Merry Christmas everyone!
Or felize navidad as they say here.
San Pedro is priming itself up for a big one. It is Christmas Eve here, and people are everywhere. Everyone converges on San Pedro, the tourists for two weeks of partying, the Guatemalans from the city (and everywhere else; there are so many different village dresses in town at the moment). I though shopping malls in Australia were busy before Christmas, but you should see the market here, all you can do is stand and wait for the ebb and flow to open a gap as stalls with thingamybobs playing a thousand electronic carols try to drown out the sellers sreaming themselves hoarse with lists of fruit, vegies, fish, live crabs, shampoo, explicit dvds, sacks of spices and dried peppers, plastic toys and banana leaves. I got my fruit for the punch and got out quick.
Meanwhile, the bank in town held a huge party yesterday (yes the bank), in an extravegant display of generosity they gave back a tiny proportion of their profits from freakishly huge interest rates in on big great raffle. For every 200 quetzals (about $30) you have in the bank you get a ticket to win cars, motorbikes, fridges, tvs and the rest. so much stuff it took all day to draw it, two sprukers screamed into their microphones all day, so loud you could hear them a km away, working everyone into a frenzy. It all ended with the best fireworks display I have ever seen...no health an safety, no fire regulations to dull it down just raw sparkling fire power. The explosions sprang out and dropped down right before me. Amazing.
So I think the next couple of days will be exciting. Tonight, even though it is not really Christmas yet we will be having Christmas dinner with some friends of Amanda and Flo, Suvena and another french Flo and their baby Ati. The other french flo's parents are here, complete with a kilo of foie gras. Huezeffa and her kids will be there, which is great because Christmas is not right without a few kids, so everything shall be beautiful.
So Merry Christmas to you all, hope it is sweet.
Lots of love
Jillian
