Dec 7 - Quema del Diablo
December 7th seemed to be a big day in Guatemala. As near as we can figure, Quema del Diablo means something like Burning of the Devil. A day where you burn out the bad spirits in preparation for Christmas.
We went with our class to a nearby village that was having a parade in the afternoon. It seems to be a bizarre blend of catholicism and mayan traditions - we couldn´t figure out what the significance was of most things.
Everywhere there were kids dressed as smoking monkeys with whips. I think if they told you a joke you were supposed to give them some money.
There were also lots of devils, angels, virgin mary´s, men dressed as women, men dressed as old people and people in cartoon characters costumes.
Later that night at 6pm sharp (the first and only thing that´s been on time) they lit a devil statue on fire. Hundreds of people turned out to watch the burning. Not sure what the statue was made of, but it was packed with firecrackers. Our camera takes crappy pictures in low light, so we don´t really have any good pics of the burning. In addition to the devil statue, they were also shooting off fireworks throughout the whole ordeal. And the whole thing took place in between two gas stations.
People were also supposed to burn their garbage in the street. We only saw one house doing it - apparently its somewhat frowned upon now. We heard that in Guatemala City, it used to cause enough pollution to create an acid rain cloud over the city (apparently old tires were a favorite choice for burning).
We went with our class to a nearby village that was having a parade in the afternoon. It seems to be a bizarre blend of catholicism and mayan traditions - we couldn´t figure out what the significance was of most things.
Everywhere there were kids dressed as smoking monkeys with whips. I think if they told you a joke you were supposed to give them some money.
There were also lots of devils, angels, virgin mary´s, men dressed as women, men dressed as old people and people in cartoon characters costumes.
Later that night at 6pm sharp (the first and only thing that´s been on time) they lit a devil statue on fire. Hundreds of people turned out to watch the burning. Not sure what the statue was made of, but it was packed with firecrackers. Our camera takes crappy pictures in low light, so we don´t really have any good pics of the burning. In addition to the devil statue, they were also shooting off fireworks throughout the whole ordeal. And the whole thing took place in between two gas stations.
People were also supposed to burn their garbage in the street. We only saw one house doing it - apparently its somewhat frowned upon now. We heard that in Guatemala City, it used to cause enough pollution to create an acid rain cloud over the city (apparently old tires were a favorite choice for burning).
posted by Tanis & Casey at 4:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home