Waiting for Tatucahue

It´s been a long week. Very long. ADISO, the NGO I work for, had the oportunity to host a special cultural event here in Ipala. The Municipalidad de San Luis Jilotepeque (about 20 minutes away) invited a Balet Folklórico from Chiapas, México to present their traditional dance for the town fair. Christina, the Méxican slut I mentioned in a previous posting, is some sort of culture liason or something and was organizing the event. I´m not exactly sure who she works for. She suggested to us that we take advantage that the group was already going to be here and have them come to Ipala. We would just have to pick up the tab for hotel and food, but transporte and all that would be handled by San Luis. It sounded great. What a neat oportunity. So we solicited funds from local business for the group´s room and board, we reserved the muni gym, and hotel and sound equipment, started a publicity campaign and sold tickets in the high schools. But because this is Guatemala, and nothing is easy, there were a few imprevistas. It went something like this: We thought they were leaving Chiapas on Tuesday, but they thought they we supposed to leave on Wednesday. Okay no problem, they can still make it a tiempo. Wednesday morning we get a call, there was a problem with the bus in that it never showed up. They can´t leave until 4 pm. Okay well that´s a problem. So after massive scrambling, we decide that we can change the date to Friday. I spent the whole afternoon going to the radio station, the public announcement guy, 3 high schools, a grade school and about 10 businesses telling them of the postponement. Okay no problem. Even better in the long run to have the event Friday nite. Thursday morning, I come to the office. They´re not coming. San Luis cut them from the program and we don´t have the money to pay the transportation. Now what do we do. The food has been made to sell at the event, we´ve already spent some of the money from the pre-event sales on stuff like certificates of recognition and taxi rides. So Christina gets on the phone to La Casa de la Cultura in Chiapas to see what can be done. Appearently there´s the possibility to bring a different folk ballet company. I wonder just how many folk ballet troupes there are in Chiapas. Anyway we spend the day waiting. We had a meeting in the evening (I´ve had meetings until about 10pm every nite this week, including through rainstorms and power outtages) and decide to cancel the event, return the money we´d collected, and cut our losses. Then Christina swoops in saying that she can bring the other group, a mayor of another town will pay for the transportation and we can still come out on top. The only thing is they can´t come until Saturday. So we scramble around trying to find sound and lights and see if the gym is already reserved. The gym was reserved by the Colegio Católico because they are in their anniversary celebration week, but it didn´t look like they were actually going to need it. So we decided to go ahead with the event, changing the date to Saturday. When I got to the office Friday morning, we hit another bump in the road. Thrusday nite the colegio católico had their own velada planned. They had invited a group Porto Barillo (or something like that) to come to Ipala. I´d never heard of them before but they dance on aGuatemalan variety show called Buena Honda (Good Vibe) - think male Brasilian Fly Girls. Anyway, the big hub-bub this morning was that they never showed up. And the gente is pissed. Appearently they didn´t make the announcement until about 11pm when the crowd was already drunk and rowdy. And the tickets cost Q40 and Q60, that´s lot of money. We´re charging Q5 and Q10. Anyway the Catholic School was trying to reschedule them for the weekend, possibly Saturday nite, making our event impossible for two reasons: one, there is no other venue for holding large events, and two, which event is the gente going to go see - the Brasilian Fly Girls (for which many have already payed Q60) our our Mexican Folk Ballet? You do the math. So after much hesitation and deliberation and indecisiveness on the part of my co-workers we decide to cancel, or postpone rather with the possibility of having the ballet come in Sept. I´m not holding my breath. But everyone in the town is talking about how mentirosa the organizations are here. We had planned to give the money back, but since it´s postponed, I´m not sure what´s going to happen. So cut to about 3:00 pm in the afternoon. It seems somebody forgot to tell the marimba group that the event was cancelled and they´re en camino for Ipala. Shit. So at the last minute we decide to have a Noche de Marimba, free to the public and sell all the food and drinks we had pre-ordered for the event. It wasn´t a complete disaster. We sold about Q500 worth of food and drinks (mostly to ADISO employees and family members) and a little ADISO merchandise. The marimba group is actually really good and I don´t even like marimba. I guess about 120 people came, not so bad, the but muni gym is pretty big so it looked kind of pathetic. Anyway I was serving tostadas and panes con picado until about 11pm last nite. But the evening wrapped up nicely and the kids from the office and I spent about an hour back at ADISO bullshitting and joking after we were done. And then got a sweet ride home with Edwin on his moto; he´s the accountant that took Lesly´s place. He´s a nice guy. He wears a lot of Abercrombie and has a flashy cell phone (and did I mention has his own moto?) Unfortunately I don´t think we have a future together because a) he has a girlfriend, b) he´s evangélico, and c) most importantly, he´s Guatemalan. But he can give me lifts on his moto anytime.