TheBanyanTree: Halloween and Festival of the Gigantic Kite

[apmartin at canada.com]

Halloween and Festival of the Gigantic Kites


For days, the children at Casa Hogar had been working
on Halloween costumes.  Early in the week, I gave them
my sunhat and some face paint but I couldn’t help them
more than that because I was sick with a terrible
cough.  

When I returned from Monterrico the previous Sunday, I
went straight to bed and stayed there until Thursday. 
By then, my cough seemed a little better but I had a
mild ear infection and laryngitis.  I did not want to
be ill and hoped that if I ignored my symptoms they
would disappear.  (Sometimes I’m not very smart!)  So,
on Thursday and Friday, I worked part days.

Controlling nine boisterous boys without a voice was
difficult.  I decided to take the ‘manana’ (unhurried)
attitude prevalent here; I did what I could without
worrying I should be doing more.  As usual, I gave my
boys lots of hugs but was careful to always turn my
head away so I didn’t breathe on them; I didn’t think I
was still contagious but I wasn’t sure.

On Saturday, still not feeling well, I made a trip to
Antigua to check my email.  Riding the chicken bus
alone no longer concerned me although I was more
cautious than usual. The previous day, the United
States issued a warning on CNN that the level of
violence and the number of rapes and robberies of
tourists in Guatemala had increased significantly and
they recommended US citizens avoid traveling there. 
They noted that many of the police themselves were
corrupt and crimes were being committed with their
collusion.

I got out of the bus near the market, put my backpack
on my front (because I was in a high-crime area) and
joined the throngs of people walking along 4th Avenida
Sur.  I passed a small girl of about two asleep on the
sidewalk.  Her mom, a Mayan woman with amputated legs,
held a plastic bowl toward everyone who passed.  

Someone grabbed my arm.  Immediately, I thought I was
about to be robbed and turned, not knowing what to
expect.  It was Luis Carlos, a ten-year-old boy who
often visited Casa Hogar because his mom, Ruth, was the
cleaning lady there.  I laughed and told him he scared
me, that I thought he was a ladrone (robber).  He
wrapped his arms around my waist and smiled up at me. 
Ruth said she was shopping for a Halloween costume for
him as they planned to attend the Halloween party at
Casa Hogar the next night.

As I continued up the street, I passed the blind man
with his blaring cassette deck and tapes.  He always
sat on the ground in the same place wearing the same
grey sweatshirt with the hood on (in spite of the
heat).  His bowl, as usual, was empty of coins but
someone had given him some fried chicken and he chewed
it hungrily.

A block further, a man with no arms and no legs lay
flat on his back on the sidewalk. A leather harness
encased his trunk, to carry him with, I supposed. 
Someone had laid him on the cement, placed a bowl next
to him and left him there.  Pedestrians had to step
down onto the cobblestone road to go around him.  

Three national police (they were discernable from the
tourist police because they wore navy, not khaki,
uniforms) strode past me.  They were only my height
(5’5”) but they carried big guns.  Most Guatemalans are
small—short and small-boned—due, in part, to
generations of poor nutrition.  I avoided eye contact
with them because once, outside a bank, I smiled at an
armed guard and he stepped toward me and began to raise
his gun.      

I passed the Bodegona, where I planned to buy my weekly
groceries later, and MacDonald’s where a guard holding
a rifle was stationed at the door.  In Guatemala, all
banks and most of the larger stores and better
restaurants had guards.  I planned to take a tuk-tuk (a
motorized vehicle resembling a 3 wheeled golf cart)
back to Casa Hogar before nightfall.  (Riding the
chicken bus with bags of groceries is impossible.)  

My favorite internet café, Bell South, was only a few
doors past MacDonald’s.  Besides high-speed internet,
it offered the use of several indoor phone booths with
reliable telephones and a metered system so you could
see how much you were spending.

While I worked on the computer, the usual barrage of
boys and girls (as young as four) came in and moved
from person to person.  Some begged for money,
chanting, ‘Un quetzal, un quetzal.”  Others tried to
sell bags of peanuts or oranges.  It wasn’t as hard to
say no to them now that I had been in Guatemala for
awhile.  No matter where you go in Guate, children and
adults are begging or trying to sell you something, and
they are often very persistent.  

I became so involved in writing emails that I left it
too late.  When I looked at the time, I realized I
would have to travel in the dark—not a wise thing to
do—as both taxi and tuk-tuk drivers had been known to
drive passengers to an isolated spot and rob them (or
worse).  I would just have to take a chance. 

