Dear Readers,'Tis the season to be jolly. Finally, Christmas! Or more importantly Christmas Eve! Indeed, in Central America the high point of the Christmas season is not Christmas day, but Christmas Eve.
Despite the fact that Christmas Eve is a big holiday, life goes on pretty normally for most of the day. I had Spanish class as usual in the morning. It seemed that most people went to work as usual, but some businesses did close early, while others remained open to accommodate the crush of last minute shoppers.
I let myself get carried away in all of the last minute shopping mania, and hit the downtown market. I had never seen so many people squished into a market. It was worse than Chichicastenango. I didn't buy anything at the market, but on my way home I stopped at my favorite bakery, called XelaPan, and picked up a cake as my contribution to Christmas Eve dinner.
Around eight o'clock it was time for the big dinner, which consisted of the very traditional Guatemalan style tamales made with rice or corn meal with meat and sauce tucked inside, which is then wrapped and cooked in banana leaves. My host family served these tamales to me with a side of four slices of white sandwich bread. I was a bit horrified. I was greatful to them for sharing their home with me during the holidays, but anyone who knows me knows that I don't like eating dry food. I get too much dry food in my mouth and slowly I feel my throat tighten and feelings of suffocation flood my brain. When I looked around at everyone else's plate I knew it could be much worse. Instead of white bread, the kids had a side of corn tortillas to go with their corn tamales. To me this is like having a side of toast with your french toast in the morning. Guatemalans love their corn meal! Where was I? Yes, I was staring down at my Christmas dinner when I noticed my saving grace, which was the ponche, fruit punch, made by stewing fresh and dried fruits, and seasonings. After every bite of dry carbohydrate I would immediately wash it down with a sip of ponche.
I want to like tamales. I really do. I like the idea of moist corn dough wrapped around delicious stewed meat, but most of the time they just disappoint. Mainly because there's not enough sauce involved, or there isn't enought meat, or it's too dry, or too mushy, or maybe... Anyway, the point is that I didn't really like the tamales, but I didn't want to be rude, so I ate both of them and all four slice of white bread, and I drank a LOT of ponche.
After dinner we broke out the cake which was a huge success.
When the cake was gone I somehow rolled myself out of my chair and headed down to the local hostel to meet up with some fellow travellers. We then walked around for half an hour looking for a bar that was open to celebrate baby Jesus' birth. It was nice to get out and forget about the tamales and white bread for a bit. I didn't stay out for long because I had promised the kids that I would be back by midnight so that I could watch them blow themselves up. Okay, not really, but it sure felt like they might blow themselves up.
Midnight is the climax of the Christmas festivities, and people pour into the streets to watch five year old lighting dangerous fireworks. Some people get a little bit excited and start lighting fireworks a little earlier than that (like maybe since the beginning of December). It was fun to watch the action, but there was no way I was going to light off any of those dodgy fireworks, better to leave that to the children.
Eventually we ran out of fireworks and it was off to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head.Next Time: My last entry on Xela! I promise.
xx,
gwen
p.s. Did I mention the suicidal Santa?
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