¿Qué onda, vos?

Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is arguably one of the biggest holidays here in Guatemala; Holy Thursday and Good Friday are even recognised by the Government as Guatemala as official Guatemalan holidays, making a four day long weekend to people of any creed, even though about 60% of the population is Catholic, and about 40% Evangelical Protestant, and approximately only 1% still follow traditional Mayan beliefs.

With a country with such a strong Evangelical population, Semana Santa is basically a huge celebration for the Catholics of the country (and let's not forget the tourists), but for the Evangelicals it seemed like life just went on as normal, in an effort to differentiate themselves from Catholics. Sunday service, or daily service, for that matter, is a norm for many, but the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ are not viewed the same by Evangelicals as Catholics.

I had been in Guatemala for just three full days when I got placed with my host family for the duration of training. They were very open, friendly and talkative, which made what are usually quite awkward moments, especially when trying to get to know new people in a language you speak at the level of a five year-old, much, much easier.

We chatted about family and then moved on to what I thought were hobbies... little did I know.


My host mom: "¿Te gusta bailar?"
"Do you like to dance?"

Me: "Claro, pero no puedo muy bien, pero si, me gusta mucho... ¿y a Usted le gusta bailar también?"
"Sure I do, I can´t dance well, but yeah, I like dancing a lot. And do you like to dance as well?"

My host mom: "No. Somos Cristianos."
"No. We're Christian."


Ouch. I halfway thought about saying... you know that thing I said about dancing...? Only after she put me on the spot like that did she directly ask if I am Catholic. The next morning she invited me to the Evangelical service, to which I said "but I'm not Evangelical," but she encouraged me to go anyway, saying that "it's the same God." It was a very pleasant view on what I'd like to believe was her progressiveness, and not necessarily judging me because I am apart of the religion she has been taught to "practice against what Catholics do" (besides not being able to dance, Evangelicals are supposed to lead a straight-edge life, no drinking or smoking either; it seems like basically whatever Catholics are allowed to do, they aren't).

The service the next day was an experience itself. It lasted about four hours, and from my observation, Evangelical service is where most people are able to "shake it" and get it out of the system to the word of God and Jesus. Truly a unique experience. Such a unique experience, I felt that I should just keep it to that one time I shared with my host parents.

So moving back to Semana Santa, PCVs were granted a long weekend, meaning that we got Holy Thursday and Good Friday as official PC Holidays, which meant that we could either spend it in our sites, appreciating and for some, taking part, in the local traditions, or for others, such as myself, taking advantage of the long weekend and traveling to a new part of the country.

Already planned for quite a while, quite a number of us had the beach written into our planners for months, with the long weekend in anticipation. As the week came closer, a few people pulled out, more joined, and then some others pulled out last minute. In the end, we were a group of 10 beach-goers, eight PCVs and two friends, ready for whatever lay ahead on the road...

To get to the beach, I first had to travel to the city of Xela (Quetzaltenango City), which is about a three hour bus ride from my site, depending on bus schedules, among other things. From Xela we broke up the trip instead of going straight through with one bus. This came as a recommendation from others who had traveled the same route just a few months before, and ended up having to wait in some bus terminals for 1.5 hours, because the ayudante (the guy who collects the money) wouldn't give them the difference of their fare back so they could save time and catch the first bus that was leaving, while they were only the fourth bus in line.

So taking their advice, we did exactly as they told us. Problem was, it was Semana Santa. And by the time we got down to Mazatenango, the buses were P-A-C-K-E-D. We debated on waiting for the next one, but we were told that all buses would be the same. So we all took a deep breath and squeezed ourselves in.

To give you a picture of what it was like, imagine a school bus with three grown-ups in each seat, and every now and then a family of three or four kids in one seat. The aisle already has about 10 people standing in it, leaning on seats in an effort to not get tossed around around like Shake 'n Bake chicken. Now add 10 more gringos to the picture, putting them in the aisles. The bus moves out of the town and picks up even more people. The ayudante asks us to move further back so more people can fit in. Move where? One of the girls got offered to sit on a woman's lap, so she took up the offer. More people crowded the bus, and by this time passengers, as well as the ayudante were hanging out the open door, holding on for dear life. While the bus barrels down the Pacific Highway at about 130 kph (~80 mph), the ayudante climbs up to the roof of the bus and back down the ladder of the bus, opens the door and finagles his way through the aisle to collect the bus fare.

