November 1st is a big holiday in Guatemala. It is called Día de Todos Santos (All Saints Day) and it is celebrated by eating Fiambre, visiting cemeteries and remembering deceased relatives. Last year I went to the giant kite festival in Sumpongo, Sacatepéquez. This year I traveled to the little village of Todos Santos Cuchumatán in the department of Huehuetenango. They are known for their traditional traje (pronounced traw-hey) that both men and women still wear and their unique All Saints Day tradition: drunk horse races. To be clear the men riding the horses are drunk, not the horses themselves.
The idea is that the men drink the whole night before and then ride the horses the whole next day drunk. The men and horses did rotate throughout the day. I have heard many different "reasons" behind this custom. Besides celebrating All Saints Day the races are to symbolize the beginning of the harvest. In one of the races a couple of chickens are sacrificed by the men by swinging the chickens around by their necks as they ride.
The whole "race track" was probably only about a quarter mile long. The people who were regulating the races blew their whistles and off the horses went. There would be a short break at the other end, we would hear more whistles and back they would come. I don't think that they picked a winner of the race, we tried speculating on what exactly the men were trying to do and decided on the factors that we would judge them on: fastest time in each race, drunkenness (the more the better), general style points (shouting as they pass by, no hands, etc), amount of time racing, and of course just staying on the horse. We did see three men fall off their horses. We saw all of them get up and walk away, but it all still seemed very dangerous.
It mainly seemed like general drunken debauchery to me. As a rule of thumb I stay as far away from bolos (drunk men) here in Guatemala as I can. However here the streets were full of them. Drinking and dancing and walking down the streets. If there is an open container law here in Guatemala it certainly isn't enforced.
To really get a feel for the races check out my short video:
The whole town, event, and people were so colorful and this was so unlike anything that I had ever seen before that I took over 500 photos over the weekend. I tried my best to weed them down a bit.
"Welcome to the horse races"
There was drinking at all times: both on and off the horse
The little town was so beautiful
I am used to seeing women in traje so it was cool to see all the men wearing it.
They even looked pretty from behind
Young boys in traje típico watching the races
Standing watching on the sidelines we periodically got
hit by flying mud
For never having heard of pumpkin carving before I think they caught on pretty quick.
One of the three main goals of the Peace Corps Guatemala is teaching Guatemalans about American culture. So tonight I carved "pumpkins" with my host family. In the capital and other large cities with a lot of American tourists I have heard that some people celebrate Halloween and some dress up, but out here in the campo it's mostly unknown. My host family had heard of Halloween, but not of carving pumpkins or trick-or-treating. I first showed some pictures and explained a little about Halloween traditions then we got right to it. I haven't seen pumpkins here but they did have a similar gourd-ish object in our market. They turned out to have a harder shell and interior than pumpkins back home, but we still managed to cut through them pretty well. One plus was that they were much cheaper than pumpkins in the States. I bought 5 good sides gourds for 45Quetzales (around $6). Everyone seemed to really enjoy this activity and really get into it. The younger kids who couldn't cut or scrape the pumpkins drew possible designs. My favorite moment was the sound of oooos and aaaahs when we put the candles in the first pumpkin and turned off the light. :)
She was the best at cutting and carving the pumpkins out of everyone