While grocery shopping at the Bodegona a little girl of
about five with no hands asked me for a quetzal.  She
held a small purse between the stubs of her forearms. 
I reached into my pocket and slipped a coin into her
bolsa (purse).  

I was starting to feel sick again and was anxious to
get home.  Quickly finishing my shopping, I lined up to
pay.  At the till, I took off one of my shoes to access
the 100 Quetzal notes in my socks.  I left with a cart
full of groceries, a heavy backpack on my shoulders and
a small pack containing my money on my front.  After
waiting at the curbside in front of the store for about
fifteen minutes without a single tuk-tuk passing by, I
walked to the end of the street near the market where
bumper-to-bumper traffic moved in a steady stream. 
Saturday is Antigua’s biggest market day and both
vendors and shoppers were heading home.  

Because my groceries were so heavy, I was forced to use
my shopping cart.  The streets were crowded and I
didn’t see the three tourist police on the corner until
I was right beside them.  For a moment, I felt anxious.
 I wondered how they would react to me having taken a
grocery buggy from the Bodegona.  Jail me?  I greeted
them with a friendly smile and explained I needed a
tuk-tuk but none had come down the street.

“Tengo mucha comida, (I have a lot of food)” I said
with a shrug, gesturing toward the buggy full of bags.
“Muy pesado. (Very heavy)”  

The officers were friendly (to my relief) and said they
would help me find one.  While I waited, I recalled the
dead man I had seen only half a block away from this
very corner on a similar evening some weeks earlier. 
He lay on his back with his trunk on the sidewalk and
his legs on the road.  I recalled my conversation with
Andrew, who was with me that day.

“I think that guy’s dead,” I said, incredulous, slowing
to get a better look.  “He’s not breathing.”  The
street was crowded with people, none of them giving the
man a second glance.

“You might be right, but no one seems to care,” Andrew
said.

“What should we do?”  I said, thinking how odd it was
that this world was so different from my own.  In
Canada, if a person lay dead on the street, most people
would get involved.  In Guatemala, it seemed, people
avoided concerning them selves unless they had to.

“Nothing.  There’s nothing we can do for him,” Andrew
replied.

When I had related my story to another volunteer who
had been in Guatemala for a year, she told me she had
seen five bodies on the street during that time; some
dead from drinking; others, victims of crime.   

Thirty minutes passed before I saw an empty tuk-tuk and
flagged it down, glad of the police presence beside me.
 I viewed the three armed officers as a kind of
insurance that the tuk-tuk driver wouldn’t dare rob me
after being seen by them.   

Once the driver and I loaded my groceries, I got in and
apologized to the police for not being able to return
the shopping cart.  One officer said he would do it for
me.  

“Muchos gracias, senor,” I said.  

I was weary to the bone and was having fits of
uncontrollable coughing.  At last, I was on the way
home.  I sighed deeply.  Finally, I could relax.  A
moment later, I realized I was mistaken—my driver was a
maniac.  He floored the tiny red vehicle and passed
blindly, weaving in-between cars and chicken buses.  I
was so frightened that swear words poured from my
mouth.  If it hadn’t been dark, I would have asked to
get out.  I honestly wondered if I was going to make it
back to Casa Hogar alive.  The driver may have been
stoned, drunk or simply reckless.  For whatever reason,
he ignored my screams and did not slow down.  What a
relief to arrive home in one piece!   

I rested Saturday in preparation for Halloween which I
viewed as an opportunity to spoil the kids and to have
some fun with them.  In the afternoon, Andrew and I
filled a huge bowl with candy and placed it next to a
stack of quetzals (coins) and some stuffed toys.  We
were ready.  I was feeling a little better (and I
didn’t want to miss the fun) so I dressed up in some
cute pink pajamas and put green foam rollers in my
hair.  For a finishing touch I brushed on copious
amounts of blush, painted on thick, black eye-liner and
added a large red clown nose. 

Andrew, known for his tact and discretion said, “That’s
a costume?  You know how many times I’ve seen you look
like that in the morning?”

He wore a pair of dark rimmed glasses with a huge
bulbous nose attached, a baseball cap turned backward
and a pink crepe paper tunic.  Rather than buying fancy
costumes, we gave money to the kids as part of their
treat.  
 
