mis mañanitas

so it was my birthday on friday, the 2nd. i awoke at 6 am to the sound of firecrakers and laughing, and then ¨las mañanitas¨ (the original spanish version of happy birthday to you.) i sprang from my bed, camera in hand to see all my friends from the office though a haze of smoke singing to me. i got my seranata. i had been bugging milo about it for about a month since he plays guitar. he was there along with sindy, lesly, edwin, elizabeth, che, luis, manuel and emanual. they brought me tamalitos de loroco and hot chocolate. usually the person who recieves the seranata gives the food, but they knew better and brought the food with them. we spent the early morning eating and singing. it was awesome. then everyone took off for work. i got ready and headed to the office. i got lots of phone calls (thanks everyone!!) including one from juan josé and jimmy, the vaqueros i met at the san luis ferria. dave rolled into town in the afternoon around 3. we ended up going out to dinner and later to a friend´s bar. the evening was winding down so we decided to head home. but as we were passing the muni gym, we noticed that there was some sort of activity going on. public junior high school rhythmic gymnastics competition, Q5. done and done. the place was packed, standing room only. and the groups were not so good. they had fancy outfits and loud techno music but not much in the way of choreography. needless to say dave and i enjoyed ourselves. we headed home, poured some glasses of amarula and watched episodes of the family guy. saturday i woke up with a hangover. but luckily i didn´t have anything to do but eat the pancakes dave made and watch more episodes of the family guy. as the day wore on i started feeling better and getting the house ready for the party at 5. i had invited about 30 or so people to the house - kids from the office, neighbors, teachers. a had a couple ladies making tamalitos de frijol and loroco and some empanadas. mirna and carolyn came from san luis. it was a really nice evening. lots of people came and ate and gave me little gifts of cheesey guatemala recuerdos like statues of tikal and wooden key ring holders. people came and went, and ceci and nidia brought me a cake. as the night wore on we started to get ancy because the brazilian fly boys had rescheduled for saturday nite and we decided to go. so we packed up the leftover food, reapplied lipstick and headed out to the gym. we arrived around 8 but unfortunately the group had already performed and left by the time we got there. but we still enjoyed the baile. i mean i was working it out pretty hard on the dance floor and guys started taking pictures of me and probably saying inappropiate things. we ended the nite with more amarula and episodes of the family guy. my 3 pc friends headed home this morning and i feel like this birthday weekend lasted a month it was so packed. on the way to the internet just now, one of my 5th grade students who had been at the gym for the dance, stopped me on the street. ¨usted le gusta bailar.¨ ¨si, me gusta mucho¨ ¨baile bonito¨ ¨aye, gracias.¨ i can´t wait for the independence day dance on the 15th. ipala ain´t seen nothing yet.