Torch Run

This Saturday is Independence Day for Guatemala and like most holidays here, the celebrations last the whole week leading up to the big day. There were no classes Wed-Friday, but the kids were kept really busy. After the big band competition yesterday, today was the infamous Torch Run. Every year during this week, groups run for several miles carrying torches with cars following them trying to make as much noise as possible. People have whistles, horns honk, kids scream, all to try to draw as much attention as possible to the runners (as if hundreds of people running in the streets with torches could somehow be overlooked). All of this is paying to tribute to the night they received their Independence from Spain almost 200 years ago. That night, a villager heard the news at the statehouse, grabbed a torch and ran through the countryside spreading the news. Everyone really gets into the runs, the streets were lined with people watching.

Naturally the kids wanted to participate too, so after spending ALL day swimming and playing and generally exhausting themselves, we loaded up into the buses and drove to San Martin, a town about ten minutes outside of Chimaltenango. The kids were going to run back to NPH from here! That's about 25 minutes in the car, at LEAST 15 miles. Absolutely nuts in my book, but they were excited for it.

The first thing we had to do when we got to San Martin was meet with the mayor of the town. This was part of the ritual and I'm sure there's some kind of traditional conversation that goes on to reenact the announcement of independence, but I couldn't hear a thing between the chattering kids and crowds of townspeople. Here's the mayor lighting the torches

And then we were off! We did a few laps around the town first and pretty much just ran the cars off the road.

One of my favorite parts of the run: not only do people cheer you on, they try to soak you as you go by. Kids lined up with water balloons and buckets and tried to drench as many people as possible. The buses weren't safe either; the kids would aim for the open windows. More than once, people in the bus got nailed in the face with water balloons. It was always a race to close the windows when we saw kids aiming.

I ran for about a mile and a half (go me!) before I died and had to be driven in the bus with the young and lazies. I had planned on catching my breath and then going out again, but then the kids started dropping like flies and I had to take care of them. No surprise that they were passing out, we had been exercising all day and they aren't used to running like that. The bus crawled behind the runners and we'd jump out whenever a kid fainted and drag them on board. By the time we got back to NPH we had a total of four fainted kids. They don't mess around with their celebrating here, you run those kids till they pass out.

The bus would have the pass the kids every now and then because it needed more speed to get up the hills. I was always a little worried that someone would drop on the hill and I'd have to try to run up it with a body over my shoulder. Luckily, it didn't happen.

Here we are waiting for the kids to pass us by.

The torch bearer!

Charlotte and Katie run by.

We finally got back to NPH after over three hours of running. I'm thinking that tonight will be a very quiet night for the Tios on sleep-duty