Week 18: Acción de Gracias

Thanksgiving in Guatemala! I was half assuming I'd be eating the usual beans, eggs, and tortillas, but my classmates who cooked the dinner really pulled out all the stops. We had green beans, cranberry sauce, cranberry can, mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, squash pie, pumpkin pie, /and/ mojitos.

The most interesting aspect of our Guatemalan Thanksgiving was that we killed our own turkey. We originally were going to buy one from the mercado, but as folks were leaving to do so, Doña Lety, the cleaning lady, overheard us and said that she had a turkey at her house that she could sell, so we bought it.

I was working in the clinic on Wednesday morning when the cooks got back with the turkey, and they called me upstairs so I could take pictures for them. Those present included Paty, one of the teachers at Pop Wuj and a battle-hardened turkey-slayer, who was holding a large butcher's knife that she had just sharped on some cement steps. Also present were the two cooks for the evening, who were to hold down the turkey while Paty killed it. And there in the middle of the patio, feet bound but resting seemingly tranquilly on its belly, was our turkey.

After I had gotten the pile of cameras in working order*, everyone got ready. The cooks held the turkey down, Paty placed its neck over a drain, and with two knife strokes cut off the head. It was as bloody as I was expecting, but it still was shocking to witness. Then, right around the time we were waiting for the nerves in the turkey's body to settle down, Doña Lety's little daughter came in and informed us that the turkey's name was Hector, and it had been her pet. Ack! Some kids learn life's cruel lessons earlier than others, I guess.

This had an interesting effect on the way I felt about eating Thanksgiving dinner: even after Hector was defeathered, gutted, boiled, filled with stuffing, and baked until crispy golden brown, in the end looking very much like a typical Thanksgiving turkey, I couldn't help but remember the living bird. With Hector's life in mind, instead of being in a hyper wow-look-at-all-this-awesome-food state, I was much more aware of how I was connected, in a very circle-of-life-tree-hugging sense, to every dish we had prepared for that night. It actually made me feel so thankful for the food in front of me that I found it impossible to overeat. I hope I can repeat that feeling in subsequent Thanksgivings, because it felt more in accordance with the essence of Thanksgiving that what I had experienced previously.

Other than Thanksgiving I spent last week working in the clinic, studying, running, working on my research proposal, and cooking. Lately I've gotten to do a lot of talking in clinic because I'm one of the better Spanish-speakers at the moment. This in itself is amazing to me, given that in July I couldn't say more than ten words of Spanish. I still have /so/ much room for improvement, but I'm happy with how far I've come after 4.5 months of school, and spending a few hours interviewing and examining patients is a great way to keep my Spanish on the up-and-up. I've been asked where it (my Spanish) is at these days, and it is hard to quantify, but perhaps a couple examples will explain:

I'm starting to understand conversations/movies/radio chatter going on in the background without trying. It means that snippets of conversation will intrude on my thoughts while I'm, say, walking down a street, but this has had the pleasant effect of making me feel more connected to Xela and the people living in it.

I no longer have to pre-translate in my head to say something simple like, "I bought two loaves of bread because they were on sale." Pretty cool considering that in the first week of school I couldn't for the life of me correctly say, "I'm Becky. What's your name?" That said, I still have a lot of trouble with hypothetical statements, reflexive verbs in general, and and, of course, using the subjunctive, but it is nice to at least to be able to say a few things in Spanish without struggling too hard :)

*I have some interesting photos of Hector, but I decided not to post them because they are quite graphic. I may put them on my blog later for intrepid folks to view, but at the moment I'd rather be sleeping :)