Once we got to our almost-final-destination, we got off our bus and immediately were surrounded by tuk-tuk (rick-shaw) drivers, as if they knew we were coming ahead of time. We got a flat rate to the port, packed in our belongings and took a 15 minute ride to the boats, racing against one another. My tuk-tuk won. ;) Once we got to the port, we got ourselves a boat, which took us through the mangrove forest to the island where we hopped off the boat, grabbed our belongings and then walked down the sand roads to the surf camp.

The place itself is small, but comfy. The 10 of us filled the 10 beds available, although some nights were so unbearably hot that some people opted to sleep out in the hammocks- the idea lured me, but the thought of getting eaten up by mosquitoes left me in bed under my mosquito net instead.

Other than just going to the beach, the main reason (for me, at least) we went there was to learn how to surf. One of the PCVs offered to teach us, and she kept true to her word. The board we had was... well, not quite the best, but somehow us beginners even managed, albeit the board slipped out underneath us or we slipped off it too many times to count! It was very encouraging though the few times we did manage to get up- even for just one or two seconds- gave me the reason to stay out that much longer to try a little harder.

I am not one to deny myself sleep, but the pure thought of being at the ocean- unfortunately not something I can allow myself to do every weekend, not even every month- and not seeing the sunrise and taking "long walks down the beach" (hehehe) every morning would have been a waste. So up I was at 5:45am every morning and ran part of the stretch, then walked the rest on the way back. I had an early breakfast, and as soon as that was finished I was in the water till about 9am with our personal surf instructor, learning the ropes of the waves.



Those few days were absolutely wonderful and much-needed. I've decided that after my Peace Corp service, I will live near or at the ocean within a year. I'm not sure which country, nor which continent, but the ocean is surely a must.

The trip back was much more eventful than the trip there. My friend and I were the only ones headed to Xela, the rest were headed directly north to Guatemala City. Little did we know the amount of traffic we were going to hit. As we hopped onto a completely empty bus, we were a bit concerned at first, but it turned out to be an "express" bus going in the opposite direction all of the traffic was going in, to later turn around and take advantage of the loads of people heading back to Guate.

As it turned out, there were to be only six of us on the bus- the driver, the two ayudantes, another passengers, my friend and I. It was Guatemalan transportation heaven. We were stuck in traffic congestion comparable to LA jams, except this was on a two-lane highway-turned up to five lanes at some points. Three to four lanes was traffic flowing against us, and then our small lane tried to finagle its way onto the side of the highway it rightfully had, but in vain.

There wasn't even an accident that caused the backup; so many people were headed in the same direction, and everyone tried passing one another that it turned into a huge mess. It got worse when people still tried passing one another, which made the backup even longer and more complicated. At one point the police managed to clear out one lane, only for the cars to go right back in once the police were out of sight.

Elodie, my friend, and I, got so sick of sitting on the bus in the traffic that we decided to walk along the traffic to at least move a little bit instead of laying across two seats the entire afternoon on the bus, as we had already done all morning. We hopped off the bus and walked against the traffic for 5 km. I had packed pretty lightly, so I only have my small backpack and a costál, or durable weaved plastic bag, the latter which I actually managed to balance on my head for most of the 5km we walked, with absolutely no hand support. My ladies would have been so proud of me.

By the time we reached the end of the line, our bus managed to get out of the jam and we hopped right back on. After one more transfer and 12 hours, we finally made it back to Xela, only in twice the amount of time as it took us to get there.

So there you have it. My Semana Santa adventure. I got back to my site in one piece, thankfully, and am enjoying being back and planning out some business discussions with my ladies and helping out in the artisan tienda (store) each market day, Wednesday and Sunday.

I hope you all had a great Easter, Passover and time off in general with family and / or friends, where ever you may have spent it!