I know it has been a while and so much has happened since our trip. But the wonderful memories made in our trip are still to be preserved here, and so, I’ll keep chipping away!
In preparing for our trip, we had read a children’s adaptation of the Popol Vuh. The Popol Vuh is the recording of the mythology and history of one of the Mayan peoples, the K’iche. It was my understanding that there was a Popol Vuh museum in one of the Universities in the city. Once we got there, we quickly realized that although the name of the museum was Popol Vuh, it had nothing to do with the actual text. It was still an interesting visit and we got to see several mayan artifacts and learned a lot about some of the mayan civilizations in the Central American region.
After the museum we went to a shopping center while the time to gather for my Dad’ birthday celebration came. My dad had turned 80 in July and we had planned to celebrate and honor him during our visit. I had made a reservation at a restaurant.
When the time came and people began showing up at the restaurant, they had no record of our reservation. So the celebration time began with some tension trying to figure out how to accommodate our party at the already busy restaurant. We didn’t get the private space we had been looking forward to, but we still got to celebrate my dad. Very early on in our family life we adopted the practice we learned from Pastor Rick and Darlene Sinclair of sharing appreciations for the person we are celebrating. For those who may not know, this is simply taking time during the gathering to give each guest the opportunity to tell the person being celebrated one thing that they are appreciated for. This isn’t something that we had ever done in my family of origins, but most everyone took the time to write my dad a little something for him. Because my dad is deaf (he lost his hearing when he was 5 or 6 years old) I asked all the guests to please bring a written appreciation for my dad. My kids made cards for him, and I asked my brothers and mom to write something out as well. We had a very special time, honoring my dad!
Cousin Valerie and daughter Pia (Daughter to Dad’s youngest sister, Patty)
Cousin Ricardo (son to Dad’s Sister #3, Giselle)
My Benny
Benny, Elena, and Adriana (behind Elena) study the menu
One side of our table
Dad receiving one of his notes.
Next to Dad are cousin Ricardo and his wife, Regina. Standing behind them is cousin Jamie, she is daughter to dad’s youngest sister, Patty who is standing on dad’s other side.
The other side of our table, uncle Mynor (mom’s oldest brother) and his wife, Sonia. My brother Jon, and my mom, and Benny and Gelly at the end of the table.
What communication with dad looks like: finger spelling.
Dinner
Dad is child #4 out of 7 siblings. Neither of his oldest brothers (children #1 and #2) were able to join us that day. His sisters from left to right are: Anabella (child #5), Patricia (Patty, child #7), Maria Elena (Chata, child #3), and Giselle (child #6).
It was fun to see my dad laugh so hard with his sisters.
Aunt Anabella made his birthday cake and we sang for him at the restaurant.
What a joy and blessing it was to be able to celebrate my dad like that. After dropping him off back home, we headed to our house in Antigua.