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Kari's Travels
Note: Same letter I sent through email.
Hope everyone is doing well! I miss you all, and it´s crazy to think that I´ll be home soon. Time has flown by so fast. Everything here is going great, busy as usual! Cali, another volunteer, and I have been working hard on our water project for the small town of Panimacac. We have been compiling all of our information from our surveys and data that we collected while we were there. We have put together a complete report full of photos, statistics, graphs, GPS maps, and more. Mateo is going to present the data to Engineers Without Borders when he visits the states in a few weeks in order to get a grant for a new water system to be implemented in Panimacac. Mateo will be going to the states in order to educate and inform people about Long Way Home and all of the projects that we have going on here. We have been putting together powerpoint presentations that describe the Tire House Project, the Water Project, The Park, and Long Way Home in general. It is amazing all of the changes and projects that have been completed during the last 3 years here.
Last weekend Cali, Adam, Liz and I went to HueHuetengo and Todos Santos to celebrate Dia de Todos Santos and Dia de Los Muertos. We had a wonderful time, and were able to experience two large Guatemalan traditional holidays. We stayed with family friends of Adam and Liz. Adam and Liz both lived in HueHue during their time in Peace Corps. We lived with a family of four up in the mountains of HueHue at 10,000 feet!! The elevation was crazy! Here in Comalapa we are at 7,000 feet, so it was a pretty big change. The days were absolutely beautiful and warm, but the nights were so cold! We used 5 wool blankets, slept in long underwear, sweatshirts and hats! Sadly we all came down with colds from the cold weather, but we are all getting better now.
Saturday was Dia de Todos Santos, and it was an experience I will never forget! It took us about 2 hours to drive there from our house in HueHue, and of course we picked up lots of people along the way! We all rode in the back of the truck, and by the time we got there, I counted 24 people in the back of the bed, plus 3 in the cab!! lol lol. It´s totally normal here and definately makes the ride more interesting. The drive was beautiful, we drove through the mountains and through huge canyon rock walls. The town of Todos Santos was crawling with people everywhere. The traditional clothing was very unique and interesting, and it is one of the only places in Guatemala where the men still wear the traditional clothing. They wear red and white striped pants, with blue and white striped shirts, and hats with a blue cloth ribbon around the top. Nearly all of the men and boys were wearing the traditional outfits, while the women also wore their traditional clothing. There were a lot of tourists at Todos Santos too, which was pretty interesting to see.
One of the main attractions to Todos Santos is the traditional horse race that takes place in the middle of the town. This is no ordinary horse race however!! First of all the track is not round, nor very big, and there are no official rules or anything like that. There are teams of men who eat, drink, dance, and party for about a week straight. Then all day Friday, including the night and all day Saturday, they continue to drink, party, eat, and dance, while not getting any sleep! Once Saturday morning roles around, they hop on their horses and participate in the all day race. About 10 to 15 riders race at a time, and a whistle blows to initiate the race. They race their horses to one side of the track, then turn around, wait for the whistle and race back to the other side. This same pattern occurs all day long!!! The riders race until they either fall off, get too tired, get too sick, or their horse gets too tired. It is completely crazy! lol. All of the spectators love it, and it is purely for entertainment. We had a front row spot to watch the race, and it was one of the craziest things I´ve ever seen. Eventually we headed back into town and rode the ferris wheel, although it is way different down here than back home! This was no casual ride, it was scary and fast and we went in two directions, plus the ride was diesel powered! I was screaming the entire time of course, and all the other riders kept looking at me funny. They were not screaming and it seemed pretty relaxing to them! It was so funny. We all ate lunch at a nice little restaurant and went to the main central park to listen to Marimba. We had a great time, and definately experienced a whole other side of Guatemala.
Sunday we all went to a traditional church service in HueHue to celebrate Dia de Los Muertos. The service was held at the cemetary, and many families brought flowers and candles to place on the tombs of their past relatives. Many of the tombs were painted bright colors, and were surrounded by beautiful flowers and pine leaves. The service was really nice, and the Pastor talked about Adam and invited us to the very front!!! He mostly spoke the native language of Quiche, and a little big of Spanish at the end for us to understand what was going on. They sang a lot of songs, and had insense burning the whole time.
We eventually headed back home to Comalapa. The drive down the mountain was breathtaking and the photos don´t even come close to showing how beautiful HueHue was. We were up so high in the mountains, we were able to see forever! We were also up in the clouds, and saw a wonderful sunset.
Last Wednesday, we also went to a place called Tecpan to visit some traditional ruins. These were the first ruins that I have seen. They were beautiful and we had a great day there. There were 10 of us, and we all split the cost of driving in a van. I still need to put the photos of the ruins on the website.
Well, I hope everyone is doing great! I miss you all. Thank you for all of the emails and messages on the website. I love hearing from you all. See everyone soon.
Love,
Kari
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