Shenanigans Part 1 - Navidad y más!

Righty then.
I guess I need to start with a whopper of an apology for not updating you all in so long! I realise its been over two months now, but you just wouldn't believe how busy I've been and how quickly time seems to have slipped by (now over 5 months in!? Whaaaaaat).

To start with I want to take you back to December to fill you in on all the shenanigans that occurred over the festive season :) There was a lot and all were a tad bit crazy! I shall try to keep it concise but do please bare with me if I go on a ramble, because as we all know, I just cant help it ;)

Christmas with my project: 
So Christmas in The Refuge was a pretty fun time. As soon as December 1st hit, the Christmas tree came out of hiding accompanied by tons and tons of tangled tinsel and bells and lights. Fair to say it was a fun week working together with the kids to get it all in order and decorated. Over the month we actually had quite a few afternoons celebrating Christmas with hot chocolate and (strictly rationed) marshmallows and sometimes cake as well, normally if there was someone visiting or if it was bible study day or something along those lines. For my last day at the project before I had my holidays, we went all out and added the traditional food, Tomales to the mix of food (and even had unrationed marshmallows) as well as a musical accompaniment of Mr Bublés Christmas album which both the kids and the women were dancing along too. The only way to describe the whole day was cheery. Just cheery. Baring in mind all of the situations they have come from, it was such a blessing to see them smiling and enjoying the freedom they now have in Christ and in their new lives. Over my holidays I still popped into The Refuge a few times to visit and catch up with everyone. On one of these days we had another Christmas party, with pass the parcel, crafts, more music, more tomales, more hot chocolate, more marshmallows and more smiles :)

Christmas at Church:
Other than the standard lighting of the advent candles each week and the singing of carols to death all month not much happened at the church that was that Christmassy up until Christmas Eve. Although we did have a Christmas party for the last prayer meeting, where we had food, a (very hard and intense) bible quiz, some Christmas themed games and sang yet more carols, led by my Guatemalan Dad on his accordion. Fair to say I got to know all the carols in Spanish off by heart pretty quickly! ;)
Another activity we did was over 3 days. Each day lots of us met up at the church, got into groups, grabbed a load of 'canastas' (or rather, boxes full of basic food items), squished into various cars and travelled around the city to different houses of people in the church who are ill or haven't been able to come to church for a while for other reasons, sang carols to them, prayed with them and gifted them with the canastas. It was a good opportunity to get to know more of the youth as well as build relationships with some of the adults in the church. It was also good for them to get to know me more, as a lot of people in Guatemala presume that people like me who come to volunteer, are only here to stay for a week or maybe a month and no more (as most people are), so for them to see me still around, getting involved in the church's ministry and get to hear more about what I'm actually doing and why I'm here was good :)

with one of the families we visited

Noche Buena:
When it comes to actual Christmas Christmas, Guatemala, along with a lot of Latin America only really celebrate on Christmas Eve (noche buena) and kind of just, well... sleep and recover from the food, etc on Christmas Day - just like we English do on Boxing day haha. So my Christmas Eve went a little like this.... For the few weeks before I had been trying with all my effort to get to the supermarket and buy ingredients for and then make, mince pies. However I had no luck up till Christmas eve due to the sheer unreliability of Guatemalans. For example, one time we were actually in the car on our way when suddenly my Guatemalan pops casually mentioned he'd changed his mind and we ended up at a Christmas fair on the other side of the city! Crazy. So yes. I finally got the ingredients. BUT THEN. On our way home I received a call and was invited to a meal with one of the families from the church that has been really welcoming and lovely to me since I arrived. So that caused another delay in the mince pie making :( I ended up eating dinner with about 30 members of their family and it was really fun - I got to sit on the youth table and so got to have a good joke around with them. There was a few funny moments where Id used sarcasm and they just thought I was crazy and didn't make sense, and so, laughed at me.... Sigh. Still not used to the fact they don't understand/use sarcasm. By the time I got home we had to go straight out to church for the service. So still no mince pies made. The service was fairly standard with a sermon and lots of carols. But there was an awesome part at the end where the whole church was only lit up by a couple of hundred candles. Beautiful. And then at the end, we had a greeting part. This is normal in Church - to have a part of the service where you greet those around you with a hug and a kiss on the cheek or a handshake and a quick catch up, maybe for about 5 minutes.... but on this night it was pretty much the whole church that I greeted! Tiring work. Lasted about an hour!
I have to admit it was during the service that I got my first bout of homesickness since arriving in Guatemala. It was quite honestly just the lack of the usual SBC lot doing a hilarious, witty, Christmas themed sketch that did it. Then the lack of having my SBC friendlings around me as we sung the carols. Then the realisation that everything was different, and the realisation that whilst I've never thought of my family having traditions - I wouldn't be spending Christmas day with the Russels, or going on a chilly boxing day walk with the Jacksons which I always moan about but secretly love, or going for a New Years meal in Cardiff with The Roeves and Mog the Dog.
Don't get me wrong though, in general I loved my Guatemalan Christmas and enjoyed (and wouldn't change) 'sacrificing' one year of the norm for one year of the random and culturally crazy different :)
After the service my fam headed back home and whilst Dina (momma) revved up the food for our Christmas feast I finally started on the mince pies! It ended up taking me till 4am to finish them due to a lack of experience in how to make them (first attempt, and made everything from scratch), lack of certain ingredients and therefore having to come up with alternatives, and a lack of the needed cooking equipment - as in... the family don't own a baking tray.... so I had to makeshift something to cook them in, but could only do 4 at a time! :/ Our Christmas dinner at 11pm was an interesting one to say the least. Pork... apple, pineapple and marshmallow salad....carrot, raisin and yoghurt salad....mashed sweet potato with melted marshmallows on top.....and rice with sweetcorn and marshmallows mixed in. Unlike any Christmas dinner I've had for sure! After dinner we went up onto the balcony and with our amazing view of the city, Mixco, we watched thousands of fireworks go off as soon as 5 to 12 hit. It was truly amazing. And loud.
And that was my Guatemalan Christmas Eve!

