This is the first time we've been in Guatemala for September 15, the date found on Guatemala's flag commemorating its independence from Spain in 1821.
Many people just run around, some carrying torches and blocking traffic for miles.
Others play LOUD sirens on BIG speakers all day long as they drive slowly around town and down the highway - just in case we wanted to stay awake and not listen to music or watch a movie. Often, one can hear up to 10 different sirens at the same time; kind of like being in a state of emergency after an earthquake or something.
Some of the private schools in town were asked to do the closing ceremonies in front of city hall. Our school sang a song.
It was cool being in town just before dusk. The lighting was perfect for photos during that 1 hour before sunset, so I just snapped heaps of pictures. A camera is a great ticket to climb on stuff and walk through events unchallenged.
In true Guatemalan fashion, the event started 50 minutes late. In Canadian fashion, we arrived on time.
Our Saturday night ritual for the past 2 months has been to buy churrascos from the central park for supper. It worked out great since we were already there for the flag lowering and the 10 minute national anthem.
4 comments:
Sounds like an interesting time. I couldn't get the photos today, so will come back and check them out.
We found the same thing with time once when we went to an African event and arrived on time (Canadian) to eat at 6:00 and found hardly anyone there, and ended up eating about 8 pm instead. About an hour in, a nice man explained the cultural time thing to us.
Very interesting to read and nice pictures!
Great shots, it's nice to have something interesting to do during long ceremonies. I will still never really get used to the ambulances and firetrucks of downtown Montreal...
Great experience!! Must have been a lot of fun.
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