Vamos a la Mini-Feria! Celebrating Independence Day at the Family Support Center

Text by Amy Scheuren
Photos by Marta Escobar

Thursday September 13th featured the 7th Annual Mini-Feria at the Family Support Center in Llanos del Pinal! It was a marvelous day full of music, dancing, a haunted house, games, and huge amounts of food.

Family Support Center staff, Pop Wuj staff, students, and volunteers, and the participants' mothers all contributed to make it a wonderful day for the children.  Every year the participants' mother prepare "fair food" including elotes locos (crazy corn on the cob).  The children played games, won prizes, and gobbled up the brightly colored cotton candy.

Family Support Center and Pop Wuj staff inaugurate the feria!

Carmencita preparing the prize table

Serving delicious fair food

Let the games begin!

Take Me to the Feria

Text by Elizabeth Barnes and photos by Lily Bodinson

Xela is covered in blue and white flags, streamers, and balloons this week for Día de Independencia on September 15. Parque Central is already hung with huge banners, stages are going up all over the city for concerts, and the streets will fill with parades and parties.

At Pop Wuj we're planning to explore Xela's annual feria as a group of students, teachers, and staff this evening. But the real party happened last week at our mini feria at the Family Support Center.

As always we started with a short civic ceremony. It is a historic holiday! The kids had prepared decorations for the stage featuring Guatemala's national flower (la monja blanca, or white nun), tree (the ceiba), and bird (the quetzal, of course!) as well as its flag and coat of arms. Our best performing students had the honor of carrying the flags of Guatemala and Xela to the front, which they executed with much gravitas to the traditional march "La Granadera."

Sixth grader Maria had the highest average at the FSC. We are so proud of her and of all our hard-working students! 

We followed with the national anthem and "Luna de Xelajú." (Carmen commented before the ceremony that a singer lamenting the beautiful woman who abandoned him is not the most appropriate subject, but hey, it's better than "That spells Dallas, where every home's a palace.")

The Guatemalan himno (national anthem) has a lot of words. We were impressed by the elite singers who knew all of them!

Carmen Rosa followed with a presentation about the significance of Independence Day in Llanos del Pinal, which the Spanish attacked en route to Xela in 1524, and we played a recording of a lovely poem about Santa Maria by a local writer.

Though well behaved, the kids had a hard time concentrating knowing that games awaited them outside.

Former Pop Wuj student Jeremy managed to pull himself up the backyard wall to hang our payaso (clown)...and then climbed up again to take the clown down when we realized it was going to rain! What a good sport.

At long last, Carmen unleashed the kids on the games. They tore out of the room so fast that they beat all the volunteers to their stations!

Wilson throws a beanbag through the clown's mouth as his peers queue behind him. Each game winner received a ticket that they could reimburse for a premio (prize) -- you could spot winners because they were sprinting back to the prize table inside!

Moms were welcome to play too! Surama owned bowling even with a baby on her back. Should've won double tickets.

Pop Wuj volunteers ran a beanbag toss through the clown face, a coin flipping game, foosball, bottle knockdown, and bowling, while Carmen presided over lotería (similar to bingo). In addition to games and prizes, we enjoyed traditional feria snacks and drinks prepared by FSC moms.

FSC moms gather around the food table to begin uncovering and distributing everything. We love getting to see FSC family members outside monthly FSC/scholarship meetings!

2-year-old Andrea had a blast at her first feria.

The last of us straggled out of the FSC at 7 p.m. after hours of festivities. Everyone had a blast, played dozens of games, won a ton of prizes, got messy, and wore ourselves out. Good thing we had the weekend to recover before Xela's official feria opened!

Ilcy is the most photogenic person ever to be born. Also, Lily is an unbelievable photographer.

 Many thanks to the Pop Wuj volunteers who staffed our games and to the moms who provided our wonderful food. ¡Feliz Día de Independencia a todos!

Did you know that Pop Wuj now has an Instragram, run by the same talented photographer who took the pictures for this post? Check us out @popwuj!

Mini-Fair in Llanos del Pinal

 Text and Photos by Albizael Del Valle

Last Friday on the eve of great celebration in Guatemala as the independence day approaches the Family Resource Center organized a "mini-feria" (mini-fair). Fairs are celebrated all over Guatemala during this season specially in Xela. However, there is not much celebrating going on in Llanos del Pinal where the center is located. This event was done by and for families and students who might not be able to attend or partake in the celebration of the upcoming week.

