Guatemala 6/19/2025 |
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Thursday, June 19, 2025 - Steph's 50th Birthday / Corpus ChristiToday is Juneteenth, a holiday from work, and also my 50th birthday. We slept late and came outside at 9 o'clock to sit at the table on the patio. Yasmin lit off some Rambo firecrackers in the alley. Paola presented me with flowers (beautiful gerber daisies) and Yasmin, Paola, and Paulina brought me a birthday cupcake with a lit candle. Humberto played birthday music on his phone. I blew out the candle and we took photos.Then we went inside to the dining room for breakfast. We had pancakes, fruit, coffee, and and fresh-squeezed orange juice purchased from Paulina's sister Olga. They had hung up a peach colored "Feliz Cumpleaños" banner in the dining room. Paulina and the girls made pulique in a big pot on the stove. We chatted with Humberto. Vanesa brought baby Emiliano over. He was wide awake and I held him and then fed him a bottle. He is so adorable! Danny came over on his lunch break from work. We had the delicious pulique soup with chicken for lunch. We had not had this since Aracely's baptism in 2007. We also had tomalitos and hibiscus iced tea. Humberto’s young guide friend Fernando came over from Santa Cruz. After we ate, we taught him how to play Uno. Aracely and Elsa arrived. Aracely was excited to play Uno, as she said she hasn't played cards in a really long time. The new Uno game had a "switch hands" wild card which became quite a hit! We played with Elsa. She liked the Uno cards, and she walked around in her walker. Aracely brought us some Tortrix Chile-ros, hot spicy snacks that we love. It was so sweet of her to remember! There was a Corpus Christi parade through Panajachel with costumed dancers and marimba music. Someone was dressed as the colonial patron (owner of a finca or farm) and another as the administrator of the finca. The celebration commemorates the kinds of parties that the owners of farms would have for their workers. Everyone else is dressed in costumes and masks representing the finca workers. We watched the parade through Panajachel via livestream on Paola's phone. They asked if we would like to go see the dancers. We had never experienced this particular festival before, and we always like to learn about cultural traditions, so we said sure. As we walked to our room to get ready to go, Coray started to chase me, growling, and bit my left ankle. Luckily, he didn't break the skin. But after trying to bite Craig yesterday and biting me today, we would insist that they keep him separate from us. It was obvious that even after a couple of days of us being there, he wasn't getting used to us. We walked with Paulina, Paola, Vanesa, Emiliano, Aracely, and Elsa to a nearby park where the Cofradia Santisimo Sacramento had set up an altar and a band was playing very loud music. People were dancing. We then walked over to San Francisco church. We passed a few costumed dancers in the street. When we made it to the churchyard, the dancers had congregated and there were people playing a marimba. Some dancers were wearing wooden traditional animal masks and others wore more modern costumes. Some were homemade (a guy wore cornstalks and had a baby doll attached to him and looked really creepy). Many of the dancers carried stuffed animals and playfully harassed the people in the audience. Some wore costumes out of modern horror movies. There were fireworks, too. We watched the dancing until it started to rain. As we were leaving the plaza, we saw Paulina's sister Isabela and her daughter Roxana. Paulina stopped a tuk-tuk and offered us a ride home, but we insisted that the girls with the babies take the tuk-tuk. We had brought umbrellas and were fine walking back home. What a birthday! We went to bed at 11 o'clock, since I would have to get up bright and early for work in the morning. Today there was supposed to be a power outage as certain power lines were replaced. But luckily, the power never went out.  Paulina, Humberto, Craig, and Danny  Yasmin, Paulina, Ian, Humberto, and Craig |
 Steph's 50th birthday  Steph's 50th birthday breakfast  Steph with Emiliano  The family enjoying pulique for lunch  Vanesa, Yoselin, and Elsa  Aracely with Elsa Photo Gallery June 19 |
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