On my 5th day in Guatemala, my 6th day in Peace Corps, I went to a party.

I learned so much. I have so much more to learn.

The night before, Rosa Maria said she had a meeting in the morning. “And what time did I want breakfast? A que hora quieres desayunar?” I asked her if 8 o’clock was okay. That is early for me but I don’t want to hold her up from her meeting!

After breakfast muy sabroso, I hung out at home and got things done. 12:15, she came to my room. She said “Vamos a un almuerzo.” I asked if my t-shirt and jeans were okay (it’s a peace corps t-shirt). She wrinkled her mouth sideways and said “No.” I said “okay Necesito..” She said “Una blusa” I said “Bueno. Es demasiado casual.” And she said “Sí.” And that was that. No harm done. I changed into a blue blusa and asked if my jeans were okay. She said yes.

But no matter what I was wearing, I could not have prepared for this.

I’ve always heard that you learn things about yourself when you travel. It’s true. I’ve been there before, but I’ve never been immersed long enough to make a life somewhere, a home. It raises the stakes, it changes the game, and it heightens the reflection of self in the midst of a new world.

This party was actually a wedding shower. In the states, if you tell someone they are going to a lunch, they will expect to be somewhere for an hour and a half. If lunch is 2 hours, they will tell you it is going to be a long lunch.

But this was a party where lunch was served. Not the same. Not the same at all.

Not only was this a party, it was a wedding shower.

 

So we arrive to the party and a lady in open-toed sandals with form fitting clothes (a cotton shirt and jeans) appears, Spanish flying out of her mouth a la barrel roll.

I try to dodge the palabras so I can stand up straight. I kiss her cheek for the presentación, one cheek only. She keeps firing Spanish, very effusive like she messed up and she’s embarrassed but she’s a classy lady and she is going to tell us all about the debacle. She kept putting her brow to her hands, like “Ay Dios Mio!” but whatever happened was very funny. I have no idea what happened, but I follow her into the party.

The Setting:

The front courtyard of this house is decorated but entirely vacant. I notice that there are 5 tables with white, plastic patio chairs in rows. It hardly looks like there is enough room for people to be able to get in and out. Oh, I’m thinking with American proportions.

We sit at the edge of the room. I hear Rosa Maria deliberate over where the sun will be and if we should sit here, or here, to catch the shadow at the right time. She decides on the corner of the room. We sit under cover on the plastic chairs, there are tablecloths and small paper decorations on the table. There are small flower centerpieces, too. I take in the paper decorations on the wall, too. Francisco and Javier sit with us. They both sit as the barrels roll out of the energetic lady’s mouth. We laugh, we chuckle, and I sit and watch the whole event unfold in the slowest manner possible.

As a point of comparison, before I sound like a real jerk, the only thing I know of wedding showers is my experience in the South. Weddings in the Grand South are like Olympic Events. I have been in enough weddings, and been TO enough weddings, to know that the entire affair from ring to honeymoon, is a sprint not a marathon. Either way, running is involved. And wedding showers in the Grand South are run like royal affairs. The host/ess stays up late the nights before, cutting out and printing and placing and planning and shopping after pinteresting and putting more effort into one single event than anyone could want to hope or imagine.

The Pace:

This party, however, crawled. Crawled como una tortuga.
When we arrived, several women walked out of the house and said hello to our group in the corner. We were just outside of the house but we were never invited in. We are the family of the groom, so we must be some kind of important. Rosa Maria simply introduces me as: “Natalie, Ella vive con nosotros.” Nothing about cuerpo de paz or that I am a visitor or that I don’t speak enough Spanish to cross a back alley in Queens without offending a Puerto Rican cat. Just: Natalie lives with us.

Two ladies came out to spread flores across the table, and una fiesta de insectos swarmed around the flowers the entire time. No one ended up sitting at that table at all. I assumed they were placed there to be the Bride and Groom table. But what do I know? Did you know there is not a word in Spanish for Bride and Groom, it is the same as Boyfriend and Girlfriend (la novio/a)? I conjecture that in this culture if you are a boyfriend and girlfriend, you are inevitably also a bride and groom. Why make two words for something that can just be one? Girlfriend might as well mean married? Is that what I am sensing here, Guatemala? Guatemala? No answer.

First, we sat.

In 30 minutes time, food was served. It came out, container by container, onto the table in the middle. We got up to serve ourselves. Eventually the hostess tells us that we should sit and that food will be passed over. One by one, we receive plates from across the room. One by one, we pass them down. One by one, we receive juice and one by one, we pass them down.

People are walking in and out of the house announcing the score of the soccer game.

In another 30 minutes time, more family started to arrive. We were there before the novios, so we did not have anyone entertaining us except the family of Carolina (I realized, it was her house and that the barrel roll lady is in fact her Mama).

