Dancing all night long,quat moonshine, sleeping at marks, kite fest ride home!!!
Possibly the most dangerous way to travel: clinging along with 5 other guatematecos to latters on the outside of chicken buses on the highway. Our solution... taking rides from strangers.
For halloween we all went to a nearby town to a party at a guy we just met's restaurant.after working a full day packing tires, digging ditches, and teaching my quatemalan companeros how to say things like: I want you and give me a kiss, basically giving them the tools to bug the crap out of any gringa; we all packed into the back of a pick-up ready for a party.
The party started well as the guy made good on his promise of having a keg of dark beer, which I swear was the smoothest most delicious dark beer I have ever had; but maybe the trick is starting with warm tecate. As the Guatematecos started to show up and line the walls we decided to go for it and start the dancing. Eventually everyone realized for us at least dancing is all about having fun and forgetting how you look and they all joined in, someone had face paint so following the lead of an awesome guatemalan guy we all made our selves mustashes, and sideburns and danced the night away for hours.eventually after the djs left everyone still wanted to hang out so we played banjo, they played guitar and every one sang their hearts out to some ranchero music. Finally after bull shitting on the block and playing more music in the street we finally went back to the guy's house to play horse shoes and eat my first lunch meat in months and amazing sandwiches...and sleep.
To some this may just seem like a night of partying but to me it was beautiful. We come to places like quatemala to learn about and live in another culture, but I love that this night we brought that gift to other people. For this night we got to invite these quatematechos into what we wanted to represent halloween as. For a night they knew Americans as open, fun, welcoming people.people that dance with abandon with non of our differences, just as people, and if they never get to travel like I am,i hope they feel like they did just a little bit this night.
The next morning, our host had actual pancakes, eggs, beans, Orange juice and coffee for us, and after a couple of us headed to another nearby town for the biggest kite festival in Guatemala. I think I mostly just need to post pictures to describe this, but it was amazing: kites the size of houses, each one incredibly intricate and shockingly colorful. Thousands of people packed onto the hills rooting for each kites flight and aweing together as it went down, someones violently into bystanders, ice cream and bubbles everwhere, and a crazy beautiful decked out cemetery.
I felt that especially put together these moments were me choosing who I want to be. I chose to take the first step by coming on this trip but every choice I get is an opportunity to choose to define myself, to choose the different experience, the new opportunity, and to realize I can do this everywhere, but to have it so big and visual has made me realize how much opportunity I have in every moment.
Several hours later we started to head home way too late hoping we didn't miss the last bus... After 3 fully packed buses passed us by on the highway saying we had to wait for the next, we knew the forth was the last bus we would see and, had to make it on, no matter what. Again they were fully packed but we pleaded so they lead us to the back, where people were literally hanging out the door and several other guys were already riding on the outside latters, and we were to join them, so because even riding on the outside of a chicken bus going 60 on a windy highway wasnt as scary as being suck on the side of the highway at night, we climbed on. While we were still slowly making our way through traffic,a lady yelled to us from a car asking where we were going, as we told her, she told us to get in, they would take us.
Turns out great people exist and they offer rides to strangers heading two hours in the opposite direction. Just ordinary people with stories of narrowly escaping death during the sandinista revolution, you would think I dreamed them into existence, now I will dream myself into a new existence, one where I would sacrifice myself for strangers like they have done for me.
