Background: Victor has completed approximately 95% of a law degree which means that in Guatemala he can legally marry someone, just having the signature of a fully qualified lawyer along with his. Thus, many months ago, two of our friends asked Victor to marry them. He said yes. What a great privilege.
Fast forward to about two weeks ago. Victor has the busiest two weeks of the school year so far. His mother-in-law is also staying at our house and his son turns one. We throw a party for about 100 people. So far he still hasn´t managed to get much done on the wedding. Somehow, in the middle of all this he writes up the legal documents, organizes for a lawyer to sign for him and sends the documents to the couple for their approval.
Everything was ready to go for the wedding on Saturday.
Friday evening: Sebastián and I go to the pediatrician. He is diagnosed with a yeast infection on his bottom, ring-worm on his legs and parasites in his tummy. He is still in good spirits though. We meet Victor after work for dinner. Victor is wearing his only current functioning suit. He has managed to keep it clean throughout the week to be able to wear it to the wedding tomorrow.
Sebastián drops his dinner all over Victor´s suit.
We go home. Victor finds his other which has a large split in the crotch. I sew up the crotch.
I remember that I lent most of my dresses to my sister-in-law. Decide to drop round to get them tomorrow in the morning.
We head to bed.
Saturday:
6:15am. Sebastián wakes. I consider taking the sunrise photo, but we will be ‘all dressed up’ later in the evening.
7am. Victor’s alarm starts going off.
7:20ish. We go in to jump on Victor.
7:40am. We eat pancakes.
8:40am. Victor takes one of our cars to get fixed and then heads to his English class. I hang out with Sebastián. We go for a walk. I twist my ankle. It seems okay. I keep walking. We return home and Sebastián has a sleep. I shower and iron Victor´s shirt and newly darned pants. I make myself a cup of tea and sit down to relax a bit. Immediately Sebastián awakes. We go outside and play with water and balls and the pool in the garden. My ankle is hurting. I forget to pick up my dresses.
12:10pm. Sebastián has lunch. He rejects the chilli-beans and rice and ham and cheese sandwich that I make him. He accepts stewed apple that his Grandma had made him. I feel sad thinking that we are eating up one of the last visible evidences that she was here.
12:40pm. I remember about the dresses. I ring my brother-in-law. He says that I can go to their house to pick up the dresses.
12:42pm. Victor calls and says he is ready to get picked up. The dresses will have to wait. I quickly dress Sebas and we head out the door. We drive to pick Victor up and I try to make sure Sebas stays awake. I give him a car toy and then some books to read. We converse about the bath and the boat.
1:15pm. We pick up Victor. Sebas is still awake. I jump in the back beside him and continue my conversation with him, this time about the cat and the mouse in a new book.
1:22pm. Sebas looks at me and coughs. I have time to briefly note that he spat in my face when he coughed when all of a sudden a huge amount of vomit projects towards me. Sebastián, his carseat and I are all covered in half-digested food. We get to see Grandma’s stewed apple again. We stop the car, take Sebas’ clothes off, clean up what we can with nappy wipes and head off again.
1:35pm. We reach the mechanic´s and pick up the car. I put some clothes on Sebastián. Victor takes off his t-shirt to give me and I find a skirt to change into (consider ‘cross-dressing´ themed photo but decide that for the skirt it may not be accepted). We put Sebastián into the clean car-seat in the newly picked-up car and head home.
2pm. Back at home. Sebas goes to bed again. Victor says that he needs to leave at 3. He washes the tie he wants to use and hangs it on the line. He gets on the computer to print out the legal documents. He discovers that the lawyer has sent him a whole new format that he has to use. He starts re-writing the document. I shower again to wash off vomit.
2:30pm. Victor is still working on the computer. I decide I probably won’t have time to retrieve my dresses. I consider my options. Discover a blue dress. It smells quite musty. Decide to douse it in perfume. I go to offer my help to Victor. He is not sure how I can help him. I decide to make him lunch.
2:40pm. I iron Victor´s tie while lunch is heating. It appears to be falling apart. I take chilli-beans and rice up to Victor. I try to discuss tie options but he appears to be preoccupied with his documents. I put three different options with his shirt. None of them look very good. Victor tells me that he is not hungry. I feel slightly rejected about my chilli-beans as no one has wanted to eat them today. I eat chilli-beans and feel slightly less despondent.
2:50pm. I start organizing the nappy bag.
3:05pm. Victor seems to have finished the documents. He finally thinks of something helpful I can do. I print out a page from the computer. Victor is shaving. I show him the page. Victor praises me. I feel happy.
3:10pm. Sebastián wakes up. He points desperately at the ‘breast-feeding chair’. He has a feed.
3:15pm. Victor hops in the shower.
3:20pm-3:35pm. We are blurs running around the house getting dressed, changing ties, loosing socks, printing documents, packing bags etc.
3:40pm. We leave the house.
3:45pm. The wedding officially begins. We are 20mins away still.
3:55pm. Petrol gage is low. Victor decides that he doesn’t want the car to run out of petrol on the way. We stop at a petrol station.
4pm. I feel tense. Victor seems okay. I remind myself that every other time I have felt tense about being late in Guatemala, it has worked out and we haven’t missed anything.
4:05pm. Bride still hasn’t called. Maybe she isn’t there yet. Victor still calm.
4:10pm. Realise that we have taken a wrong turn. Victor turns the car around. We stop to ask for directions. They point us back in the way we have just come from. Decide to ignore directions given by locals. Victor starts to seem a bit tense. His driving gets a bit crazier. Start to hear small whimpers from the back.
4:12pm. Hear louder whimper from back. Turn around in time to see Sebastián start to vomit again. Throw all make-up onto floor and dive into back of car. Remove vomiting child from his seat and briefly look out window, noticing a sign for the wedding venue as we drive past. Victor turns around.
4:15pm. Arrive at venue.
4:16pm. Bride calls. The wedding is about to start. Victor goes ahead. I change Sebastián and then we head to the wedding too.
4:40pm. Victor does his first (and quite possibly only he tells me afterwards) marriage.
10:50pm. Home again. Sebastián in bed. Victor watching T.V. Me on the computer. Two friends married. Two smelly car seats waiting to be washed.
