Bailar = to dance

The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas was filled with a whole lot of nothing. Not that I’m complaining. Too much. Who would have every thought that lazy Emily would be wanting work?! But the office was closed for most of the month, and we Volunteers passed our times by hanging out with our Guatefamilies and each other. Some of the more interesting happenings during my down time were going to pick beans and corn with my family, random dance parties with my Guatemalan family, and going to parties (like Jesse’s birthday!) with other Volunteers.

Picking beans and corns is exactly as much fun and as much work as it sounds. It’s not the most difficult thing in the world, nor the worst way to spend a morning, especially the way my family does it. We all woke up early at about 5 to pack up the truck and get ready to head out to the family’s land. Once we got there, we all spread out and started picking beans, joking and singing (or as the boys of my house would think of it “howling”) and working on our my tan. After a few hours of fairly diligent work, we stopped for breakfast and all ate around the campfire in the small lean-to they have setup on their property, complete with hammock! We leisurely ate before we got back to the beans. The best part about going out with my family was that there was such a good atmosphere and no “push” to get things done. Obviously they wanted the beans picked, but no one was going to get yelled at if they were tired and didn’t do as much, and enjoying each other’s company was just as much a part of the day as actually picking the beans. The same was true for when we went to pick corn, except this time the whole family (all 21 of us who stayed in the house over the holidays) went, and even more fun was had. My family truly treats me as a part of the family, from helping me through my roughest times and making sure I shower every day (I swear I don’t need to! It’s a constant battle every day) to teasing me about how terribly I make tortillas and making me wash the dishes instead.

My family and friends are also some of the most fun people. When the day is done, the cheese is made, and all the corn separated, my family also likes to get down. Every volunteer who I’ve brought here can tell you that my family likes to get down and are funny, energetic people. For Brynna’s birthday at the end of November, Kristen came to visit, and we made FOUR HUGE CAKES!!! Then all of us (not just the young gringas!) knocked a few back (the basically only do shots here; wtf?) and the dance party commenced. I have never seen anything funnier than about 10 Guatemalans and 3 gringas crammed into a tiny room all singing to Spanish music and “dancing” for literally hours. We definitely all learned that night that even my 12 year old sister can move her hips in ways I’ve never seen.

That wasn’t the only time Brynna and I have been seen dancing in front of a crowd here in San Diego. For all of December our town has “bailes” (dances) in the center of town, which basically consist of about 200 people standing around just watching a group or singer. Kinda awkward. At one of the first bailes, they made us get on stage for a dance-off, where I immediately got super awkward and weird and refused to dance. Not the best image for America, I know, but I just can’t compete with these Guatemalan girls! The next week, after Brynna and I had gotten on stage and looked like complete assholes, we went to another baile. This one turned out a little different. At the beginning of the night, I wasn’t too excited to go to this baile, since we had to leave really early the next day, so I embarrassingly enough went in my pajamas. Yikes. As it turned out, Brynna and I had caught the eye of a local young gentleman (also coincidently a little mentally challenged, as we later found out; awkward) who came up to us and made his intention of dancing with a gringa quite clear, by pointing and basically humping the air. Both of us tried shifting around my family, hiding behind whoever was closest, but apparently we don’t blend in so well. After a good THIRTY MINUTES (you would think he’d get the point) of my family laughing as we awkwardly avoided getting close to him, we finally gave in and fell into the arms of our dance partner (and my future husband, probably.) We both tried to jokingly do a little shuffle in hopes that seeing our terrible dance moves would scare him off, but boy were we wrong. The “little shuffle” quickly caught the attention of the ENTIRE TOWN who was standing there, and we found ourselves in the middle of a huge circle, all chanting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” while she and I moved around, trying to get out of the way and get the other closer to the random guy with a flashlight hooked to his belt. (wtf?!) Oh, Neilson, the lucky man that got to dance with TWO gringas at the same time!

Besides the “Misadventure of Brynna and Emily in San Diego”, I’ve also been lucky enough to hang out with the Volunteers in my region a good amount of time. Although there are only about 20 of us out of 200 Volunteers out in the East (and even still, I’m about 2 hours away from the next person besides Brynna) we have a really really good group. Even though just 2 months ago I wouldn’t have known which people I would want to be nearby, especially since I didn’t know half of them that well, everything has worked out so great. I enjoy my little group out here, and we make sure to get together as often as possible to hang out and relax. We went to Jesse’s site to celebrate his birthday with some grilling out and a baile. We all had a good time, but since we’ve all gotten out of the habit of staying up late and partying, most of us were asleep before 11!

Anyway, that’s all for now. Hurray for Christmas and New Years!