Wow, yesterday was such a fun day.  Instead of my regular Spanish lesson, mi maestra, me and some other students at the school went on an excursion!  First, we took a chicken bus to a nearby town called San Antonio.  This is mi maestra, Bittia:

We visited a traditional Mayan family’s home and learned all about weaving, tortilla making, coffee making, and even about a traditional Mayan wedding.

Oh, and everything was explained to us in Spanish, so I’m happy that I understood enough to be able to write a blog post about it.  The weaving was incredible and it takes so long for each item to be made.  This one took 6 months to make, working 6 to 8 hours a day!

It’s reversible so the same design is on the other side too.  So amazing.  A table runner takes one month to make by hand.  They don’t use any machines.

And everything is so beautiful!

After learning about weaving, we learned about a traditional Mayan wedding.  I “volunteered” to be the bride.  And Luke “volunteered” to be the husband.  Luke was also hungover so it was kind of like a real wedding…and we laughed a lot.

I did not know Luke prior to our wedding so that was also interesting.  All the women dressed us up and told us about a traditional Mayan wedding ceremony.

Luke had his “mother” there (another volunteer, not Luke’s real mom) and we had to give gifts to each other.  Also, we had those clothes on top of our other clothes and it was umm, really effing warm.

After the wedding ceremony, the family would celebrate by dancing for 12 hours.

(We did not dance for 12 hours.)  After the dancing, the wife put on an apron and went to the kitchen!  Isn’t that nice?!  That’s right, she didn’t get to go to bed with her new husband, she had to go to the kitchen to make food for her mother-in-law.  If her mother-in-law approved, she could go to bed with her husband.  I guess I was a pretty good cook, because I was knocked up and had a baby tied to me within minutes.

That’s baby Alejandro (I named him after my favorite character in a telenovela I watched before coming to Guatemala) and I ended up leaving him with the family.  I’m a horrible mother.

Luke got his coffee and tortillas so he could head off to work:

And I had to get water.

With my damn beautiful baby.  That pot was so heavy and it didn’t even have water in it.  OMG.  All in all, I think I would have been a very good Mayan wife.  Well, at least I thought so until they told us that you were expected to have 12 to 14 kids.   Basically being pregnant for 12 years straight.  Umm, no thank you.

After being traumatized with the wedding and kids thing, we got out of our wedding clothes and everyone participated in making tortillas!

This lady did all the hard work and combined the masa and water:

Then, she made perfect little balls:

That we turned into tortillas.

I think the key is to not overwork the dough.  When I turned my tortilla in to be cooked, she said “bueno!” so I’m pretty sure I was the best student that day.

AND THEN, we were given bowls of pepián, a traditional Guatemalan dish.  I had mine without chicken.

And with two tortillas.  So good.  I had such a good time and I really loved all of it.

Finally, last night I went to a marimba concert.

It was outside, free, and I loved the music.  Mi maestra promotes cultural events in Antigua so she invited me.  Very fun and she was the emcee for the event, too!  Apparently, there’s a big marimba concert next Saturday and I’m looking forward to going to that one too.

And this was the view from the roof this morning:

I may never go home.