Thursday, September 29, 2011

Offspring: the official sound of guatemalan independence day!

I am goldie locks and I found my just right!

Man so cool! I came to guatemala with no idea I was landing on election day or that independence day was two days later.additionally I chose to come to san pedro because it was the cheepest for language school, the classes were in a garden overlooking a huge lake and I saw a recommendation online, but I had no idea it would be such an amazing and perfect culture in my eyes.

I have fallen in love with the banana pancake trail and those who travel it, travelors are in constant community and I am considered high matnience so its like finding potential best friends everywhere.everyone lives in the moment, they live the life they want to live every moment and they don't let anything stop them.with that said I think I also took this trip with the hope of being more than just a travelor,i planned everything in the hope of building relationships with the people of the places I visit and learning about their lives and what real solutions would look like.its like god dropped san pedro in my lap and said "here, this is the life you want"

San pedro is like the perfect mix of both worlds.for example today was independence day.last night I stood on the balcony outside my room as hundreds of people ran down my street and around the center of the city over and over carrying poles with tin cans on fire attached to the top singing some sort of independence day anthem.after they finished they had a presentation in the town square/basketball court and ran around the town like ten more times.i saw this because I was walking home from hanging with travelors and literally ran into it needing no planning or arranging.at breakfast my family told me there was a parade and a music competition today so in the morning I asked my teacher if we could go to the parade and we did with only a few other gringos, all of whom were students and watched this amazing parade of kids wearing anything from jesus costumes to dresses made from dorito bags, marching bands with capes, and little boys with painted on mustashes.the dad in my family takes pictures of tourists when he travels because they are so uncommon in local centers. After school me and my roommates went to the basketball court for the competition and stood outside in the rain for 4 hours barely being able to see with literally the entire town and maybe 4 other gringos. One of my favorite bands played offspring "the kids aren't all right" and I think it is so much better as marching music, they also set off legit fireworks that exploded in they sky above as the marched and played around it. the whole court filled with smoke as the kept matching and you could see the reflection of the fireworks on the wet ground as they played,so cool!Later that night we went to hang out with some of my favorite travelors and I asked them what they had done for the holiday; they had mostly slept, hung at the hostel and eventually walked around town.i was like awesome, you see the cool statue in the park of st pedro? They were like no, where is that? And I realized how lucky and happy I was that I was able to be in the middle of so much local culture while also feeling so welcome with the traveling culture.i told them they had to see the rest of town and I would take them If they wanted, but they weren't sure about walking the hill;)

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