La Presentación (Introductions):

So, let me tell you, as family trickles in, we stand up each time. With each kiss on the cheek, I stand. I extend my right arm to their left elbow and lean in to kiss the air against their left cheek. I watched small children, from age 6 and up, go around the room and kiss EACH PERSON ON THE CHEEK as they were led like small puppies from face to face. They followed suit and did what their abuelas required, but there was no light in their eyes, nor despair. Only following directions.

I had to do the dance of, do I shake hands with the men? Only if they extend first.
Do I kiss the cheeks of the young boys? Only if they are doing so with the other ladies (I don’t want to scar a muchacho!)
With all of the work involved in inviting someone into a room, I’d like to see me get out of it. Smooth exits must not exist in Guatemala.

No alcohol was consumed. It was early in the afternoon. But what I know of Americans, if the word wedding is involved, booze is soon to follow. I don’t care what time of day it is. But I was very happy with my juice de rosa jamaica (hum-i-ee-ka).

The bride and groom have arrived. The introductions have been made. I notice that a gift pile is stacking in the corner. I see a plastic laundry hamper with a bow. In Spanish, it is a ‘canasta.’ In Brooklyn, canasta is definitely not a laundry basket.

Guests:

I watch the guests trickle in. I notice what they are wearing, how they comport themselves and who their spouses and children might be. By my account, I was slightly more dressy than the others there. The bride was wearing peacock teal pants and a chambré button down top and Adidas sneakers. I’m still glad I changed out of my t-shirt. But it did make me wonder if Rosa Maria wanted me to be dressy because her family is classy and she wants to be represented wall. I also wondered if, well, her family was slightly classier than her future daughter-in-laws. There was no way to know except that Carolina’s mom wasn’t wearing a blouse. She was wearing a cotton shirt that extended to her elbows. I don’t know. That would be quite an assumption to make, but I wondered nonetheless. I didn’t go in the house so I could not compare it to Rosa Maria’s.

WHAT ARE THE CUES? HOW DOES ONE DEDUCE STATUS FROM ARBITRARY ITEMS IN A FOREIGN CULTURE?! These are not things I thought I noticed until they were gone and I didn’t know how to place someone. It made me wonder about myself: Why do I care about status? Why do I need to know? So I can see how I match up?

Set-Up (During the Party):

During the trickle-in arrival, the sun begins to come out. Before I know it, a blanket is being stretched across the outdoor patio with ropes. An invisible person is on the techo above us, tying a rope to some plants on the roof. It seems like the most bizarre thing. I am at the most slow-paced lunch of all time and a blanket ceiling is being installed with ropes. But it gets better because the sun umbrellas come out, there are two of them, and Pancho the Funny Uncle in a pink polo is sweating as he stretches a rope across the patio, wraps it around the umbrella, stretches it, wraps it around the other umbrella, and ties it to the other end of the patio wall. The rope under the plant falls over so the invisible person on the roof tries to reset the plant with more weight. I see the base of the umbrellas being held by someone on el techo. I don’t understand why the bases aren’t being used for the umbrellas. Instead we’re tying a rope across the patio to suspend the umbrellas. I don’t ask questions.

I sit and listen to Spanish in all manners of speech fly across the room like a food fight with only words. I try to smile and not be bored. I don’t have wifi so I am not even tempted to look at my phone. I snap pictures when I can.

The Foreigner:

No one seems bothered or even too much aware of my presence. I, however, feel like the encroacher of all encroachers. I am at this girl’s wedding party and I can’t even say anything beyond “Felicidades!” to her. I thought back to the time a girl from Japan came to 4th of July at Cate’s. She didn’t know how to participate or be involved, and we didn’t know how to involve her, so eventually she just got on the phone and started playing a game or talking to someone with her headphones in. Retrospectively, I feel like a jerk. I didn’t know how to include her but I didn’t really try. Now I am the Japanese girl.

It’s 2pm, everyone is done with eating. The umbrella is suspended (the attempt to use both umbrellas was abandoned) and the blanket flies high, protecting us from the sun. They begin to take the food pans inside. I ate tortillas, chicken and a salad with generous dressing. I’ve eaten chicken almost every meal since my arrival. I didn’t eat beans so that was a real plot twist I am thinking: hey, maybe we’re done here? We’ve been here 1.5 hours. Well, maybe there will be a game or two? Maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

Los Juegos:

There seems to be a lady in charge. She asks that the tables be broken down and the chairs moved. We stay on the fringe of the patio. The courtyard is now cleared for events of who-knows-what-kind. What followed was a long list of games that lasted 1.5 hours, including Wedding themed Bingo ‘la lotteria” with maiz negro to mark the spaces, a balloon game that were stuffed inside a man’s shirt and popped through aggressive hugging on the part of their spouse, musical chairs with balloons in the seats to pop as you sit, crescendoing in a double-piñata extravaganza that involved each person who wanted to go ham on a Super Mario Cardboard figure under a blindfold. An invisible person throws candy from the roof. Who is up there?! Is there a roof phantom who hangs out waiting to throw candy at children and suspend umbrellas weighted by large roof plants?

