…how to be a good Godparent Part 2

I wake on the morning of the baptism. I am not well, in fact I’m rather sick. I lay for what seems ages before I realise I am actually going to be sick and then I am.

Damn, that’s 3 times I’ve been sick on a Saturday. I lie there. Hell, I think this is all I need.

I can think of few occasions in my life where I’ve been so integral to proceedings that my absence would render them obsolete. The baptism is at 4pm, my call time is 11am to help with preparations. It’s now 7am in the morning and as the hours pass I pray to feel better.

It’s now 10am and I’ve still to find something to wear, buy and present and write a speech.

12.30pm I can’t eat but I’ve managed to iron my trousers with something from the stone age, find a toy that has some educational value and will not (hopefully) fall apart with 3 seconds of my Godson opening it. I have written a speech and have memorised it. I think.

The hours that follow are passed arranging flowers, folding hundreds of serviettes and arranging them in spirals, wrapping cutlery, changing children and then changing them again. It is a full time job trying to keep children clean.

Everyone climbs in the family’s taxi. My Godson’s grandmother is squashed with two other people in the front seat of the cab. We arrive and roll out, I am worried we are late but in fact we are not by any means the last ones to arrive.

The ceremony passes without too many tantrums. The church is full of children ready to be baptised, the boys dressed in miniature sailor suits and the girls in pretty white dresses and headbands.

But such a tiny part of the day is actually the baptism, what seems the most significant part is what happens after. The music, the food, the drinking.

The party officially starts at 5.30pm. Our second guests, other than close family, arrive at 9pm. By this time I have been distinctly envolucrada in Ecuadorian drinking (see post – xth Feb!). The party continues past 12pm, whereby my friend Emily, also invited, makes her polite exit. I am God mother I cannot make a polite exit. I am there till the last. I’m learning to get better at saying ‘No’! You have to tip the glass of Pilsener beer (that’s all there is to drink) to your lips take a sip, says ‘Salud’ and return it. If you play the game carefully, no one can understand why 9 hours later you’re still standing. When it becomes obvious at 2am that I am struggling but clearly not as drunk as my co-madre (the mother of my Godchild), then attention is concentrated on making her fall first.

At 3.30am after the 3^rd beer run of the night for 2 more crates of 12 large bottles of beer, the small group of remaining family members start dancing raegatton and I am sure the end is in sight. I am gobsmacked when I notice 2 more crates turning up. How can any more beer possibly be consumed, faster than the crates before and with less people. Beer is being poured like it is water.

At 4.30am when my co-madre is no longer able to walk, it’s accepted that I am allowed to go to bed. The party continues below me. I shower and crawl into bed. Even though I have no chance of sleeping I can at least rest.

The party continues till 7am, a small hardy group of male family members strumming at a guitar and singing in dulcet tones.

I sleep till 8.30 and descend the stairs.

My Godson is the only one there to greet me. And he sits there merrily in his now less than white sailor suit amongst the debris from the night before. And I think, I'm not sure about this Godparent thing as I change him into shorts and T-shirt and start removing armies of ants from the leftovers.