September 15th marked 
For at least a week leading up to
their Independence Day our teachers had been telling us about a “torch run”
which would be the day before the big celebrations. I envisioned it to be
similar to an Olympic torch run but on a much much smaller scale like a few
blocks in town or maybe from one edge of town to the other. Well, it wasn’t
exactly Olympic distances, but for someone (a.k.a myself) who isn’t exactly in
any sort of shape beyond a blob it was quite far. The route was 15-20
kilometers (about 10 miles) give or take, through multiple surrounding small
towns!
Let me just say right off the bat
that I did finish, but I did not run or even walk it all. The school had large
vans that sort of trailed and picked up people as they needed a break.
Although, my legs were screaming at me and pretty much refusing to move for the next week it
was totally worth it. While Emily, Kiddissa and I made use of the vans at
various points Laura and Kevin actually ran the whole way. Laura started and
ended the race for us with the torch while Kevin and I ran with the banner.
That didn’t last long before I handed it off to another student and started
walking.
There were probably about 40-50
people (students, teachers, staff/community members) “running” in our group.
Anyone who wanted had the chance to run with the torch. I took my chance after
the group stopped to rest. Running with a heavy flaming thing close to your
head isn’t exactly easy so not long after getting my Kodak moment I handed it
off too.
It took us as a group about 1½
hours. Afterwards, I quick ran home… well not exactly ran or quick. Let me
rephrase that… after chugging plenty of water I dragged myself home for a much
needed shower before afternoon classes. After a couple hours of class we had a
fiesta of sorts.
Most of the girls got to dress in
the traditional clothing of different surrounding villages. The skirts are just
wraps of fabric held up with a belt that’s reminiscent of a corset. We then put
on a fashion show as the school’s director read information explaining the
significance of each village’s typical clothing. After our little show we got
to enjoy lots of local food including, tostados, tacos, chuchitos, mole (that’s
Mo-lay… not a small rodent but a dessert of seasoned chocolate sauce with
platanos which are similar to bananas but sweeter) and rosa de 
As for celebrations on the 15th
it was truly an all day event. I was awoken at 6:00 a.m. to the sounds of blaring
trumpets, pounding drums and pinging glockenspiels marching by outside the
front door. When I went down to the central park at 6:00 that evening it was
packed shoulder to shoulder. The crowds and marching bands were so numerous
that the bands didn’t actually march, but still put on quite the show keeping
time and even dancing in place. 
As the sun dimmed the lights on the show everyone’s spirits seemed to light up even more. Dozens if not hundreds of vendors were more than happy to sell you everything you never needed, from glow sticks to tostados with frijoles they just made in their kitchen. Passing one final band I was brought back to my days of high school pep/marching band as they played “Hey Baby” as if it were just as important as their national anthem. Now blocks away I turned around to see an impressive fireworks display. I stood in the street a bit longer as the bursts of light accented the waves of music bouncing off the store fronts. The bands battled on for another hour that night. With each step I took towards home the music slowly faded into the background leaving me with great memories of the amazing culture here in Guatemala.A few more pics of the celebrations:
That outfit is actually really cute on you!
ReplyDelete