If only this had happened to me when I was in the 7th grade. . .

I woke up on Monday morning in a one-room hut with a dirt floor. In the room with me were 7 other people--my friend Callie (co-library volunteer from Portland) and the family Tení Wue. We shared three beds, two twin beds and a double, between the eight of us. We awoke to tortillas made with fresh-ground maize and salsa, instant coffee with lots of sugar, and entertainment provided by the youngest daughter, Martita, age 3. Martita sat on my lap all the way through breakfast and spoke to me with much sincerity in Q éch-chi, and in turn I would look earnestly at her and reply in English, which made all of the other kids laugh as if I was Eddie Murphy.

How I ended up having a slumber party in a Mayan village is a sort of long and convoluted story, but it comes down to being friends with Callie and having been a summer camp counselor. Callie brought me to Semac for the first time about a month ago, (she is doing work there for a documentary film about the style of weaving the woman make) and I fell in love with the kids (5 of them--2 boys and 3 girls: Delia, Hilado, Nilsa, Jesus, and Martita) of the family Tení Wue.

This was our third trip to Semac, and we came armed with backpacks for the overnight stay, fruit to give as a gift to the family for hosting us, and cameras to take pictures of the weekend-long community festival, a mix of pagan and Catholic ritual--a room full of saints and offerings and candles, food offerings, and a masked dance. The dance is called the Katrina, after the name of the dueño´s wife. The dancers interact with the crowd in a circus-clown manner, and the crowd apparently does not tire of the game for the three days and nights. (All of this info is according to the Peace Corps volunteer there, Andrew.)

The family met us near the bus stop, all of the girls in their nicest traditional dress, hair freshly washed and combed, the boys with fresh hair cuts and straw cowboy hats.

There is no charge for any of the activity as far as I can tell, and the community offers you food (hunks of beef with a salty gravy made out of rice, and of course tortillas de maize and tamelitos), hot chocolate made with crushed cacao, coffee sweetened beyond recognition, and a liquor of some kind, also mixed with a sugar cane juice.

The interesting part came with the dancing. After most people had eaten, there was a men´s dance, a women´s dance, and then the partner dancing began. Only the adults partake in the dancing, and it seemed to me that more of the older people were dancing, so at first Callie and I watched and took some photos.

Eventually, a nice pharmacist from Coban asked me to dance. The music is marimba and the dance is very basic--not really salsa at all, just sort of hopping back-and-forth from foot-to-foot.

Callie also started dancing, and after the lengthy song came to an end, my partner just held on to me, as did hers, and suddenly we were in for another 6-8 minute song. All of the men in the room thought it was hilarious, especially a few of the older men who had been enjoying their fair share of the sugar cane liquor. Before we knew it, we were both dancing with new partners. Things started to feel a bit tense when my original pharmacist tried to re-claim me, so I decided to sit down with the girls from our host family before things got out of hand. But my partner at this point wouldn´t let go of me.

Andrew saw this all from across the room, and intervened, telling us that we didn´t have to dance with anyone if we didn´t want to. So we both extracted ourselves from our partners and sat down. But we couldn´t be in the room without a constant stream of invitations to dance. I felt like the luckiest girl at a 7th grade dance, but it quickly became clear that we were more of a disruption than anything, and Andrew and our host dad, Carlos Enrique, kept having to help us when certain men wouldn´t take no for an answer.

At this point we decided to leave, so Martita grabbed my hand and led the way out. We smiled and waved our good-byes, and followed our family back to our home for the night.

I know it sounds cliché but the hospitality of these people who have so little is overwhelming. They are so glad to welcome you into their world--I hope to someday return the favor, and to not forget their kindness and generosity when I return to the states and my old life takes over.