Selfie Central
Kinda an odd thing when a word like "selfie" is no longer autocorrected...Apple has approved it as a word. Funny too how "selfish" is the next suggestion the iPad gives me... Anyways, we are in Guatemala, at a wedding, and this is, yes, Selfie Central. Actually I don't reserve my judginess (NOT an Apple-approved word) to just Guatemalans, I'm sure other Latino countries meet the criteria. To be truly fair, since the advent of the selfie (sounds like some narcissistic church...) I've mostly lived in Latin America, and it thriveth here! As with most churches, the strongest adherents of the Selfie Church are the ladies. It's astonishing really how many selfies they can take! Then they have their disciples take further pictures of themselves! Then again, who really appreciates a picture of yourself like you do! Why, even Jesus....no wait, let's not go that route.
"Guatemala? I thought you were in Honduras?" Well, since our Honduran friend is marrying a Guatemalan boy, how could we not but come! (I love the awkwardness of that sentence, yet the strange sense that it makes…) So we crossed the border (after a reminder about our tourist visa expiry), and less than a half hour away we reached Esquipulas, famous for, you guessed it, Black Christ. Yes, in an unusually large basilica, annually thousands of pilgrims (I assume from information I've gleaned) come to pay respects to a black statue of Jesus, and they wait hours to get in and see it! Just to be clear, the image is not in the main part of the church, but in an adjoining building. The hotel we are staying at features plenty of photos and paintings depicting the basilica in various vacation hot spots around the world. There is also a notice about the types of services this 'huge church' offers. One of them being blessings for vehicles...at least that's how I understand it. If only I coulda dragged that hunk of scrap metal I call "My Truck". At this point, anything could help!
The wedding went very well! The bride was an integral part of our small sign language congregation in Santa Rosa for several years, so without a doubt we wanted to be with her on this big day! Her new husband she met while the two were in this Guatemalan city on a preaching trip. The ceremony was realized at the local Kingdom Hall, a simple, yet dignified location for worship. The reception was at a local hotel, and was quite nice! Exceeded my Canadian standards even! We had a delicious meal (chicken cordon bleu?) and lots of association and dancing. They really kept the dance floor full and the DJ kept our ears ringing. Only drawback? No ice. Well, it came out late at least, and it is a hot city! And it was strange that we had 2 kinds of wine glasses on the tables, but no wine… There was cake, so what do I have to complain about? We travelled to and from with friends of ours here in a Toyota Hi-Ace van that seats about 15…cramped, but we made it!
Curiosities of weddings here (some of these may be exceptions to the norm):
The legal part precedes the religious ceremony.
The notary who conducted the legal part also gave a talk.
Only the bride and groom stand for the “I do".
The witnesses who sign for them aren’t necessarily in the wedding party.
In fact, the wedding party seemed to have little to no role whatsoever, mostly there just to match with each other!
In the religious ceremony the vows were exchanged, but said from memory, not repeated.
No kissing of the bride!
No receiving line.
At the reception, the first dance happened immediately when the new couple arrived.
No dancing followed until first we ate!
All dancing was to upbeat music, some of which featured a nonstop beat for about 30 minutes even though the “song" “changed".
(What’s interesting about the preference for upbeat music is that when they sing karaoke, it’s all sappy, slow songs! Whereas I think when we do karaoke, it’s upbeat songs, but we like some slow songs to dance to too…)
Curiosities of the basilica:
It’s not nearly as ornate inside as I expected, having seen huge cathedrals in Europe. Very nice architecture nonetheless.
I’m pretty sure we were the only gringos on the huge property!
People line the walkways looking for charity: mostly people with physical deformities, or family members of them.
In this age of selfies, hard to imagine the camera-wielding men get much business anymore.
Everyone is brightly-clad, and some are getting free showers outside by robe bedecked men. Ok, pardon my humour, I suppose they are receiving blessings, but it seems a little silly to me, a gringo. That being said, I’m sure to some I look silly going door-to-door with a tie on…
Some opportunistic people never got the memo that Jesus threw out from the temple the money changers and those selling animals…you can buy a t-shirt there, among other things.
All in all, it was an interesting experience, I hardly could have imagined how many people flocked to this place, pretty much in the middle of nowhere…in terms of beaches, anyways. Nevertheless, I came what I was looking for: selfies.
