Celebration

This week began the celebration of the city of Boaco’s 116th anniversary. We had an assembly at the school and the students gave the teachers gifts that were from Boaco—t-shirts, hats, bags, mugs with Boaco things on them. I need to find out where I can get my hands on some of these items because they were pretty neat :)

The town has been pretty alegre (happy) with all of the celebrations going on—there’s a fair in the central park, rides in the field by the Instituto and concerts and dance performances in the park. There wasn’t school yesterday because of the anniversary celebration so I went with Hazzell and her friends to the aguas termales (hot springs pools). It was pretty fun, even though I was hanging out with a bunch of high schoolers haha After we got back I did a little English tutoring and then I went to a dance performance in the park with Jasser and one of his friends where they had a folklore dance group from Managua.

Then there was also a concert in the park. It got pretty crazy as they started throwing people up into the air and some people jumped off the speakers into the crowd. We stayed further back in the crowd.

It was all fun, but it was a little weird because nobody was dancing. I was tapping my feet and swaying a little to the music and then I looked around and everybody was standing completely still—some were singing along. It was so weird because it was music with a good beat and they liked the music, but apparently Nicas don’t dance at concerts, only in clubs? I started dancing a little and trying to get Jasser to dance too, but he was too embarrassed haha Oh well.

Saturday night we went to the carnival games. I was a little hesitant to get on the rides, but watched others for awhile. I did join Jasser and his friends on some rides, but it was so funny. Like many things in Nicaragua, it was very unorganized. They did have tickets to buy and use on the rides, but the rides didn’t have lines. There weren’t bars or gates holding people back from the rides so when the ride stopped, the people ran to find an open seat or push the other people off who had just ridden. It was crazy! Walt Disney would have had a fit!

I did enjoy some of the rides, although the bumper cars were pretty jerky and didn’t have seatbelts. There was a ride that I refused to go on, but many people, beyond their better judgment, decided to ride. It was one of those big bowl type things that people sit on the edge and hold on the bars as it spins and the centrifugal force is supposed to hold you to the sides, you know without seatbelts or bars or anything in front of you. Well, the thing spins, and then bounces, so the people did their best to hold on as their legs were flailing about and their bodies bounced up and down on the hard plastic seats. Oh, and here’s what you were waiting for, some people actually lost their grips in all of this and fell off the seats into the middle as the ride continued. But no, they didn’t stop the ride; they just watched the people struggle to climb back to the seat or fall more toward the middle and fall victim to the laughter by the onlookers. I kinda felt sorry for them, but did they really not see that coming? Later on in the evening, Jasser and two of his friends decided to take on the challenge of the ride. Jasser and one of his friends slide of their seats and they had a chain holding onto others’ legs to keep them from sliding into the middle. They eventually got back to their seats without too much injury. Every person I saw exiting that ride was examining their arms, legs, and neck to check for bruises and pain. Hmmm…really, people?! Needless to say, I did NOT go on this ride. Here are some pictures of what we did do though:

This is the same ride as the last picture, we're just upside down and spinning backwards...felt dizzy after this one!

The smell of horse droppings lingered through the air Sunday morning as the horses filed into the streets for the hίpico, which is a parade of horses which ends in the central park where there’s a big celebration. It felt like a rodeo and the seeing all the cowboys and cowgirls got me excited a little jealous that I didn’t have boots, a hat, and belt buckle to show off. Jasser informed me that the celebration in July is bigger and I can wear my cowgirl getup then :) I’m looking forward to that!

The Boaqueños lived up to the Nicaraguan standard of tardiness as we sweated in the heat of the day waiting for the parade to get organized. After waiting around for a couple of hours and watching the disorganization, I realized it was just a bunch of people on horses drinking beer so it wasn’t all that exciting anymore. We did go up to the park and hang out for awhile and take pictures and danced a little, but apparently if you dance in the street people think you’re drunk…I thought it was a big fiesta, go figure. We went to a place later to go dancing, but I came back early because I had to be at the Instituto this morning at 7am. It was so nice when I got home because we live just far enough away from the fiestas that it was quiet. However, at 11:30pm I awoke to loud, live music. What?! I got up and looked outside and there was a band playing on the porch of our neighbors house. Are you kidding me? They decided to start at 11:30pm? Fortunately, it didn’t go past midnight, but still…

All in all, the anniversary celebration was pretty fun and I enjoyed celebrating with Jasser and his friends and experiencing it all.