Christmas with the Latin Link Team:
Over my Christmas holidays I had quite a few opportunities to meet up with other members of the Latin Link team for various days out and catch ups which was really nice. We also had two ex-Striders come and visit, Amy and Gemma so it was great to spend some more time with them. One of our outings was to Zaragoza to watch a live Nativity which was pretty cool if not odd! There was literally donkeys, cows and other animals walking around the town square as well as tons of the local children not really knowing what they were doing. But it was great fun. We sipped at cups of boiling hot chocolate attol (a rice drink) in the cold as we laughed along with the locals at the cute little narrator who loved to emphasise the word 'mucho' (a lot) to 'muuuuuuucho' as well as at the stray dogs that kept trying to join in the other animals.
Due to the fact Guatemalans don't celebrate Christmas Day, we all gathered in Suzannes house in San Lucas for a proper English Christmas Dinner. We had crackers, party hats, a secret Santa  and of course - to keep in the Guatemalan spirit, cuetes, which are basically firecrackers. There was a lot of dashing and yelping as we set them off, as on more than one occasion the swirling, colourful, firey ones flung themselves in our direction! But it was all safe good fun ;)

Christmas with my host family:
Other than what I mentioned we did on Christmas Eve, there wasn't many Christmas themed events with my family (minus the random trip to the fair!). However I did go on two trips away with them over the Christmas season. On one weekend Victor Hugo - my Guatemalan pa took me on a veeeery long trip to a town called Agua Blanca, far over on the right side of Guatemala. It took us about a 7 hour drive through hills and mountains to get there. I went only with the knowledge that it was a family gathering. Turned out it was the year anniversary of one of the oldest members of the family dying and was therefore the traditional get together of all the family and some close friends to mourn again. So the first night there was spent in a small dingy room, talking about him and celebrating all the good things he did in his life, singing songs and eating tomales. After a night spent sleeping with 15 other women on just two mattresses and a vast amount of mosquitos buzzing around, we all got up early and trekked up a mountain to redecorate his grave. As Day of the Dead wasn't that long ago (Nov 1st), a lot of the other graves were still very colourful with plastic wreaths and streamers, but our job was to clean all of the family grave where he was buried last year, and cover it with even more tacky decorations and fake flowers. We prayed over the grave and then trekked back down to the house where we all feasted on tortillas, frijoles, guacamole, and beef, before all then returning home. It was a weekend unlike anything I had expected but I imagine if it had been what I was expecting it wouldn't have been half as good!

