Funeral

In this post, I (Heather / Erica) want to share an emotion I experienced recently which surprised me, having to do with tourists here in Chichi.  It was at a funeral for a man in our church, Alejandro, who died unexpectedly this week in a car accident.  His wife is my friend Lesvi, one of the Sunday School teachers at our church, and his young daughters are friends with Veronica.  My daughters and I went to a memorial service for him on Thursday at his parents' house, and I cried with his wife and other family members.  Then on Friday, we went to a burial service which started at his house in town.  After a short sermon by our pastor, six big men carried the casket on their shoulders on the main road through town to the cemetery, followed by a hundred local people and my daughters and I who were walking down the main road, kind of like a parade through town for a couple of miles.

The casket is up ahead,
in the middle of the street.

Entering the cemetery.

We walked up into the back part
of the cemetery, where they buried
Alejandro inside one of the brightly
painted buildings.

On the way through the cemetery, we
walked by some people practicing the Mayan
traditional religion who were burning incense
to their ancestors, or to scare the evil spirits
away from their ancestors.  Tending incense fires
is a common sight here.

The funeral took place on market day so there were several tourists in town, mostly from the United States and Europe.  The emotion that surprised me came as we were walking through town, when I saw the tourists interestedly watching the funeral procession.  I started crying when I saw them, upset by their unattached interest in a Mayan funeral proceeding.   I admit that I have also watched many funeral processions here myself, similiarly interested because it is an unusual sight to see.  But this time the man in the casket was my friend, and the family walking beside and behind the casket were my church members and friends!

Certainly the tourists were not at fault in any way.  I even admit that my daughters and I looked out of place ourselves as we walked with the local people, but they accept us being here and have made us feel welcome.  Over the five years we have lived here, even though the culture is very different than ours in many ways, I have learned that the people are really just like us underneath the different customs, thought processes, and education levels.  I love them!

Adobe church downtown

They took the plaster off a 100-year-old church in downtown Chichicastenango, and it was a bit unnerving to see the really tall, really old mud brick wall.

After re-applying fresh plaster and paint, the church looks nice again, but it reminds us of the fragility of the buildings here.  Even the block buildings are not usually built very well, leaving us praying for no earthquakes!

Funny note:  We have to be careful when we walk down the sidewalk by this church because the concrete windowsills stick out several inches right at head-height.  My daughters asked me, "Why would they put such dangerous windowsills at this height?"  The Mayan people are so short that they walk underneath them!

Two quinceañeras (15th birthday parties)

Here in Guatemala, celebrating a girl's 15th birthday is a big deal.  The parents  host a party called a "quinceañera" and invite a lot of people.  This past year we attended two such parties, both of which took place at our church.  For the first party, Elena and I (Heather / Erica) went the afternoon before and helped blow up hundreds of balloons.

For the second party, the mom asked me to teach two dances to the children and youth that would be participating.  So I choreographed two dances to Christian songs and practiced them with the kids for several weeks ahead of time.  There were 14 children and 4 youth boys.  A local seamstress sewed the girls dresses. 

The girl in the blue dress is the
birthday girl, named Sucely.

The children opened the event with their dance.

Then, unexpectedly, I was in charge of keeping
all those precious, wiggly, giggly kids quiet
(or mostly so) for over an hour!

During the course of the evening, the children
took turns taking objects to Sucely that
represented stages in her life.  For example,
Veronica took her a Barbie doll that symbolized her
childhood; then another girl came and received it from
her, symbolizing that Sucely is moving into womanhood
and will be giving up her childhood toys.

The boys did a good job with their hip-hop dance.

Water in neighbor's house

After the installation of our fence, one neighbor called me and said that when it rained, water ran down the fence line and into their house!  So we had our builder make a concrete "gutter" to detour the water around our fence and down the hill.  Fortunately, we received no more complaints!

The neighbor's house is to the right.