The event began with a civic act. The children with the highest grades carried both flags representing Quetzaltenango and Guatemala as they were escorted by eight other students also members of the honor roll. The Guatemalan national anthem and the unofficial anthem of Xela, "Luna de Xelaju" were sung by all in the room showing homage to their country and city. Carmen gave a few words on the history of Guatemala and a quick review on the past 194 years of Guatemala´s independence from Spain. She also reminded everyone their vision of not only empowering future professionals but also forming people who are good and responsible.

After Carmen left the stage the students were greeted by a familiar face, the famous Magician. The Magician astonished everyone in the room with his tricks and magic.

Then the fun continued...

 There were plenty of games to choose for both students and parents. Every winner had the opportunity to choose for themselves a prize. Not to mention the great food provided by the mothers of the community.

The Magician

Honor Roll Students 

One of the Games

Second Annual Mini Feria at the Family Support Center

As all of Guatemala began celebrating Independence Day, the children and youth at the Family Support Center celebrated with the Second Annual Independence Mini Feria!  On Friday September 13, 2013 staff, mothers, and volunteers chipped in to bring a day of fun, food, and games to Llanos del Pinal.  

Activities kicked off with various civic activities and recognition of the current group of honor roll students.  The children and youth learned about Guatemalan history, the Independence, recited the pledge, and sang the national hymn.

The Mini Feria commenced with games, food, and laughter.  The mothers prepared various snacks including enchiladas, french fries, snow cones, elotes locos (corn on the cob), fried hot dogs, and rellenitos.

A hotly-contested game of fusball between Anibal and Jonathan

Julio, enjoying his hot dog on a stick!

Fair games included bowling, a bean bag toss, a throwing game with a giant clown's mouth, lotería (bingo), and fussball.  The children were awarded prizes upon winning a game.

Ingrid and Brenda checking waiting anxiously to pick out their prizes

Lotería in action

Evelyn with her first prize and a handful of tickets!

Independence Day

September 15th is Guatemala’s Independence Day and the whole week leading up to the big day, the streets of Xela are filled with parades, music, food and an overwhelming number of people. One of the main attractions of Xela during this week is the Independence Fair, or “La Feria.” It is just like your average State Fair in the United States, complete with delicious smells wafting from the various stands selling fatty foods, screaming children, and the classic carnival games where you can win overly large stuffed animals.

Because the fair in Xela is such a big event, and because the kids of the Family Support Center (formerly the Guarderia) live so far away, we decided to recreate la Feria in Llanos de Pinal. We spent the week planning and preparing. A scavenger hunt through the city proved fruitful when we discovered a beanbag toss game buried under the odds and ends of a thrift-like tienda. Carmen splurged and bought a mini-foosball table that, although frustrating to put together, was a huge hit. We wanted to make the Feria feel like the real thing so our two Guatemalan secretarial interns crafted some tickets for food and games.

Thursday afternoon the whole Family Support Center staff helped set up la Feria. Balloons, a colorful umbrella displaying cotton candy, bright signs and all of the different game stations transformed the playground into a carnival. Some of the mothers cooked up some delicious treats to add to the festivities.

While we were setting up, the kids were inside learning more about the story behind Guatemala’s Independence from Carmen. The national anthem was played, and the older kids proudly displayed the flag of their country. Finally, the kids were allowed to rush outside to see all the games and treats we had prepared! Carmen led a hilarious game of Bingo, Amy manned a very popular game where each person was given two tennis balls to try and knock down a tower of old milk cartons. Foosball, of course was immediately taken over, and Ashley was bombarded with kids wanting to play coin toss. It was chaos! Screaming, laughing, smiling and joking sums up the atmosphere of the Center’s version of the Fair.

If you played a game you were pretty much guaranteed to win, and winning meant prizes! We had an assortment of yoyos (yoyitos), bouncy balls and candy. The moms even got into the activities and Doña Delfina wowed the crowd after knocking down the tower of milk cartons on her first try.

The fair was a complete success and it was so warming to see everyone getting along and having fun. Any worries or stresses evaporated and it was all fun and games (literally!). Days like these make it obvious why the Family Support Center is such a necessary and effective project. Any time we can find ways to bring a community and families together in a fun and active environment is an accomplishment.