Little Orianna!
Left to right: Yolanda, myself, and Sandra
The night before the party all the ladies were preparing the food as usual. This was no ordinary party though we were making BBQ!!! Our preparations were much different since you can't make flour tortillas in advance so we cleaned beans (separated the rocks and bad beans), cleaned and marinated all the meats, and peeled onions and spices to add to the marinade. I was extremely tired since I stayed up late the night before in town and it seemed we were all giddy with over-tiredness. Greg plucked a pepper right from the drying rack above the fire hearth and ate it whole. All the women immediately stopped all production and commented and watched Greg (who began to sweat but muscled through it no problem). This then elicited many jokes from the ladies about how I shouldn't let Greg kiss me and what if tomorrow w my lip is huge and red from the pepper! They thought they were so funny (okay, I may have been prompting and adding fuel to the fire but it was too funny). After the excitement of the 'bird pepper' incident we got on the subjects of husbands. Specifically dating our future husbands. This came up because on our first 'date' Greg and I went to a burrito barn Flayming Amy's and he got the 'Flayming Amy'.
http://flamingamysburritobarn.com/
Before even tasting it he proceeded to flout his manliness by dousing the already very hot burrito in numerous hot sauces and a little 'Dave's Insanity'. I told this to the ladies and regaled them with the result of his actions, turning purple, sweating the rest of the night, and temporarily losing his hearing! They were cracking up. Yolanda then told me that when she would go with her future husband she was so nervous she couldn't eat and was too embarrassed to even ask for a coke! We were laughing so hard one of us pointed out we weren't even cleaning the beans, we had been just scooping all of them back into the bag!
Becoming Godparents Again
Dressing Orianna at our house
As is the tradition my Commad (goddaughter's mother) brought our Goddaughter to be dressed by me. Godparents buy the christening outfit and then change the child into it, some parents buy the suits themselves. Orianna was in a pretty good mood and seemed to like her new shoes so it went well. We then all walked together over to the Alcalde's house (Concepciona's (Orianna's mother) father to head over to the church two villages over. This was a baptist christening and we sat in the front row holding Orianna. She loves Greg and so mainly sat with him playing with his keys and his beard. We stood up with our commad and after we responded to a question in kekchi our portion was done in kekchi too. Another nice ride back to the village and the 'bashment' began!
Upon arrival back at the house we did our official "yoos commad" exchange with our Commad and Compad (he is a police officer so didn't make it to the church) and then also with her parents (the Alcalde and his wife). This was an added bonus so now we have 3 commadas and 3 compads! Afterwards we were seated at the table of honor and given a choice of BBQed meats: pork, chicken, deer, gibnut or pikeri. We choose deer and it was delicious! Soft drinks were quickly shuttled to our table and we ate as villagers rotated through the house dropping presents, eating, then returning to their houses. As Godparents we are expected to stay until the end so after eating we quickly found our places (with the ladies in the kitchen for me, and by the tree with the men for Greg) and settled in for the long day ahead.
The kitchen during the partyThe man post!
There was much picture taking and passing around of
Orianna and the first few hours were
unremarkable. 'G' was
DJing from the start and after a few hours, Mrs. Che and Mrs.
Choco were trying to get my host mom Cecilia to go dance (they were playing
Cumbia...her favorite). I jumped up and said lets go so all of us danced
cumbia (even
Greg for a song or two) to the blinding flash of cameras from all angles. These are all my favorite older ladies and it was very fun, a very old lady, the
Choco grandmother spanked me and smiled as I walked by!
Commad and Compad (our Goddaughter's grandparents)
With our Commad and Compad and their family
(minus their son who wouldn't stop playing in the creek)
The party was really a lot of fun. We made it until 6:30 when we had our final long chat with our Commad and Compad and then were sent home with enough BBQ to last a week, tortillas, and beans. Oddly enough we discovered my Compad and I share the exact same birthday (he is one year older though) AND Greg and Commad are both December babies! Weird huh!
Hudut in Dump
Greg's teachers George and Cicily invited us over to learn to make Hudut, a delicious plantain and coconut fish dish of Garifuna background. We (Meredith too) all rode our bikes out to their house in Dump (named because there used to be a big hill there so they had to 'dump' dirt there to make the highway) around 9 and got to work. Coconuts were shelled, cracked, shaved and 'milked' (adding water to the coconut shavings then squeezing out the milk). The plantains were boiled then mashed with a coke bottle and finally the coconut milk was seasoned and used to boil the fish. The delicious resulting meal is below.
Hudut or
HOOO DOOOO as Meredith would say:)
Greg sipping some coconut water
Having a go at shelling...not too hard
(I am now excellent at splitting the nut open
(three taps with the back of the machette!)
