Playing catch up

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I devoted my weekend to being a good granddaughter to my grandparents. I thought the days spent with @lonniedi were crazy busy but this past weekend was insane. My grandparents were hosting a traditional su kwan ceremony and I had offered to help out with the preparations. I’ll get into the details about the meaning behind this ceremony in a different post but the general idea is to wish good fortune and good health.

My grandparents are both at the age where they’ve realized that their time is limited and they wanted to make preparations for the afterlife. Hosting a ceremony like this also gives them the opportunity to be surrounded by all their loved ones, which is wonderful because being the center of attention is my grandmother’s favorite. It was a two day event with monks, prayer, a large spread of homemade food and a late night party outdoors in the yard.  

_{ceremonial prep for the su kwan.}

I had packed my work stuff so I could blog on downtime but there was no sneaking away when grandma’s in charge. I woke up late on Saturday morning, my alarmed was accidentally set for the evening...oops. I called my mother to see what the plan was since I was never given a time frame and was only told to get to my grandparents home in the morning. I ended up getting scolded by my mother, she got up around 3AM to cook at home and was exhausted, crabby and ready to unleash her wrath onto my poor soul.

I quickly threw some clothes together, washed my face and arrived to my grandmother’s home around 9:30AM. There was one other person helping her in the kitchen, my cousin’s half sister who’s from El Salvador. There was somewhat of a language barrier since they both spoke little English but they still got a lot accomplished. I felt a little guilty hearing that my grandma was also up around 3AM and my cousin who was up around 7AM. I got right to work and told them both to take it easy.  

_{My uncle doing some outdoor prep with my grandpa keeping a close watch.}

With my arrival, my grandmother was now at ease. She layed out a long list of details tasks for me and I was in charge of translating her words into English for my cousin. I’m not that fluent in my native tongue but I can understand a good amount of it. I did accidentally burn something, rookie mistake and my grandmother would not let it slide. I still laugh, thinking about her scolding me. She’d ask me to do something, reminding me that I still needed to keep an eye on the food since I let something burn. I’d reply with a quick “Okay” and she’d mutter something along the lines of “Okay? All you say is ‘okay’ and then you burn the rice.” _{😆Sorry, grandma! I love you!}

I was up running around, cooking, cleaning and helping out whenever I was called. Throughout the days festivities, I’d attempt to snatch a younger family member to help me out but they’d always sneak away. My day ended around 1AM and I decided that driving home wasn’t worth it. I crashed downstairs with 7 other family members and settling down to rest by 2AM. Around 3AM my brother accidentally woke me up and by 5AM my grandmother was already calling me to wake up to begin the day. The festivities finally came to a close that Sunday. Guests started to leave around 1PM but some family members still stuck around to hang out. I was dying of exhaustion so I quickly said my goodbyes and returned home to my own bed.  

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_{I’ve been catching up on sleep ever since....and that’s what I’ve been up to these last few days.}  

Thanks for reading! 🦊