Fashion Show in San Antonio

I'm so excited to write this entry, this was such a cool activity. Elsa, one of the teachers here, offered to bring us all to her house in a neighboring village and show us the textiles that her family makes. They're Mayan and like most traditional Mayans, the women make most of their own clothing and dress in culturally appropriate garb. Men have drifted away from distinctive clothing and dress in more mainstream (though conservative) outfits like button up shirts and slacks. The women usually wear long patterned skirts with embroidered shirts. The women in Elsa's family hand-sew all sorts of textiles to sell in the markets. This is a very popular profession here; every day you pass women on the streets selling their table clothes and hand towels. Here are some of their goods:

You can see that their house has a dirt floor. This is typical in Guatemala; usually the rooms have cement floors and are built around a dirt square that serves as the common area. The family sits on stools or straw mats while they eat, chat and work. The kitchen is connected to this space and since they frequently cook with firewood, it's better to have lots of open areas to the outside so the smoke can get out. Luckily it stays pretty warm here, so keeping the house well insulated isn't a concern. Elsa's house has aluminum roofing over the whole thing including the garden which is why it's just dirt. Some people keep this area open and use it as an actual garden or grow a bit of grass.

I don't remember if I already talked about this in another post, but it's typical here for people to live with their extended families. Usually when a couple has children, once those kids are older they're given a section of the house to start their own families. People don't typically have their own bedrooms here, sometimes the children share a room with their parents until they get married. My teacher Nanci is 24 and she shares a bedroom with her older sister and mom. Once she gets married she will move into a bedroom in her husband's families house and they will raise their children there with them. Typically sons stay with their families and bring their wives in, though this is dependent on which family has more space for them. It's really unusual to find a family with just a mom, dad and kids. Usually people live with their brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and grandparents all under one roof and they all help out with each others kids. I actually really love the idea of living with my siblings and their partners, though I'm not so keen on sharing a room with all of them until they're married.

Speaking of getting married, another Mayan custom is to make a special embroidered shirt for the bride called a huipil. The bride makes this for herself after she gets engaged. It can take several months to a year to make. Here's one that Elsa's sister-in-law made. The detailing on this is incredible, it's also double-sided which requires an obscene amount of work.

The bride then makes a large blanket for her mother-in-law as a sign of respect. She has one year to sew it and she's not allowed to get help from anyone else. The more detailed and skillfully done it is, the better. The quality of the blanket indicates how good of a wife she will be. The mother-in-law can refuse it if she doesn't think it's good enough, and then the bride needs to start over again (and the wedding needs to be pushed back another year until it's completed.) Here is the one Elsa's sister-in-law made. Absolutely gorgeous.

Here Elsa shows us how to use the blankets. They can be used as a jacket like this:

Or for carrying babies like this:

Or for carrying your books/bread/laundry...ON YOUR HEAD!

You can actually carry a lot more on your head than you can in your arms, plus then it leaves your hands open for everything. The gringos weren't as good at it, but we made pretty valiant efforts.

Some of my friends giving it a go:

But then she reminded us that she was way better than we could ever hope to be

Next she showed us how they weave their blankets. It seemed kind of complicated to me



This little ten year old girl knew how to do it though. She walked around and showed us the little blanket that she had made, it was great!

Wesley had a go at it

After that, it was time for a wedding! They staged a wedding for us so we could see what the Mayan customs were in action. First my friend Melody got dressed in the traditional wedding outfit:

Melody then presented her mother-in-law Kana with the shawl she had made for her. (Thankfully Kana liked it so she doesnt have to re-do it)

Jon got off easy, he didn't need to wear anything special

After the wedding we were all fed a traditional post-wedding meal of beef stew and rice (it's called something else but the name is escaping me right now) and horchata which is a rice-based drink with sugar and vanilla. It's delicious.

Naturally I bought lots of things from Elsa's family since they were beautifully crafted and I knew the money would be going straight to the artists. Here's my loot:

This is a table cloth I bought myself. The details are awesome:

I haven't decided if I'm going to keep this one or give it to my mom. It's a runner for the table that they made. I love the colors.

This one was done with a machine but I think it's gorgeous anyway. This one's for mom

And this too!

Here's a scarf I bought myself

I bought a handmade hand towel for Stacy (mmmm hmmm!)

A change purse for Kayla and Lauren

Funny story with this one. The way it was hanging on the clothes line, I couldn't see the heads of the birds. I thought it was two mermaids standing next to one another, so naturally I had to have it for Jamie. Once she took it down i realized it was actually two Quetzales (the Guatemalan national bird). It was so gorgeous though, I decided to get it for her anyway!

Last picture. On my way home I passed Brady's Guatemalan cousin! It made me miss him :/