The rest of the festvities

Wednesday night we were off to see the 1st night of bands. I forget what they call it…calabacas? That is so wrong, but anyway – it’s just a night where a company brings a bunch of different acts to sing and perform. They might include a mariachi singer, a rock band and then a woman…a naughty woman.

The first night was going great – until it started to rain. They had to put the show on hold for a few minutes while they cleared the water off the stage. I think the performers were worried about getting electrocuted. I stayed till 10:30ish – till right after the rock band played. The band was good – but you could tell the lack of audience participation was frustrating them.

That brings us to Thursday. Thursday was a blah day – no big events went down. They had a small thing called the ‘tarde alegre’ – which means the joyful afternoon. It’s just an afternoon meant for kids – clowns, piñatas and prizes. I was just thankful for the day off.

The second night started well enough – but I was just tired. So, I enjoyed the bands as they played, but the moment the drunkard started hitting on me and the other one dancing in front of me for me – I booked it home.

I’ll take this moment to relate a moment of vocabulary building that happened that night. During the festivals, women come and sell candy – it’s a type I’ve only seen down here and hard to explain. Anyway, I was with Iris, Sonia and a few others when we went to buy this candy. Me, being curious, asked what the different candies were made of. One was of molasses and peanuts, other from coco and so on. We came to one and I asked again what it was and they said it was made from zapote. Now zapote is a red fruit (never seen one, but have been told), but zapo is a frog. Well, you can see where this is leading. I stared at Sonia and said, ‘it’s made from frog – that’s horrible!’. She then proceeded to laugh and explain all over again. I don’t think I’ll be living this one down for quite a while.

Any who, that brings us to the big day – Friday. In the morning was the carrera de cintas. For those of you who can’t remember the other times I’ve written about this – it’s when they put a clothes line across a street and guys charge at in on horseback hoping to get a small stick through a loop that has been hung on the line. Anyway, I was a ‘godmother’ for this event – which means I bought a present and gave it to one of the guys who succeeded in getting the stick through the loop. Once I gave my gift and got the free food, I was outta there. They had these events at a soccer field that has no trees. You can only imagine how hot it gets.

Next up was the finally of the soccer tournament. The first fought out 3rd and 4th place and then when for the championship game. Unfortuanatly, my team lost. But it was an interesting game – the winner was determined by penalty kicks. So, I’m sure the guy that screwed it up for my team will never live it down. At the end of the games, I was drafted to help give out the prizes. I was ok giving out the cash prize, but then they gave out soccer balls as prizes. I’m not against the prize itself – but who was giving the prize. The prize came from the political party ARENA and the balls were even the political colors of ARENA. I told people that next time I wouldn’t give out a gift from ARENA. They got all mad – but I laid it down, Peace Corps has rules on being apolitical and I don’t like being associated with one party. We’ll see how it goes next time.

The grand final of the day was the dance. It started with a parade of the queens, again, then moved on to fireworks before the actual dance began. The dance was split up between two sections – one was regular disco playing techno, reggaton and the like, the other was a Latin band that would play meringue and salsa. The two sections switched on and off. I enjoyed my time but wound-up leaving at around 2 am – I got tired of dancing with guys I didn’t know and of the numerous drunkards around. Dances are good during their first few hours – but after that there are just too many drunk guys to make it enjoyable. I, thus, headed home escorted by Luis Ernesto. Yes, I do think of my safety and never walk home alone at night.

The only problem with going home was that the speaker for the disco were maybe 4 or 5 yards away from my front door. Granted, they were facing the other way, but they still managed to cause my house to shake, rattle and roll. Thankfully, they switched to the band (which was further away) and I fell dead asleep.

I believe the only reason I woke up on Saturday was my birds. They always get so annoyed when I sleep in. Saturday was a wonderful introverted day. All week I just felt like I never had any time to myself. I was going to go to a cock fight – but I didn’t want to go alone (to much of a guy event – didn’t want to go as a solo girl) and the heat. So, instead, I stayed home, read and made browning. When I finally did make it out of the house, I stumbled upon an event in the park. The culture house put on an afternoon of traditional dancing and music. It was quite nice to sit in the cool park with some friends and chill.

I guess that brings us to the final event of the great Patron Saint Festivals of Santo Domingo de Guzman – the second rodeo and dance. This rodeo was definitely a losing propect – I think maybe half as many people showed up this time around. The problem was that it wasn’t advertised well and another group was having an event for free in a nearby canton. (size order of communities with – pueblo being the largest – canton being a subset of a pueblo – casario being a subset of canton)

I was in charge of selling the higher priced beer – of which I sold a total of 35 bottles in a little over 6 hours. Go me.

The dance I can’t tell you about because I didn’t go. I had had enough and called it quits. I heard it, but decided that staying in was my best option.

And now it is Monday and time to go do some food shopping.