Christmas is over, but the return to normality is a slow and evolving process.

The college students and visitors are gradually departing for their normal residences. The engineering student left for Barranquilla, but returned for another short visit to sort out a draft notice for the armed services. Colombia has a deferment program for full time students. A number of sisters of Manuel and Rosa are still here (January 8) but are planning their departure. Primary and secondary school students don’t return to classes until early February, but two girls are likely to be departing this weekend for their residence in Barranquilla. The composition of the household is always changing, and in fact two other nearby households are full of relatives as well.

For the families living in apartments in Barranquilla and Santa Marta, this town, with three houses provides enough space for a big family reunion. Being with family is very important here. Some are ready to go back to their familiar and more urban homes, but it’s a process.

The departure of the woman that was working in the household and perhaps a shortage of funds to replace her have left Rosa with mountains of cooking and cleaning.  Others pitch in, but it is complicate to have a lot of cooks in a small kitchen cooking for as many as 15 people. Food moves through from purchase to plate in a matter of hours. Anything readily eaten in the house is likely to be consumed before the next morning.

Manuel has had some extra time during the holiday. He’s not given to sitting around, and has been running from one project to another, to singing, to fixing wiring, to dreaming up crazy projects and haranguing his kids. I help with the projects, trying to add my bit of Yankee ingenuity. Many projects have to be redone multiple times when the they aren't done right the first time. 

Here are a few things we did for Christmas:

1) Novena - I posted a blog about it. For nine nights the house hosted about 40 kids through a traditional program of prayer, singing and gifts.

2) Decorations - Rosa is made a lot of holiday decorations. She built a chimney / brick fireplace out of styrofoam, Manuel bought an artificial tree that she decorated. She also built a manger scene in front of the tree. There are flashing LED lights all over.

3) Alvaro re-painted much of the trim on the house too. Leading up to Christmas a lot of families repaint their houses. It’s not a ritual that would work in the frozen northern woods of Maine, but temperatures hit low 90’s every day year round.  Daily predicted highs this week range from 91 to 94 degrees and lows will range from 75 to 77 degrees. That is range I’ve had for more than 2 months.

3) Cooking for Christmas Eve - It's not hard to buy butchered meat here (kind of meat on a hook sales that don't appeal to me at all), but Manuel likes to do it at home. He brought home three turkeys, wrung their necks, boiled them long enough to remove the feathers. Alvaro gutted them and cut them to pieces. I mostly peeled potatoes. Manuel likes to cook and spent a lot of time chopping vegetables. Rosa made the mashed potatoes and boiled the turkey (the little electric oven isn't big enough).

4) Night before Christmas - In Caribe fashion the night before Christmas is an occasion for ear-splitting loud music, firecrackers and drinking. The drinking here is actually pretty moderate. Like Ecuador, a lot is the result of one person's bottle of rum or whiskey being served in small amounts to visitors. This tends to regulate how much people drink. I've only seen a few men, all strangers, that were passed-out drunk. Almost nobody smokes, which is great. The young men set off all kinds of fireworks in the middle of the street, creating difficulties for drivers, but all taken in stride. Most of the fireworks are fairly mild cones, sparklers and bottle rockets. A few are incredibly loud and probably very dangerous.

We put on our best clothes (I wore by long sleeve shirt for the second time) and walked four blocks to the center of town. The church was doing a version of the Novena, but acting out the birth of Jesus. The park was absolutely jammed with people all walking around, greeting, showing off their good clothes, eating ice cream and drinking beer. The park had a small merry-go-round in the center for little children. We bought ice cream cones and walked back home. I walked back again later when I couldn't take the volume of music in the house. It was quieter by then, but still pretty busy. 

We had dinner sometime around 11:00 PM. A number of guests were invited and some of the kids ate after the guests and adults. I sat with several sisters, families and guests. The living room was filled with portable tables to seat about 20 people. They put on table cloths and decorations. The meal was turkey, mashed potatoes, rice and salad. They don't have a tradition of deserts after meals here. I’ve tried a couple of times to tempt them with desert, without much response.

After dinner the adults settled in plastic chairs in front of the house with loud music and whiskey. I did some writing, wrapped all my presents in newspaper and spent a little time with the loud music. I played the CD of Flash in the Pans. Even though the music is not familiar here, I saw many people dancing down the street as the passed our house. It is very danceable music and the CD comes across well on the big PA system. I demonstrated a bit of pan-dancing too. Nobody attempted to dance with me, though they did dance a little to their mix of holiday music and singly popular Vallenato. Here are a few Youtube links to Vallenatos performed in Aracataca:

• El motel - Grupo Vallenato Unimag
• Alonso Gonzalez Abad Primer Festival De Música Vallenata (Leyenda Macondiana) Aracataca 100 Años
• Diomedes Diaz Volver A Vivir Aracataca 2012 (music starts after 1.5 minutes of introduction)

At about 1:00 AM I announced that I was going to bed and Manuel said we had to open presents first. Some families wait until Christmas day to open presents, but that is tricky since many adults stay up with music, conversation and drinking until dawn. About the time the kids get up the adults are heading to bed.

I was given a traditional flute called a Gaita, a bag of peanuts, coffee candies and two joke-plastic toys. I gave tools to the men and boys, soccer balls to the youngest boy, the ukulele to Caroline and some silly stuff like toilet brushes and pot lifters to Rosa. I guess my best gift to her was fixing the blender. They make a lot of fruit drinks and the motor on the blender was falling apart. 

I slept from 1:30 to 7:30.I think the adults went to sleep about 5:30 AM.

Christmas day was actually a non-event. Many of the adults slept until early afternoon. I gave Sergio his gifts since he fell asleep earlier in the evening. I took a few nice if hot bike rides. I think some of the women visited family grave sites at the cemetery.

It was a quiet day. Many of the stores were closed. In the evening there was more whiskey and music, but it was a lot quieter. I sat with the men for a while and worked on the kids continually broken bicycles. I bought a bunch of replacement parts since neither bike had working brakes and the one with a gear shift would not shift gears. Both are working now, but the quality is such that repairs are ongoing.

The decorations remained in the house until January 6, which is the traditional day of “Los Reyes Magos” or the three wise men. All the decorations came down and most were stored in a big cardboard box for next year.