I saw the most bizarre thing today. We visited a nearby town, Zunil to see a weaving cooperative (which was closed), Sant Simon and their big annual fiesta celebrating the birthday of Santa Catarina, their most important saint.
We arrived at this farming town set at the foot of a mountain, with a big white colonial church in the middle of town and next to it, because of the fiesta, a ferris wheel. We made our way through the crowded streets filled with food and toy vendors and woman in their best and most colorful huipiles (traditional mayan blouses) and cortes (skirts that are basically a piece of very colorful patterned fabric). Each pueblo or region have their own style. From what I can tell, those from Zunil are extremely colorful with lots of yellow, couldn?t quite catch how the patterns differ from others though.
We went up the hill in search of San Simon. He is a Mayan legend (a statue, really) who the Mayans believed helped drive the Spaniards away. There are 4 San Simon ?statues? in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. This particular one in Zunil moves from one house to another every year.
After a bit of searching we came to this alley way that led us to a house where San Simon is housed. When we walked in, we saw a a manequin/effigy dressed in a cowboy hat, sport jacket and tie, a pair of rain boots, a blanket or towel drapped over it?s shoulders (for protection), a scarf around it`s neck, sitting in a big but simple wood chair. When we walked in, there was a woman whispering in it?s ear for blessings and two guys tilting it backwards and pouring alcohol in it`s ?mouth?. To make this even more bizarre, the ?saint? Simon is sitting in the middle of an empty room, dark, and there are strings of `Canadian Dry?, ?Crush?, and other soda signs hung up on the ceiling. Off to the side is a room filled with lit candles. Some guy charged us 2 Quetzales (about 20cents) to stand in the room. Let me tell you, it was weird.
We walked through the fiesta more. There were US flags hung up everywhere, first that I have seen here. My teacher said that they hang up the flags to ask for Santa Catherina?s blessing for all their relatives who live in the US. We also saw a group of people dressed up like we do during haloween dancing around. I can?t figured out if it is sort of a show or just people dressing up to dance around because they were surrounded by a crowd of spectators. People were dressed up as almost anything you can imagine from Bin Laden, an US army soldier to Chewy from Star Wars and the Mask from that Jim Carrey movie. Needless to say, we had quite an interesting afternoon.
*I have pictures, will try to upload them tomorrow!
Posted by Karen at November 26, 2002 12:36 AM