Welcome to Antigua!

If you haven't stumbled and fallen in the streets of Antigua, my teacher says, then you don't know Antigua.

In that case, I was introduced to Antigua yesterday evening. There I was walking along, trying to take in the sights of a new street, and SPLAT! There I was lying on the sidewalk. Oliver helped me up, and he and Becky and I assessed my wounds in the dark...I would live.

For the record, I only had one beer and the streets and sidewalks of Antigua are hazardous. And my I really did make a SPLAT as my forearm hit the pavement.

The sidewalks are really narrow. It's awkward for two people to walk side by side. Many of the windows are like giant bay windows and hang over the sidewalk. Depending on how tall you are, the windows will either hit you in the head or your shoulder. Here, it seems to be more gentlemanly to take the inside and let your lady walk on the outside so she doesn't have to dodge the windows every few feet. The sidewalks are a mix of concrete and cobblestones, with no rhyme or reason to the mix, and they will suddenly drop of 2, 4, 6, 8 inches to give way to a driveway of sorts...I think that's what got me...or maybe it was a missing cobblestone or a missing utility access cover or a big hole. Who knows?

The worst part is that I tore a hole in my jeans (one of two pairs of pants I have here). Just ask Ryan O how I feel about tearing a hole in my jeans!

Okay on to more exciting things...

I'm taking 4 hours of Spanish a day (okay, I guess that's not more exciting). I switched teachers so now my teacher is Victor, and I will be here for almost another month learning Spanish. Victor is really fun and a great teacher. The time goes by quickly.

Some brief facts & figures (courtesy of Victor at my request) about Guatemala and Antigua, and then I promise to move on to something more exciting:

There are 13 million people in Guatemala. 5% of the population is considered rich, which translates into 80 families.

Of the remaining 95%, 20% are middle class, 25% are poor and 50% are living in extreme poverty.

56% of Guatemala's entire population is indigenous. 23 different groups make up the indigenous population.
5% of the entire population are Criollos (of Spanish descent). This is the same group as the 5% of the population that's rich.
The rest are ladino/mestizos, which means they have a mix of Mayan and Spanish blood.
And there is a small population of blacks that come mostly from the Carribbean.

Now about Antigua... There are 70,000 inhabitants in Antigua and the surrounding villages. Anitgua proper has about 22,000. During the high season (July - Sept), there could be approximately 5000 Spanish language students here.

Antigua proper covers 1 square km, so it is very easy to walk from one side of town to the other several times a day, if neccessary.

Now some fun stuff...

Yesterday afternoon, I tagged along for a field trip with Becky and Oliver and their teachers (Martin ¨Marteen¨ and Elvira ¨Elveera¨). They took us to a village outside of Antigua called San Andres Itzapa to show us a type of Pagan rituals performed by mixed descendents of the Maya.

We went by chicken bus which was an adventure all by itself. When I first arrived in Antigua, I asked a local about traveling by chicken bus to another location and he advised against it saying, ¨Well, it depends how much you like your life.¨ So, they can be dangerous not just because of the risk of robberies, but because tons of people cram into them, the drivers may sometimes be drunk, etc., etc. (Not to worry Mom & Dad...)

To give you an idea of how overcrowded they can be, on a bus where the maximum capacity is 48, you might have 65 people. For a maximum capacity of 54, expect 75. For 64, expect 90. I guess that's why I've been advised several times since I've been here to ¨pray a lot.¨

Okay, back to the Pagan ritual. There are basically 3 common saints here that the Catholic church doesn't recognize. The most famous being Maximon, who you can often see as a little statue (or maybe more like a voodoo doll) on display in bars and restaurants smoking a cigar. We went to see San Simon who I can only assume is related to Maximon. San Simon is kind of the Pagan saint of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. According to my teacher, he is the saint for homosexuals, prostitutes, criminals and for people who wish bad things on other people. But he also heals health problems.

We watched about 6 or 7 women (young and old) come to be blessed by the shaman (Victor says he's not a shaman, but a witch!). I'm sure men could and are blessed too, but here's what happens: The women come with bouquets of greenery and little bottles of holy water. The shaman takes the greenery and basically beats the women over the head with the greenery, beats it on her back, her chest, her stomach, her bottom, down her legs while saying some kind of blessing. (It's not at all sexual, by the way.) He then drinks a little from the bottle, and then SPRAYS her head and face with a fine spray of the water from his mouth. (Yes, he's basically spitting on her.) He does this twice, then he tears the greenery in half and tosses half of it aside, beats or rubs her some more with the greenery while blessing. Drinks a little more water and spits it towards San Simon, and I think that's about it.

The holy water, it turns out, is Guatemalan rum.

After watching this ceremony, we stood outside of the ¨church¨ and witnessed a continuation of the ceremony where the shaman smokes a cigar as big as a cucumber (called puro) and directs the smoke towards parts of the body that are ailing the recipient of the blessing.

Wow.

If I understand correctly, these saints and rituals developed after the Maya were freed from Spanish rule. During the Spanish rule, the Maya were forced into Catholicism. Once they were free to choose their own religion, they developed saints and ceremonies that were nothing like what Catholicism would approve of.

If anyone knows more about this, please feel free to correct me or add to my post by posting your comment. I can't always get all the facts straight!

Well it's almost 5 o'clock somewhere, so I'm going for a beer.

More to come on the active volcano I climbed and the earthquake, which was actually only a tremor.

Thank you all for your emails and for posting your comments!