Casa Hogar’s Halloween activities started at 7:00 pm
when a flock of children came trick-or-treating to the
four volunteers’ residences in the compound.  Some of
the teachers had brought their own children so there
were a few faces we didn’t know.  Natalie, another
volunteer, dressed up as a fortune teller and set up a
table with a crystal ball and candles outside our
house.  We turned all our lights out.  To receive their
treats, the kids had to pass her and make their way
down a dark, narrow lane to our side door. We quickly
realized some of the smaller kids were too frightened
to do that, so we had to put the lights back on.

There were many good costumes.  With paints, donated
clothes from the States, and imagination the kids were
transformed into queens, gypsies, ghosts—you-name-it. 
When the treat or treating was over, the children and
adults danced in the candle-lit salon (the covered
outdoor area where the kids eat) to the steady beat of
salsa. A few people did the limbo.  There was a contest
for best costume with money prizes.  Later, we enjoyed
pizza (yes, there is a Domino’s Pizza here) and soft
drinks.  We all had a lot of fun and many laughs.  

The next morning, Hanley invited some of the volunteers
to go to Santiago Sacatepequez, a pueblo (town) about
20 km from Antigua to celebrate All Saints’ Day
(November 1st).  Every year for the past 105 years, the
Feria del Barrilete Gigante (Festival of the Giant
Kite) is held in the graveyard there. 

Our shuttle driver dropped us about a kilometer away
from the festivities.  The streets were full of
pedestrians, making driving impossible.  We joined the
procession of people making their way toward the
cemetery at the top of the hill.  Thousands of people
were on the streets and the sidewalks were lined with
street vendors selling kites, hand-carved musical
instruments, leather goods, children’s toys, food,
clothing and much more.  I would have liked to stop to
shop—there were so many beautiful and interesting
things to see—but I didn’t want to lose track of my
friends.  The streets all looked the same to me and
there were few street signs; I feared becoming lost.

After a half hour walk, we entered the graveyard.  The
interesting thing about graveyards in Guatemala is that
many of the graves have cement structures similar to
miniature houses built over them painted in a variety
of colors: blue, green, yellow or white.  These
buildings are often in better condition than the houses
people in which people live.  Orange marigold petals
were scattered on all the graves and they gave off a
pungent scent.  

Men, women and children, rich and poor, seated and
standing, crowded the graveyard.   Our group chose a
turquoise structure (grave) with only a few people on
it, and with the assistance of the guys who gave us a
leg up, everyone managed to climb on top of it.  The
sun was intense and our view point was beneath a large
tree that offered some shade.

Kites of every type, size and shape danced in a light
breeze.  Some of them were huge (15 – 20 feet across),
handmade creations with intricate, colorful designs. 
Every once in awhile, one of the kites came crashing to
earth and people scattered to clear a spot for it. 
Some were so large that if someone was hit, serious
injury or even death could occur.

The kites are flown over the cemetery to speak with the
souls of the dead and are judged on size, design,
color, originality and elevation.  The largest kites
still lay on the ground.  They were made from tissue
paper with bamboo braces and 3” thick guide ropes and
measured as much as 13 meters wide.  

Near our lookout, we saw numerous new graves: simple
mounds of red earth covered with marigold petals.  Some
were child-size; others were for adults.   

My cough was getting worse and I was too exhausted to
socialize. I should have been home in bed but I hadn’t
wanted to miss this event. 

It took many people to hoist the first of the gigantic
kites so that it was vertical.  It was about 40 feet
high, circular and had a beautiful geometric design,
circles within circles.  The announcer stated it had
taken two months for the competitors to build it. 
Three flags billowed at the top.  

Later three other enormous kites were raised but each
only lasted a few minutes before the wind, which had
become gusty, tore them apart.  Months of work
disappeared in minutes.   

The Festival was an all-day event, but our group had
arranged to meet our driver at 2:00 pm.  As much as I
had enjoyed this unusual Guatemalan tradition, I was
ready to go home by then.  The traffic was horrendous;
people had parked in the streets blocking entire roads.
 It took much patience, careful driving and
considerable time to leave the city.  All I could think
of was to get home and crawl into bed.   I just
couldn’t seem to shake my cough and general malaise. 

Note - Nov. 10, Still sick (3 weeks now) and just back
from the doctor.  I have some exotic parasites that
have been contributing to my cough.  You DON'T want to
know the details... At least I have a bag full of
medicine.  Hopefully will recover now!

Pat