Fiesta! Or little white girl out of her element

Well, I’ve done it again. I have moved…again. I’m still in Guatemala, just in yet another different town. San Raymundo. This one is a little more “permanent” for lack of a better word. I’ll be here a month instead of one or two weeks. That’s exciting. In other news, I know of only one other person in this entire town who is fluent in English…neato.  I have some adjusting and exploring to do, but that’s part of the fun. Of course I say fun. What I mean is I am going to want to cry so badly at times that it will physically hurt…but after that it will be fun. Like Yesterday:

I went to a fiesta. Woo! Fun right? Allow me to elaborate. Little white girl (who tends to be taller than most of the population of this country) enters scene. Two picnic tables on a back patio and a TV with the big game on. Fútbol. (Madrid and Barcelona were playing. This experience was so disconcerting that I actually don’t know who won…I think it was the white team but I don’t even know which team was which color.) There were probably 5 people sitting around one of the tables plus Edy who drove me here to San Ray and who invited me to the shindig, plus Joy whom I met once 2 years ago. Good start.

This isn’t so bad. There aren’t that many people. I can start up a conversation at some point. Enter: 3 more people. [I should stop and explain here that this is a fiesta for Edy’s fútbol team who won the finals match on Wednesday.] I’m not going to go into explaining the enterings and exitings of every person at the party. All I’ll say is we filled 4 picnic tables…and all but four of us were dudes…and Joy was the only other woman who would talk to me. About half way through eating whatever foreign part of the chicken I ended up with and the chunks of deep-fried fat, I wanted to cry. I couldn’t seem to think of anything to say to anyone in Spanish, English or otherwise. Everyone was laughing and joking and carrying on around me, and all I could do was stare at the TV screen and wonder when it would be polite to bow out.

*****

Two hours later: About half the party had split and I had moved over to the other two picnic tables in the yard under the big awning. Me (Joy occasionally) and two picnic tables full of Guatemalan men. It took a few more minutes but I think I started to feel a tiny bit more comfortable when they started making fun of the youngest, skinniest one for having a crush on me and for having the most outrageous sunglasses (I actually used to have a pair just like them but I’ll keep that to myself.) By the end I had carried on something of a bumpy conversation with a few of the older men, and had been lectured on the value of the quintessential Guatemalan man. I had also been asked, by the entire table, if I preferred facial hair or not; skinny, fat or muscular; white or brown skin; and if I could guess the ages of about half the guys. IN SPANISH! AH!

By the time I got home my poor brain was so tired from listening so hard that all I could do was lie on the couch and watch TV (in English).

I think I’ll be hanging out with that group again sometime (hopefully a smaller version). I’ll be sure to get a good night’s sleep…and read the Spanish dictionary before then.