-30
If you ever want a really awkward experience, try living with a family without fully understanding their language. They're going to do weird things, like put ketchup on all their food and never wear seat belts, but they're going to think you're pretty strange too because you don't know how to operate a shower faucet. Once you get past the first few days of not remembering your mom's name or how to get home from school or to put the toilet paper in the trashcan... well, once you get past that first week you'll probably continue to do things wrong or say things that are funny but you don't know why they're funny. It's a lot of fun, trust me.
My family in Xela was small, only Emilia (Emi for short), her husband Juan José, and their daughter Ana. Some confusion followed because my roommate's name was Emily, and the "H" in my name is optional. They're really fun people, and have hosted a lot of foreigners. Emi and Juan José loved looking at photos of Spokane and our families and learning about the United States.
All the houses in Guatemala are walled in. I find this slightly ironic because Latinos are supposed to be more social, more connected with their families and the people in their communities. And they are, but they don't do the rocking chairs on the front porch thing. They go to family parties late at night with loud marimba music and dancing, and then somehow wake up at 6am to do it all over again. Although I like front yards and porches, I also really liked the houses in Guatemala. They're bright and colorful, and it just looks cool.
This was my street, barely a 10 minute walk to our school. Our neighbors had dogs on their roof that scared Emily and me the first time we walked by.
In the middle of the day the metal door was really hard to open because it expanded. This is our host sister, Ana.
Emily taught Emi how to make banana bread, and she LOVED it. Later I made a chicken pot pie with her, which I had serious doubts about, but it turned out to be delicious.
One evening we had our friend Karli come over to teach our family country swing dancing. Emily and Karli are both pretty fantastic at it. (This was at the end of January, and the overwhelming Christmas decorations are still up.)
In the last week, we got a new host brother, Simon from Switzerland. We played a lot of card games with him and had fun trying to pronounce the German words on his Spanish flashcards.
On the last night Emi dressed us up in her and Ana's traje tipico. Each department in Guatemala has its own indigenous culture(s) with their own unique traditional clothing. Depending on the place, everybody wears the traje tipico or only the old people do. In the department of Quetzaltenango, which is 25% K'iche', a lot of women wear the traje tipico but none of the men do. And a lot of people only wear it for special occasions. These dresses are really expensive and take up to 5 months to weave and embroider by hand. Emi said the men's traje is even more expensive, which is why they never wear it out and about except for special occasions.
The women's traje tipico is made up of a huipil, which is a heavily embroidered shirt, a skirt which weights about 50 pounds, and a belt cinched tight so you can't breathe. There's also a long piece of cloth that can be worn as a scarf, folded over your shoulder, to carry on your back, folded on your head to keep the sun out of your eyes... I don't remember its name, but it's very important that you fold it right.
Emily, Simon, and me. Simon is wearing Juan José's traje tipico shirt over his two shirts. The pants were a little short.
We went to Emi's parent's house to show off our new outfits. They live within walking distance, along with various other relatives that I can't keep track of. A few nights a week Emi and Juan José go over to have dinner with them and "work." This mysterious work, we found out two weeks in, is grinding meat to make hot dogs. Emi's mom sells hot dogs in the market. That explained why there were hot dogs in our spaghetti one dinner.
The abuelos' house is also full of Christmas decorations, and really loud marimba music. The whole family would sits around a looooong table and eat and makes merry until Emily and I were falling over because it was past our bedtime. One kid, Ángel, who I'm guessing was very autistic, liked to dance. He'd go up to people and grab their hands wanting to step to the marimba music.
And here Ángel looks like a zombie.
Mi familia guatemalteca. I didn't know them for very long, but I already miss them.
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