Fiesta Time!

The festivities are over...for now. September 14th and 15th are the two biggest holidays of the year. The first one is the anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto in 1865 when US invader William Walker was defeated. The 15th celebrate the independence of Central America from Spain. I'm SUPER-pumped I'll get to be here for this celebration three times (once during training, once yesterday, and once more next year)! The music is great (because they've been cutting so much class in order to practice). There's no school. There are parades and parties and just general alegria (happiness).

So, what did the two day celebration entail? The teachers had told me everyone was meeting at school at 7 on Tuesday morning and then we'd parade to the barrera (bull-riding ring) with the band and the dancers. All the other schools in town would be doing the same thing. Since they said 7AM, I was walking out my front door at 7:35. My jaw dropped when I saw that the band was already leaving the school. That means people were there on time. Excuse me?! I thought. AM I still in Nicaragua?

The sun answered me with a resounding YES YOU ARE! It took us the better part of an hour to walk to the ring. Normally it takes 25 minutes. I was all kinds of sweaty;my new official teacher polo (with my name embroidered on it!) was a different shade of blue than when I put it on. I looked around me...of course, no one else was sweating. I know I didn't grow up here, but I've been here for a year. WHEN ARE MY SWEAT GLANDS GOING TO ADJUST?!

We arrived at the ring and processed in. It was hot. There were masses of people. The dancers and bands stayed in the sweltering sun in the middle of the ring; the non-performing students and teachers fled to the shade of the bleachers. I walked around in the ring taking pictures like I was getting paid to. I felt really bad for the kids. They were sweating bullets and getting sun burnt (no one ever has sun screen). Oddly enough, they didn't seem to mind too much. The head of education in our area gave a speech, the national anthem was sung (yes, I DO know the words thank you), awards were given out for the best student in each subject area, the bands played a little...and then we headed out for the real parade. Great idea. Let's march from one end of town to the other (normally a 35 minute walk but took us 2-2.5 hours) in the mid-day sun.

I had a GREAT time. I walked next to my big school's (Jose Santos Zelaya, the first video) drum section almost the entire time. That school's band is the best because it's the biggest. I would say because they practice all the time, but so do all the other schools. It's simply because it has the most people. Smaller schools have good ones too though. In the second video is the band from my small school (Miguel Lareynaga). (Also in that video is a man with a killer mustache in a black shirt...that's the school's assistant principal.)

By the time we got to the other end of town everyone was sweating. And then the rain came down. For a second I thought maybe everyone would break formation and run for cover, but they didn't. They kept right on playing and dancing and marching. Nice. Each band did a short presentation and then went home.

Yesterday the celebration wasn't quite as intense. In the morning there was an hour long assembly with all the kids in their school uniforms standing in the sun while the declaration of independence was read and the national anthem was sung. Then in the evening there was a presentation by the band, which was pretty awesome. There are more pics if you click on the link "Fiesta Time" under the links. I was the paparazzi.