I was fortunate enough to be invited to celebrate Christmas with the family in my site and that has graciously taken me under its wing. With two women in the family (mother and daughter) who have spent time abroad to study, we can easily relate.
So, having been invited, I headed over on Christmas Eve -¨Noche Buena¨ in Spanish- in the afternoon and found several women hard at work preparing the tamales for our dinner (and subsequent breakfast, lunch and dinner, again, to be exact). They had a sort of assmebly line working to get the job done - tamales are made from a varying amount of corn mash and milled rice, allotted a small piece of meat and tomato sauce ladled into a banana leaf and wrapped with small pieces of twine or plant fibers.
While it seems pretty simple to me, each family claims to have their own recipe, involving different proportions of rice and corn mash, tomato sauce and the secret ingredient: pig fat. Appetizing, I know - but I constantly have to remind myself that a lot of the stuff we love as Americans probably looks less-than-scrumptious to them as well. For example: when offered stuffing, two Guatemalan friends cringed, but graciously accepted a small spoonful. I don’t know about you, but stuffing is my favorite dish at holiday meals. Two women in my host family worked for almost an entire day to prepare all the tamales. To cook them they’re piled into a huge pot and steamed over a wood fire for an hour or two – another component that makes each family’s tamales different;cooking time and method.
After praying and giving thanks for the joy and impending meal of Noche Buena, each person was handed a plate with the unwrapped tamales and a mug of the Guatemalan version of hot chocolate. Everyone ate between two and four tamales, accompanied by nothing more than bread, salt and hot sauce, while eagerly looking forward to the next meal of the same thing. I could only manage one.
Once we finished eating, we had a small gift exchange between the ten people who chose to participate. Everyone bought a gift worth around ten quetzals (about $1.30) and gave it to their designated recipient. I bought a decorative basket for an aunt of the family and one of the siblings bought me a woven cloth that I’m now using to spruce up my kitchen table.
And, of course, there were plenty of fireworks. Speaking of which, I tried to spread a rumor with another American friend in a futile attempt to curb the noise in my area. Interpret this as you may, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The rumor goes like this: the famous reindeer that carry Santa Claus all over the world on Christmas eve are deathly afraid of fireworks. Therefore, if you light fireworks, especially the loud kind, the reindeer won’t bring Santa Claus anywhere near your house.
As you can imagine, this rumor was unsuccessful. Seeing as Santa Claus is not a well known visitor in the area, kids only laughed when they heard it (see for yourself the smug expression on one of the cousins’ face as she lights a violent sparkler in the street).
My Kaqchikel teacher suggested that next year, to more effectively scare the kids away from fireworks, I should spread a rumor claiming that they interfere with the production of tamales on Christmas Eve…which would be much more frightening.
1 comment:
That was thoroughly entertaining. I miss you!! And thanks for the postcard. It gave me a chance to practice my trnaslation skills as I read it to Tata and she enjoyed it as well. It's now on the Elden family fridge :)
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