Happy belated Halloween everybody! Wow, there is lots to tell so I'll just get started. On Halloween, my two roommates and I went to the city to the giant store Hiper Paiz which is equivalent to a Fred Meyer I'd say. They have American food and more of a variety as well as clothes, toys, home goods, etc. It's a little like a Walmart too which everyone knows is my favorite store besides Target. I was the only one that brought their child (because I just can't leave him) and so it was interesting to push a cart and carry a baby in the other arm because he wasn't interested in sitting in the cart. Hmm.. that's nice. We had a great time though and shopped for 2 hours! Our other goal with this excursion was to buy a Halloween costume for our housekeeper's daughter as well as pumpkins. Funny, we never did get to carve them yet! Actually, Heather, one of our roommates and her husband and child did carve one - Amanda and I will carve them on Thanksgiving maybe!
Yesterday, we had the best day ever as we had the opportunity to go to a neighboring town for their "Dia de los Santos/Muertos" celebration. For those of you who don't know about this holiday, it is a traditional Latin festival in which all of the families get together in the cemetary where their loved ones are buried. It is a day of celebration rather than mourning since they believe their families are alive in heaven and they all get together to eat, enjoy music and fly kites. Now when I say kites, I don't just mean your average little drugstore kite although there were plenty of these. They also have kites that are so huge that they have to be flown by 20 men. They looked like giant ferris wheels (that's how big they were -see our pictures). They were absolutely gorgeous and made out of tissue paper. They reminded me of a finely crafted quilt. Each one had special meaning for the town, a family or this day of celebration. People come from miles (it was packed) to see these kites and remember those who have passed. It was quite spectacular and we are so glad we went.
On a more solemn note, our taxi driver/tour guide accompanied us through the cemetary and was very happy to answer my questions about the particular gravesites. You might think this sounds a bit morbid, but it was very interesting. First of all, cemetaries in Latin America (especially Guatemala) are beyond beautiful. They are colorful, have flowers everywhere and are worth just going to walk around and see on an average day. Each family, depending on money, buries their loved ones differently. For example, those with money, bury their family in coffins as we do and then cement is built around the coffin. Some families build casitas (a house) around or over the coffin and some even have doors. The family then gets to choose what color to paint the casita. They are beautiful. Families without money, on the other hand, don't have the privilege of cement (can you imagine) and therefore bury in coffins, with a mound of dirt over them. On this particular day, these gravesites were either painted (the dirt is actually painted) or pine needles are sprinkled all over the mound. The most heartwrenching thing we saw was child after child, after baby buried. Someone told us that 1/5 children die daily in Guatemala. When I asked our taxi driver Raul why, he said that many children walk around the streets without shoes and have little money. They eat food they find on the street (basically garbage) and then get sick with amoebas. Once the child is sick, the family can't afford to buy medicine, so the child dies. It is awful. The pictures here, although they're difficult to see, are so significant of this country. One other funny thing. The families leave food on the gravesites at night as well as little containers of alcohol for the adults. The belief is that at night, after all the families have gone home, the dead rise to eat and drink. They believe this because when they return the next day, it is gone. What they don't realize is that every stray dog and homeless person in the town have a party of their own once the families have gone home eating and drinking what has been left! The one picture with the 3 little containers is a picture of 3 types of alcohol that were left on a gravesite.
On a happier note, we were told that the reason we were kicked out of PGN was indeed for a misspelling, however it had already been fixed by our agency awhile ago and they didn't realize it. I don't get it. Anyway, they've apologized to our agency (it should be to us I think) and said we should be out again with approval to go home on Tuesday or Wednesday. Since Nov. 1 was a holiday, today as well as Monday is too (they take advantage of a one day holiday apparently). I guess we do too with Thanksgiving and Christmas though! It's just not so nice for us adoptive parents waiting!
We had a nice Halloween with a little party back at the house after returning from the Guatemalan Walmart and we made chili, had cake and treats and dressed all the kids up! We had a fun time, but of course we were all wishing we were back in the states waiting for cute trick or treaters to knock on our doors. Hope everyone is doing well. Thank you for your prayers this last week with our little setback. Love you all.
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