So yesterday was our last day in San Juan, La Laguna, and all of our homestay families brought traditional foods for all of us to share. Needless to say, there was more than enough food for all of us. We all dressed up in the traditional clothing as well. For the girls, we wore traditional blouses that are really colorful and have patterns on them, which symbolize the different aspects of San Juan. We also wore skirts that were only secured with a belt that needed to be tied very tightly in order for the skirts to stay up. The boys wore traditional pants which are white with designs, colorful belts and shirts (and an occasional fedora). To begin the feast, the host families spoke to us and offered us delicious food. We then thanked all of the homestay families for their hospitality and Maya's homestay mom gave her a pink blouse as a present for her birthday. Maya's fifteenth birthday was especially significant in the Guatemalan culture, because a girl's quinceñera celebrates her coming of age. We are going to miss our homestay families very much, because they taught us a lot about their culture, and welcomed us to the community throughout the past nine days.
Yesterday before the homestay celebration we also had our last Spanish class, where one of the candidates for mayor, Benedicto, came and spoke about his campaign and explained Guatemalan politics to us. It was very interesting, and we learned that because there are minimal anti-corruption laws regarding campaigning, there is a lot of bribery involved in the electoral process. Benedicto said that other candidates had even tried to poach members of his team offering large amounts of money. However, Benedicto said that he aims to change this, and that he was very anti-corruption.
Today we took a bus Xela, and did an interesting activity for lunch. We were divided randomly into groups, and were given a certain amount of money to purchase lunch with. For example, some people were given ten Quetzals for their entire meal among five people, and some ate a lunch worth 120 Quetzals per person. This activity demonstrated the unequal playing field that is Guatemalan society, and the restrictions of personal wealth in some cases. Those who were given two Quetzals per person ended up only being able to purchase four tortillas per person with some avocado to put on top. (Don't worry, they ended up buying more food later.) We concluded this activity with a discussion about the inequality in Guatemala and comparing and contrasting what poverty means here with what it means in the U.S.
We apologize for not updating the blog as much as we wanted to recently, but we hope to be more on top of it for the rest of the trip.
- Brynn and Sophia
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| scavenger hunt in Xela (today) |