El Pastel:

After the games, I am really thinking that this party is going to wind down. Then I see a table slowly entering the picture, on which is a very tall cake (pastel). It has strawberries and icing. I’ve never been so excited to see icing in my life.

The bride and groom approached the cake. Everyone started saying “Bite the cake!” in Spanish (because I had to ask) and the groom bit a corner, and the bride bit a corner. That was new. And then the cake was slowly cut and distributed around the room (there must have been 25 people squished into the courtyard, sitting in a circle and facing into the middle).

I eat the cake. The icing is sweet-ish but the texture of the actual cake is spongy and eggy. I am not a picky eater but when you are expecting a creamy, birthday cake with glorious icing and cream filling and you bite into something else, well, I can honestly say it is the first time since my arrival that I thought: “TWO YEARS IS A LONG TIME.”

 

And then, OH JUST YOU WAIT, I have eaten cake, it is 3.5 hours in, and it is time to open gifts. It is recommended to put all the gifts in the ‘canasta.’ The group calls up Barrel Lady, The Esposa’s Mom, and she gives a toast. The bride and groom hug and kiss her, each. Next, another person comes up, gives a message to the bride and groom, hug and kiss the bride and groom, each, and hand them a gift.

The Gifts:

I can’t believe my eyes. Each person is presenting their gift to the Bride and Groom. With a message, with advice, with a blessing.

This party is officially never going to end.

A man and his wife stand to present their gift. We all support him because he is verklempt. Eventually he has to excuse himself. He can’t say anything. The bride and groom kiss him and the man sits back down. Rosa Maria whispers to me that he lost a baby three months ago. From that simply interaction, I feel his pain and it seems it is all of our pain. But I notice that the woman who is with him does not cry. She smiles shyly and sits back down next to him. It’s as if it is only his pain and not hers. Maybe this is not his wife, maybe this is someone else. But if this is his wife, which it seems to be, that part unsettles me.

When my host mom gives a blessing before her gift, she opts to stand in the corner but the group pulls her to the center.

And my heart melts a little. I know she is going to cry. Not only do I know she is going to cry because she is proud of her son, Fer (Fernando), but I know she is going to cry because this is her first son to get married. I know she is going to cry because her husband is not there with her. He died three years ago. A lady who looks closely related wraps her arms around her, in knowing support.

I think that the gift my host mom gave is the nicest. Maybe I am biased. Most gifts were like one or two towels, brightly colored. Hers was a set of pink dishware. It was wrapped professionally. Maybe she had her oficia domestica, Andrea, do it for her?

After the gifts and the ensuing lull that framed each event throughout, FINALLY AND I DO MEAN I GLORY-HALLELUJAH-QUE-DIOS-ME-BENDIGA, I hear Rosa Maria whisper over me to Fer “can we leave?”

Leaving:

But we’re not done yet. I follow Rosa Maria as she makes the rounds. And I am convinced that Latin Americans invented the phrase “make the rounds” (not doctors) because she goes in a circle, each person stands and she kisses every single person on the cheek. There must be 25 kisses transacted. Keep in mind, this is not her family, this is Carolina’s family. She has probably spent some time with them, or maybe a lot of time, but I’m still like- everyone? And do you know what this means for me? I have to kiss everyone, too. I am living with her, aren’t I?! And so- I kiss everyone until eventually there is a lip in the pavement and it is enough of a reason to start waving. I have simply waved the white flag of culture shock and social awkwardness and I JUST CAN’T KEEP IT TOGETHER ANYMORE. I retreat behind my subtle, understated American wave. I mean it with the deepest corner of my heart that I can muster. But I have lost the ability to embrace the awkwardness. My arms are full. I must wave and retreat.

Rosa Maria and I walk outside and I see that the brothers who disappeared hours before are at the car, waiting. Those lucky ducks. Did they know we were coming out? I didn’t see her on her phone, texting. She doesn’t acknowledge any of the emotion she just shed. Instead, she says “Hace calor.” I don’t agree, the heat is hardly 80 degrees. Maybe it is hot for here, but not for Atlanta.

Las Secuelas/ The Aftermath:

We went home and I ate a whole Snickers bar. After the disappointment of the trick cake, I had to have something American and real and sweet and rewarding. I needed a reward after enduring the most prolonged wedding shower of my life.

But I am so glad I went. 

I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but I learned so much about Guatemaltecos and how families are close and how they celebrate. I always heard that Latino Americans kiss every person in the room at entry and departure, but up until that moment, I hadn’t experienced it in its full metal jacket.

Everything about the party was ruthless and everything about the party was wonderful. I am so glad that customs like this exist, that people really give the gift of TIME to celebrate events like this, but the American clock in me ticked louder than I ever realized, like el crocodilo in Peter Pan.

I’ve never been so restless and so American in my life. And so far from America for so long.

I could go for some Peter Pan peanut butter right now.