Bailamos!

It was a dance filled weekend.  And a whole lot of fun.

Saturday night was Girl's Night.  The majority of the female staff got together for a meal first.  Everybody brought an item for tacos.  So much fun and so delicious.  You can't go wrong when there's good guacamole involved.  In my opinion, at least.

After dinner we headed out for a night of dancing.  We went to one of the nicer clubs and just kinda hung out in a massive gringa clump.  (Gringo being the spanish term for foreigner-- gringa making it feminine.  All ladies).   Guatemalan clubs are quite interesting...luckily this one wasn't too sketchy.  But the music is a range from salsa, to American music that we're accustomed to, to Guatemalan pop that we know, to random random Spanish songs.  There was one song in particular with a honking noise every 10 seconds-- like the honking of a clown nose or something.  And I cannot leave off the fog machine and lights and announcer man narrating everything.  But it was fun to just be with the girls and have a night out. 

The next day it was wedding time!  A girl who had taught at the school last year and her now husband (a Guatemalan) got married.  All of the teachers are friends with this couple so it was a lot of fun.  Definitely different than any wedding I've been to.  The wedding "process" is a little different here.  There are usually 2 ceremonies-- at two different occasions, unless they are crammed into the same day.  There is the civil ceremony (legal aspect) and the religious ceremony.  Yesterday was the legal ceremony.  It was all in Spanish, but from what I gathered, its a presentation of the legality of the union and all that entails.  But the lawyer who conducted the ceremony (the Guatemalan husband of a current teacher) knew the couple and had other nice things to say.  The bride walked in-- in her wedding dress, they walked to the front and talked through all the legal aspects of being married.  Then they said I do...signed the papers..."witnesses" also signed, and then they exchanged rings and the kiss.  It was a long ceremony, but nice.   I would like to see how the religious ceremony goes-- but for this couple they are having the religious part in July with a much smaller group of people.   It was very interesting to see how the two are separated.  
Afterwards there was a reception, which was much more like a typical reception. Lunch was served, toasts were made, bouquet was tossed, and there was lots and lots of dancing. It really was a ton of fun.