My first time travelling without my family and to Central America! This past December, I had the chance to visit Central America, specifically San Juan Comalapa, a small town two hours away from the capital of Guatemala! It was my first time travelling (flying even!) by myself (with a group that was not my family) and I'll be honest, I was scared shitless. I went with four other classmates of mine and a professor, so I wasn't COMPLETELY alone. BUT, to me, it's still pretty daunting to travel somewhere unfamiliar. I was not actually here for vacation but more for a volunteer trip to help an organization called Long Way Home. Long Way Home's mission is to build self-sufficient sustainable schools in underdeveloped communities to "promote education, employment, and environmental stewardship". Isn't that crazy inspiring? However, I won't be talking about my volunteer work here. Even though this wasn't solely a vacation trip, I still had the chance to venture around town with my new friends and live in the ~Comalapan life~ for like four days lol. For our time in Comalapa, we stayed at a hostel! It was my first time living in a hostel, but the people were kind and the place was cozy with my friends. I lived in a room of three beds with a girl friend of mine and we shared a single bathroom with our three other guy friends. There was a roof for the place we stayed at, which we apparently were not supposed to be on, but provided a nice spot for introvert time and views of Comalapa in the morning and evening. We cooked our own breakfast every morning in the communal kitchen, paid for lunch at the school, and dinner at the hostel. Walking around Comalapa was pretty different than what I was used to. The buildings are so colorful, painted with bright reds, blues, greens, and teals. Compared to back in California, the buildings are pretty modern with the various shades of beiges, greys, blacks, and off-whites. It was definitely a more exciting walk around town! We walked to the central park area, which has markets every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday! Also, because it's the Christmas season, the town was more festive and lively than usual, especially at night (which I'll talk about later). Around this area were also a lot of little shops for ice cream, bread, meats, film, etc. Pictured above is a vehicle called the chicken bus, which are basically the taxi equivalents in this town! These things are literally everywhere in Comalapa and are probably one of the reasons why Comalapa smells so much like diesel all the time. Each little chicken bus has it's own little personality to it as their drivers decorate them with stickers to personalize them. As cute as they look, it's pretty terrifying to have one five inches away from you zoom past at like 20 mph with no caution. Thrilling, right? But normal. We ventured through the market to the long mural of Comalapa's history. Our tour guide Roberto walked us through each painting, which symbolized a different story in time. Listening to the story of Guatemala and Comalapa was really intriguing as Roberto first talked about how the war in the 1970s resulted in a lot of casualties in Guatemala (specifically mixed communities like Comalapa). As we traveled along the mural, he started to talk about how a big earthquake struck and again caused a lot of deaths due to the poor building infrastructures. Roberto added how his family unfortunately lost his sister due to the building collapses during the earthquake, inspiring him to help Comalapa build more safe and sound buildings while also being environmentally conscious (he is a really good, trusted friend of Long Way Home). The mural ends with a dove who was previously tied down, but then eventually flies free, and this painting symbolizes how the dove wants to spread peace everywhere in the world. SO WHOLESOME. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of my time there as I loved listening to Roberto's story. This is a really colorful cemetery right next to the mural. They also celebrate Dia de los Muertos in Comalapa to remember their deceased ancestors. The colors are so bright, livening up the cemetery! One of the really cool things I got to experience here was fabric weaving! Comalapa is pretty well known for it's art like oil paintings and fabric. Most of the women have really colorful and beautifully weaved skirts and shirts and it's really unique! The artist spins the thread from scratch and then meticulously lines the threads up in order of color that she likes. Then, they roll up the threads in a big bundle and transfer that into their really cool weaving contraption. With some black thread, some wacky footwork, fast hands, and swole muscles, they weave the fabric! I even got to weave some myself! I later on heard my friend ask one of the workers in Spanish what the hardest thing about their job was, and the man said that his back and arms hurt the most because he's always bending over and pulling hard to make sure the fabric is tight and secure. Past the cool weaving part, it was also nice and engaging to hear about the behind-the-scenes perspective and the work required of the art. On another night, we even got to do some tortilla making under the moonlight! ROMANTIC, I KNOW. One of the neighbors who owns a tortilla shop came by the hostel with her stove and her masa dough, and we all got to try shaping our own tortillas. I decided that the original circle shape was too basic and proceeded to attempt to shape fish, flowers (which turned out to look more human-like), and hearts! She laughed and replied in Spanish which I then replied with a polite chuckle and smile because YA GIRL DON'T KNOW SPANISH. The tortillas were actually pretty challenging to shape because the dough would just cling to your palms if they were too dry or warm. I really enjoyed the activity though. :) Can you see my "flower" in the picture below? Tortillas are a staple dish to every meal here! If I were to compare it to something familiar to me, it's like the equivalent of rice in Asian cuisine. The corn tortillas I tasted here were soft and warm and were unlike the chewiness of flour tortillas that I have been exposed to. You can read about my food photo dump post here, so you can see all the food I ate in Guatemala! Like I said earlier, it was nearing the time of Christmas, so the town was pretty lively at night. There was a night market every night we were there and the churches in the main plaza were lit with flashing Christmas lights! There were children, families, and couples playing with fireworks and the plaza had a carnival-like feel as there was a merry-go-round and a ferris wheel. The ferris wheel was freaking TERRIFYING. First of all, it went at crazy speeds (like maybe one round per 7-10 seconds). Second of all, there was literally a person STANDING ON THE OPEN SEATS... THIRDLY, THE FERRIS WHEEL WAS LOWKEY SLANTED... Fun & frightening to watch... During our nights out, we saw a posada almost every night and it was kind of cool walking with them for a certain distance. They would have a crowd of people follow the carried structure with Mary and Jesus (I don't know the name of it) with a group of people playing songs on instruments as they walked to the church for mass. My time at Comalapa was beyond exciting and an extremely humbling trip. I was able to live outside my comfort zone and experience new things like food and events and learn a lot through the volunteer projects we did for the school! Coming from a pretty privileged lifestyle, I can confidently say that you never know what you got till it's gone. And I say this not to boast about my life, but more in a self-reflective way to appreciate everything you have. Even though the place I stayed at was under-developed and as some may say "poor", the Comalapan people were kind, genuine, and happy with their lifestyles. Being around this kind of atmosphere really taught me to be more conscious, appreciative, and grateful for everything around me and that company matters the most rather than the superficial things. :)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
|