Mi Cumpleaños

I was nervous about spending my birthday in Guatemala, and it being so close to my arrival in San Marcos. My birthday´s have never been a huge deal, but they have always been a special day when people tell me they are glad I was born. It is a day to make you feel special and important. Needless to say, I was not sure what my birthday would be like here, and if it would even feel like my birthday. My birthday fell on a Thursday this year, and Wednesday night Elvia asked me if I wanted to go to a concert with her, her two cousins that live across the street, and Prado, the Spanish women who is working with her aunt for the next year. The concert was in the central park of San Pedro, San Marco´s twin city. The concert was free and put on by Gallo, the national beer of Guatemala. I had been sick and Wednesday was the first day I started to feel better. Everyone kept trying to feed me liters of beer and told me I was sick because I did not drink enough beer and tequila to kill the bacteria and parasites. There were two bands that played, and are apparently pretty famous and I recognized a few of the songs from the radio. It reminded of the concerts I went to in high school with everyone jumping around, the mash pits, and throwing of beer and water into the crowds. The concert ended past midnight and everyone wished me a happy birthday with hugs. Everyone, with the exception of myself and the driver were quite drunks from the liters of beer.
The next morning Elvia and Terri left the house before I woke up because they went to buy tamales and cake. Elvia´s family that lives across the street, Prado, and Judy (the American nun who works with us) came over for breakfast. Tamales and cake are the breakfast of choice for birthdays in Guatemala. Everyone who went to the concert the night before was fairly hungover, but I felt great and it was the first day I actually felt like eating. Elvia and I went into the office really late, but our arrival time into the office varies from day to day based on how quickly we get moving in the morning. Judy then came and picked me up and we went into the market of San Pedro to buy the items we needed for my birthday lunch, which was just a stir fry of vegetables and rice, but exactly what I wanted, with of course, icecream. While it was not a traditional birthday, it still felt like a special day.