Independence Day (Day 1) – The Parade

Guatemalan Independence Day is September 15, but most of the celebrating happens in the days prior to the 15th. Most of the celebrations revolve around young people and schools. While everyone partakes in the celebrations, it's really the schools that are the heart and soul of all of the major events. Working at a school, I got to be in the center of all of it! So much happened over these couple of days that I'm gonna give each day its own post!

Wednesday – The Parade

Wednesday's big event was the parade for Grades K-5. The theme for the parade was "a day of flowers", and our school really went all out! The day started very early as all the teachers gathered around 6:30 a.m. to decorate a flatbed truck with hundreds of live flowers (donated by the families of our school) and dozens of paper flowers made by our students. The truck is where our band would sit and play during the parade! Most of the students in the band showed up to help us decorate the truck as well!

Then it was off to the town's main soccer field where all of the elementary schools in the area gathered to start the parade. There were a ton of people! We were all dressed in traditional Mayan clothing, and David (in the middle) managed to track down a shirt and hat for me to wear!

The kiddos were all decked out in their traditional clothing and flowers, and the truck looked amazing. We were easily the most flowery group of the day, especially with 50+ kids leading the charge in front of our band on the truck!

It seemed like the whole town lined the street to watch the parade! It was amazing just how many people came out to watch. My job was to work with David to make sure that the generator we placed in a Tuc Tuc behind the truck was always connected to the truck and the band. With all the starting and stopping, it was actually a lot harder than I thought it was going to be! Luckily we had power the whole time and the cord never got run over by the truck or Tuc Tuc, great work David!

All in all, the parade was a ton of fun. There would be another parade on Thursday and Friday, for the middle schoolers and high schoolers respectively. But our school had much bigger (and crazier) things to attend to!