the grave

some of the family preparing the maize to make into tortillas

The other trip was very different! The family have a membership at a chain of hotels around Guatemala so we went and stayed in a little flat for a few days in San Jose at the beach on the south coast. It was very relaxed and veeery sunny and veeeeeery hot (and for this I got some pretty good tan lines as well as burnt patches). I got through a good few books and every day we took a trip to the pool. On one of the evenings me and Andrés (my bro) took a quad bike out for a spin down the beach (secretly terrifying). Another night was spent all squished onto one bed to watch the Avengers. On one afternoon we took a trip into the small town to get some food supplies and it was ridiculously hot but so interesting to see how easy going everyone was and how another side of Guatemala lives, out of the hustle and bustle of the city. The trip wasn't exactly anything incredibly special or cultural but it was a great opportunity to relax a tad bit, regain some energy, have some extra time with God and get to know my family some more over meals and the various walks we did. There was also hammocks. And I love hammocks. So that made me a happy girly :D


New Years:

Well my New Years wasn't especially jam packed as my family, being a little bit older, were just planning on an early night, without setting off fireworks or cuetes or anything (also because Andrés doesn't like the noise), and so I went over to San Lucas to spend the night with Amy, one of the returned ex-striders. It was a pretty cajj night. We watched a film, ate popcorn, made rocky road, ate rocky road, got freaked out when the lights all went, and at 12am went outside and watched all the fireworks seeing in the new year with hot ponche in hand from the balcony of Suzannes neighbours house who'd invited us up for a better view. (For the record, ponche is a sweet fruity drink that is basically made from a load of random mulled fruits, which then sit at the bottom ready to fall on your face when you get to the bottom, but that does indeed taste preeeetty darn good). We also went a bit OTT on the cheese on toast, eating 4 slices each. Cause, well, y'know - its a typical New Years food isnt it? haha. hmm....
Seeing in the New Year provided a good time of reflection just for how much God did in 2012 and just how blessed it was in lots of aspects and areas. So far so good for 2013 as well! I have no doubt that his blessings will stop any time soon. :)

Trip to Tikal:
To finish off our Christmas holidays, me, Nahum and Amy took a trip over to the National Park of Tikal in Flores, Guatemala, up in the north, which holds the mystery and awe of some of the worlds most famous Mayan Ruins. It was truly an awesome two days and probably one of my highlights of my time in Guatemala so far, although I have LOTS of highlights haha!
Starting with a 4am pickup from San Lucas on the 2nd of January we headed to the airport, and after a short flight on a tiny aeroplane arrived in Flores we went straight to the Park and got straight on with our tour which took us till lunchtime. We did a LOT of walking, which certainly is not advisable in TOMS, especially ones that have big holes in the heel (which I can now say from experience). It was VERY hot. Like, really. Every part of me was sweating, even my legs and arms. I don't think I even knew that was possible! It wasn't exactly pleasant :P We got to see a lot of the ruins and even got to climb to the top of one of the biggest ones which provided an absolutely stunning view over the top of all the jungle of which you could see various other ruins peaking out of the top of. There was the constant sound of monkeys howling and hooting around us all day and it was all just great :)
The next day was spent in Flores, which is a little island in the middle of a big lake. We tried a few of the local places for our various meals and also took a tour of part of the lake in a little wooden boat. As part of this tour we basically got forced to visit the little zoo in the middle of the lake on another small island due to the fact that the guy dropped us off and said he'd meet us on the other side (there was no other way than to pay to go through haha!). Funny. The zoo wasn't anything special but we saw some funky animals and lots of birds and the odd croc too. The highlight had to be when Nahum befriended a Spider Monkey and named him Manuel. He was a pretty groovy guy. We even held hands with him! Although, Amy got some feet thrown in as well, haha. Afterwards we caught our last holiday ice cream and then headed back to Suzannes house where we reunited with other Latin Linkers who'd taken a trip to El Salvador and ate pizza and the left over rocky road.
There are lots of funny stories I could tell you from this trip but I'm afraid it'd take all day, bore you, and well, embarrass certain members of the group! So we shall leave that for another day. Our brief trip to Tikal was most certainly worth it and a great way to finish off an awesome Guatemalan Christmas before heading back to our projects and something I'm sure I'll remember for many years to come :)

Golly. Think we covered enough for one post don't you think? I'm sure you're all ready to switch off at this point, and so am I. Sooooo I shall leave this here for now but leave you in anticipation for Part 2 which I should hopefully get up in the next week or so which will be all about general updates in my project, church, friends, life, etc, etc. All that fun stuff ;)
Until then friends, much love and hugs and blessings :)

Oh, and Thanks go to all of you who went to the effort of sending me Christmas cards, letters, Cadburys, gifts and even just the Facebook messages. I certainly felt missed and loved and appreciated them more than you know! :'3

Adios, Deaks  ;) x