The Fiesta

Hi everyone! This past week has been by far the most entertaining one I have had while in Nicaragua (not that I have been here for that long). Last weekend my town of Santa Teresa had a "fiesta patronales" which is a big Catholic festival which included a rodeo, beauty pagent, horse parade, and 4 am Meriachi band wake up call.

Everyone in town has been talking about this fiesta since my arrival. It is one of two very large events Santa Teresa holds every year and the people of this town are very proud of it. It started off Thursday night with a performance of native dances. I liked the Carribean dances the best because there were basically a competition on who could shake it the best. The costumes were amazing and again you could tell how much pride the town took in representing themselves and their culture. Friday night the dances continued acting as intermissions for the Miss Santa Teresa pagent (ok, thats not what it was actually called but you get the idea). A representative from each neighborhood took the stage in 3 categories: sportswear, costumes, and formalwear. The sportswear section had the girls in booty shorts and tanktops dancing around to the roaring approval of the crowd. The costume round consisted of the girls in flashy but beautiful vegas style outfits with each peice representing a part of their culture. The each neighborhood fanbase was very invested in their girl and a fight even broke out among the crowd. My Spanish is still pretty shakey but this was my interpretation of the confrontation.
Drunk man 1: man that chick is ugly
Drunk man 2: you better not be talkin about my neighborhood girl like that
Drunk man 1: Uhh.. I think I just did
And fight erupts...

Saturday I attended a rodeo, and to actually call it a rodeo is to use the term loosely. Bulls were let loose in a ring filled with extremely drunk men who decided that it was a great idea to taunt the bulls for sport. Their only means of safety from the raging beasts was to dart under a wood fence seconds before the bull completed its attack. The rodeo occured again on Sunday and some of those "barachos" (drunks) were not so lucky. Word around town is that 2 men were too slow and fell victim to the extremely pissed-off bull. They were speared in the gut and despite the best efforts of the medics that were standing by, they could not be saved. Thankfully I was not in attendance for this massacre and rather, was watching the Hipica, or horse parade. Cowboys paraded though town for over an hour making their horses dance for the crowd. People from all the surrounding towns came in for this event, bringing with them tons of street food and trinkets for sale. With lack of better judgement and an intense longing for my favorite foods of home I indulged in a hot dog and slice of pizza from a street vendor. The pizza tasted as if it had ketchup in place of marrinara sauce and the hot dog wasnt so much of a hot dog as it was a skinny peice of unidentifiable mean smothered in what I think were onions. How I didn't wake up vomitting or have some crazy uncurable parasite the next day I will never know.

Since the fiesta, my life has been pretty low key. Taking lots of classes and try to break this stubborn talking in English habit! Ill update again soon

Oh! here is my address (i like mail):
Jennifer Luiz, PCT
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Aparto Postal 3256
Managua, Nicaragua
Central America