Celebrations!

I have officially been in Nicaragua for 2 months now.  Time has flown by and I only have 3 weeks left of training!  This past weekend was one for many celebrations: we found out our sites on Friday, which was also the fiesta de los aguizotes.  This is a night where people dress up like witches and scary people from the famous legends of Nicaragua.  It is similar to Halloween in the way that people wear scary costumes and roam the streets, but they don’t go trick-or-treating.  They form parades in the streets to show off their costumes and then buy various food and drinks to celebrate with others until the wee hours of the morning.  I went to see what this was all about and it was pretty interesting to see.  Most people wear black clothing and masks or paint their faces.  We went to a bar after because we wanted to go dancing.  There was karaoke there and I was really excited to begin my Nicaraguan karaoke career, but their binder of songs that contained so many English songs was a lie.  They actually did not have any English songs, so unfortunately I have to wait until I find another place, or I need to learn some Spanish songs :)

Saturday was the day that Nicaraguans celebrate Halloween, well some of them.  There were actually protestors in Managua on Friday holding signs against Halloween.  This was kind of odd considering they are okay with la fiesta de aguizotes, which is very similar to Halloween.

We went out again Saturday in Masaya and there were actually a lot of gringos at the club, which was pretty funny.  I now know how silly we appear to Nicas.  We had a good time though and danced a lot. 

Sunday was actually Halloween, and I believe there might have been parties somewhere in Masaya or Catarina, but two nights in a row of going out was more than enough.  I did celebrate by eating some chocolates at my house :)

This week I’ll be in Boaco visiting my site and I’m really excited to see everything!