At the office of FAPE, we had our Christmas party. Tents we set up outside, presents were put on the table. All in all, when looking at it, it reminded me of a graduation party. The weather was 60 and sunny, and spirits were high. And to put the icing on the cake (literally and figuratively) we had Bertha Carmelina– a Kiva entrepreneur who runs a restaurant–cooking our food for us. But before the food came out, there were all sorts of activities that reminded me a of a talent show.
First, came the amigo secreto (secret friend) gift exchange. One by one people were called up to the front to receive and give their gifts. I was called up by Josue, a young man who works in accounting. He gave me a cologne entitled Open In Case of Emergency. I have yet to open it. I had, with the help of a female loan officer, picked out a nice lamp for my secret friend. So I called up Flor, gave her kiss on the cheek, and gave her the oddly wrapped lamp.
Next came the talent show portion. First was a song by a group of seven loan officers from the Sacatepequez region. They got up, stood together, and sang and smiled the entire time. I was able to get a bit on video.
After that we saw a play. It was about a woman at the airport, who had just bought a box of chocolates. She sat down, and started eating them. Strangely enough, the man next to her also started eating them, until their was one left. Which the stranger then took, and split in half. When the women got on the plane, realized that she had her box of chocolates fully unopened, and she had been eating his. It was too late to apologize to the stranger whose chocolates she had just eaten. The moral being that sometimes we often have misconceptions about the world, and the best we can do is learn from the past so that we don’t repeat our mistakes in the future.
Lastly came the meal. Some sort of chicken, beef, corn, tomato stew. It was delicious and a little spicy. It’s typical of the food she cooks in her comedor for her customers. Being from the capital city, a lot of people at FAPE had never tried this typical stew from the country. Tje dessert was some sort of green squash-based sweet. A little rare for my tastes, but everyone else seemed to like it. The meal was great: Kiva lenders supporting the entrepreneur with a loan, who in turn cooked for FAPE, and FAPE further supporting the entrepreneur by paying her for her cooking.
Christmas eve is bigger than Christmas day in Guatemala. Last night, we had dinner (tomales) at midnight. But at midnight, everyone lights fireworks off for about 10 minutes. I mean everyone. It was like everywhere I looked there were fireworks. It felt like a wwar in the jungle. Loud noises, flashes everywhere, and smoke billowing throughout. And this was only on the porch of Manuel’s house. It’s like that everywhere. Next we exchanged gifts. I got som marimba music. It was very lovely.
