Today began early at 4am when the cannons started going off- I had heard these exact same cannons Saturday night at the school (two at 4am, two at 4:20) and thought the civil war had started up again. Later I found out that those were just pre-festival shots. So this morning, which is the first day of the festival, the same shots went off again- two at 4:00 and two at 4:20. And let me tell you, being across the street versus being miles and miles away at the school makes a big difference when you're trying to sleep. To make things better, marimbas started playing after the 4:20 cannons were shot. 4:20am. The music was at least happy, so I was able to get back to sleep, but I definitely woke up before my alarm.
We convened at breakfast and agreed that this was crazy (the music was still going) and we were throwing around ideas of what they could possibly need to squeeze into this festival at 4am. Kassie and I prepared a Cata-style lunch of PB&J's, chips, crackers, and chikis (cookies). When we were all finished we sent an email or two then headed out.
We first walked across the street to the festival to check it out. There were at least five different groups of dancers, each with their own certain style of dress and music. Their "dancing" was more like rhythmic walking, but if you're dancing from 4am to midnight you can't go ham. After our fill of watching rhythmic walking, we headed out to La Tribuna. Our first stop was the water truck, and it took some convincing to let us in, but we finally did it. This particular truck was broken and had apparently been there for a month or two, but we took a water sample just in case. It was pretty gross-looking, and there was even a bit of stuff floating around in it. It's not the perfect sample because it's been sitting so long, but it's something if the normal water truck doesn't come while we're there. The man said it would come at noon, so we killed some time by walking around La Pista which was getting all set up for the festival. It was fun to see what all they had.
At noon we went back to the truck lot, and the man replied saying that the normal water truck is in the mechanic now. Dang it. After that it started to rain, and we headed to the community building we were at yesterday for some cover to eat lunch. We all had big breakfasts and weren't super hungry, but it was a prime time to eat. We met some community members there who were there for a dance practice.
After that we went to Mari's house to meet up for the PMEL surveys (Project Monitoring and Evaluation Lead- asking the community members about the project to make sure it's wanted and will be taken care of properly). I was surprised to see a range of houses- one of them was huge with three or four rooms, a tv, stereo, and refrigerator, but others were tiny one-room dwellings, kind of pieced together. The people who paid for the water chipped in a lot of money, so it's hard to see those who really sacrificed for this, knowing that they gave so much for something that most likely will not go as planned. There's a lot more with PMEL and it was so nice to finally meet the residents, but I'll spare you from that.
Francisco organized a car to take us back to Joyabaj, and we walked back to the festival once dropped off. Everyone was gathered around the pole so we were hoping for some action. Unfortunately nothing happened and we went back to the hotel to do some data consolidation. After a few hours, the hotel group from the big group came in, and we all ate dinner together. It was weird being in such a large group again; but it was nice to see everyone again. It was just kinda overwhelming.
After dinner we read through emails again, and set up a call with Steve. Eloisa, our friend-over-email is with the Peace Corps and is very interested in a project like ours. She said that she could call at 8am, but that she'd be at the festival at 6am. We thought she was crazy until we looked it up and saw that it's the spinning men hanging off this 30-m pole. Soon as we found that our we were all in. Gotta go to bed now go get up early!!
2025-02-11