Parade Day in Itzapa…TAKE 2

Sooooooooooo again, no school last Tuesday. Who’s surprised? Instead, all of the schools in the area gathered in Itzapa for a HUGE parade through the streets. This time the teachers were NOT in charge of separating bands – HOORAY! Our only job for the day was the walk in the parade with our schools and make sure the kids stayed in straight lines. After the boredom Sam and I had suffered the day before, I decided this would be a fun activity to bring my camera to to take some sweet pictures of ALLLLLLLLLLthe kids in our school in their adorable uniforms :).

I lugged around my heavy camera and got some awesome shots of the kids…but the parade was good for more than just that. Because the parade was to celebrate Guatemala’s independence, EVERYONE from Itzapa was out in the streets, and almost all of them wore their traditional “traje” that is, the traditional dress of the Mayan people of Guatemala.

Guatemala is an extremely unique country and culture in that it is made up of many indigenous groups. Guatemala consists of 23 different Mayan cultures, each with their own language, traditional foods, and trajes, traditional dress. Simply based on what kind of traje someone is wearing, you can immediately know the region of Guatemala that they are originally from and what their native language is – all pretty awesome.

Anyway! While I was there mostly to take pictures of the kids, I also used my position in the middle of a parade to my advantage to take LOTS of pictures of indigenous people wearing their traditional traje. At first I was really hesitant – many Guatemalans do not want their picture to be taken because they fear it is bad luck, but also because they fear you will sell their images for money…most likely very true of a lot of people with big cameras like mine… Regardless, after a while I warmed up to the idea and started asking locals if I could take their picture. I spoke to a lot of different people and so many of them were so excited to have their picture taken! I was really surprised and really pleased :). Anyhoo, the following are some of my favorite pictures I took on the day (there are a lot more that I will try to post when I have better internet...) – I hope you enjoy them!