Guatemalan Matt: My Peace Corps Experience: August 2012

Yesterday my buddy, Casey, and I went to the feria in Momostenango, a nearby municipio. Most towns celebrate a feria, or carnival-like-thing, once a year to celebrate the feast of their patron saint. Carnivals here in Guatemala can be surprisingly similar to carnivals at home in the states. Usually one can find a smorgasbord of terrible boardwalk games, food vendors, loud music, and, in the case of Momostenango, you even have the opportunity to take a ride on a Ferris Wheel… a man powered Ferris Wheel. No chains, no belts, no motors; just good ol’ fashioned men struggling to spin you to the top of the world, or in this case, about twenty feet off the ground.

However enjoyable, the above mentioned are not the main attraction of the Momo’s feria. A huge crowd gathers in front of the Catholic Church at the center of town, where a live, symbolic show is performed before the masses. (I don’t know the true meaning of the act, I don’t know that anyone actually knows what’s going on, but the following is Casey and my interpretation.) First a tree as tall as the church is erected and tied to the façade of the church. Next, in front of the church there are men dressed in costume with Spanish masks (conquistadors?) who are ever so abusively whipping their counterparts who are dressed in different animal costumes; monkeys, jaguars and lions (the native Mayans?). As the whipping down below is going on, the crowd suddenly averts their attention to the sky where one of the men in animal costume is dancing on the roof of the church. From the tree, tied to the church, descends a rope which is secured about 30 yards out from the front of the church. I say ‘secured’ but both ends of the rope look like have been tied down by a Brownie, recently graduated to Girl Scout. The man on the roof of the church then ‘dances’ his way down the rope, without the use of any equipment, he is not even tied to the rope. He descends about 15 feet before he starts swinging his body around the not-so-taut rope like a gymnast on the uneven bars… except he’s on a rope, about 4 times as high as the gymnast and instead of foam pads he has asphalt to cushion his fall. Let’s take a look.