Thanksgiving and such

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I went back to San Juan Comalapa to celebrate thanksgiving with friends, and we had a slamming party. There were about 12 people at Long Way Home volunteering and working, from South Africa, Colorado, Massachusettes and Oregon. On top of that they had invited all the men who are working on the school construction, their neighbor, Fidelia (seen dancing in the photo with Rebecca), and a beautiful family of about 8 who work closly with Long Way Home. We had quite delishious spread of grub (all vegetarian), which none of the locals really cared for (very possibly because it was vegetarian), we listened to great music and danced after. All in all it was a great way to celbrate the day and share a little bit of our tradition with the wonderful people in Comalapa.

The day after Fidelia prepared a Tamascal for a few of us. Women in Comalapa sometimes give birht in these hot houses, and they bathe in them regularly. I guess you could say it is a very small sauna, and a very relaxing way to get clean. Long before we arrived Fidelia made a fire on which she heated a large bucket of water in the tamascal which heated up the small space nicely. We were provided with a few buckets of cold water that we mixed with the hot to make it bearable on our skin and then scooped it onto our bodies. We weren´t sure exactly what it was going to be like, or what we were supposed to do--at one point Fidelia chided us, saying we were extrajeros and of course didn´t know anything. We sat in the tamascal for two hours and half way through Fidelia came in and scrubbed our backs for us. It was a wonderful experience, definately very memorable!

I hope veryone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! I miss you all!