Our last days at Lake Atitlan

Our last few days in Santa Cruz on Lake Atitlan were very important for the village. Not because we were leaving :), but because there were 2 very meaningful events. The first we thought was the election of an instrumental woman in the local government. Unfortunately, the details of the event were a bit lost in translation. We discovered once we arrived at the “election” that the fireworks, cheers, and loud voices were for the “Miss Santa Cruz”pageant.

For this event, young women representing different organizations within the community somewhere between the ages of 16 and 19 (mas o menos) compete by performing in a play with kids and young adults, give a speech in both their Mayan language and Spanish, provide an answer to a social problem, and dress in their traditional attire. Each play represented a different nearby town and reenacted past events or cultural themes with everyone (except the contestant) dressed in the respective town's traditional attire. Dancing is an important element to Mayan ceremonies and every participant within the play danced just about every step of the play.

The other event was the apex to our volunteering efforts in Santa Cruz – the inauguration of the CECAP building which now houses several organizations including Amigos de Santa Cruz. This building houses the computer center, a large carpentry shop, sewing machines and a traditional loom, a cafe, an art room, administrative offices, and a few other rooms for open use. The morning started off with hundreds of young band members, adult band members, their family members, and other locals walking down to the bottom of the hill. From there, the bands started playing music while walking up the hill to the town center. Patricia Topie, the director of Amigos de Santa Cruz, is the pivotal person that made this new building possible and she is the gringa wearing local attire in the pic below with the band members and other locals.

After everyone arrived at the top of the hill, several representatives of the village and volunteers at CECAP spoke and recognized everyone that helped make this happen. A ribbon cutting ceremony and open house followed. The CECAP building was decorated Guatemalan style with pine needles scattered in front of the building and fruit , flowers, and plants lining the entry way.

The video I helped Juan, the computer teacher, compose detailing the events that lead up to the completion of CECAP played in one of the open rooms for everyone to view. For lunch, it was tamales for everyone. The Guatemalan tamales are Mexican tamales on steroids as they are about 3 times the size.
We enjoyed ourselves very much in Santa Cruz and will miss Rosalia, Noe, Juan, and Patricia. Thanks everyone for letting us be a part of this wonderful event.