CARNAVAL!

I am officially a negligent blog writer. Things have been so crazy here, between traveling, being sick (yay stomach virus!) and homework it has been hard to find the time to write. But I just realized that I never filled you all in on Carnaval!

One of my host mom's friends told me once, while talking about the different holidays, that "En Mexico, todo dia es una fiesta," or "In Mexico every day is a holiday." Carnaval was no exception to the rule, but it was a little more tame than I expected it to be. Though we did get a four day weekend out of it (no classes to party? I knew I'd love this place).

Carnaval was a lot like Mardi Gras(thanks for the spelling, Lani!), with a parade every day followed by music and events in the streets, and I'm pretty sure it’s the same weekend, February 12th through the 16th. But in some ways it was more family oriented and really commercialized. It started Thursday, and lasted through Tuesday afternoon but I didn't go check it out for the first time till Saturday night.

That Saturday Bianca had us over to her host mom's house for a little party before hand with homemade lasagna- which was amazing. I was seriously missing real Italian food with actual seasoning, not just puréed tomatoes passing as sauce. We all dressed up to go too, which apparently is a really gringo thing to do, as we didn't see very many locals dressed up as all, but we still had a good time. Most of us just found cheap plastic wings and were all sorts of fairies, butterflies and bugs. After gorging ourselves on lasagna and margaritas, we headed downtown a little after the parade was supposed to start which ended up not really working out. By the time we got there all of the seats were taken and it was really hard to see anything except for the floats. But it was still fun to be able to walk around, drink on the street and see all the vendors.

The parade passed down the main street, Paseo de Montejo, which is a huge avenue with a bunch of old mansions, colonial buildings and monuments. They had the whole street closed off with the parade on one side, and room for street vendors, taquerias and such on the other side. A big group of gringos dressed up in costumes and dancing down the street definitely got some attention though. Especially because we were the only ones dancing… I think we're all getting used to making fools of ourselves the majority of the time.

After the parade we headed out to the clubs which were SO packed, so that part of the night was kind of a bust. I did up my tequila shot count to 13 though, and discovered the perfect way to balance them- a healthy serving of fresh churros straight up from a street vendor . They definitely were the only thing that kept me from getting a little tipsy that night, and not for lack of trying either.

The next day, Sunday, it was super rainy and we had a ton of homework, so I just stayed in for most of the day and watched a movie with Bianca and Leah. It was pretty nice to finally have a day where there wasn't anything I had to do.

Monday,the group decided that taking the kids from the Emiliano Zapata Sur soccer team to the Carnaval parade that night sounded like a good idea, which in theory it was. Except for the fact that it started pouring rain as soon as we left. We met them all at the center in Emiliano Zapata Sur (Side Note** I'll have to find a map to post so you all can get a better idea of the city) and paid for the bus for them. We had about eleven boys from the soccer team anywhere from 9 years old to 12, and three of the kids from my computer class, Teresita, Glendi and Elias came too.

Once we got them all on the bus and into el centro it was crazy trying to keep them all together. Trying to tell a bunch of kids weaving in and out of crowds to stay together, stop fighting and get out of the street is a lot harder to do when you have to do it in Spanish. But eventually we made it to the stands and even found a group of seats (the rain was good for something I guess, it kept the crowds away). Then we bought a bunch of garbage bags and made little ponchos for all the kids, which didn't last long after the little monsters decided to rip them off each other, but I guess they didn't mind the rain too much. Most of them were pretty well behaved, though, except for a few who I thought were going to kill themselves goofing around on the bleachers. But when people started throwing things like cups and food into the stands from the floats, they were super excited and were diving into people to try and grab everything, and even knocked a group guys over. Actually, that was pretty funny.

The only other problem that we had with them was their tendency to throw up gang signs every time we tried to take a pictures. A lot of them told us their brother are in gangs, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these kids end up in them too. Its just kind of a way of life for them.

Every night of Carnaval had a theme, and that night's was traditional, so it had a lot of women wearing huipiles, traditional dresses that Mayan women wear that are made of long white cotton dresses with no shape to them, with embroidered collars and trim. All of the dance groups were dancing la jarana or a variation of it, which it the traditional dance of the Yucatan. Most of the people in the dance groups don't usually wear huipiles, like a lot of older Mayan women do in Mérida, but when they use them when they perform .The kids weren't too impressed with the actual dancing, because a lot of them knew the dances the groups were performing, and some had grandmas who danced the dances or actually dress in huipiles every day, but they definitely loved the half naked women dancing on the floats. It was an interesting contrast to see the Coca-Cola or Sol (a popular beer here) girls dancing around in skimpy little costumes on all the floats right above the groups of women dressed huipiles.

It was cool to be able to take the kids to the parade, though, because coming to Carnaval is something that a lot of their parents can't afford to do with them. We paid for all of their bus fair, and for most of their food. I didn't really have any idea what their families' economic situations were until we got to the Carnaval and some of them had money to buy food from their parents, other kids pooled the few pesos they had saved up themselves to buy things as a group, and some didn't have any at all to spend. It definitely makes you think about how spoiled kids are back home.

It was also nice getting to know the kids in my computer class better. They are such sweet kids, I'm really going to miss them when I get back. Its always nice getting to the center, even when I'm not having the greatest day, and I see them waiting and they are always excited to see us. Plus, they were the best behaved on the trip. Take that soccer team.

Tuesday, the last day of Carnaval, the parade was at noon, so we decided to get there around 10 to find seats. I went and met up with Omar, our program coordinator's assistant who we're all starting to get really close with, Bianca, Missy, Dianelli (one of the tutors) and her sister and tried to find free seats- which didn't work out too well. People were saving seats as early as 9 so by the time we got there it was hard to even find paid seats, which we eventually did find for $28 pesos ( like $2.50 US) and they were actually pretty good.

Just my luck though, when I left in the morning it was rainy and cold, and by 11:00 it was hot, sunny, and I had forgotten my sunscreen. I used my umbrella for a bit to stay out of the sun, which a lot of people do here, but once the parade started everyone was on their chairs and I didn't have a choice but to bear it. Up until this point I hadn't really gotten a tan, but that day definitely made up for it- I got such a bad burn I had sun poisoning the next day. That was three weeks ago and I'm still trying to even out my farmers tan from my t-shirt, and I just stopped peeling last week. Needless to say, I haven't forgotten my sunscreen since. It did eventually turn into a tan though- I'm actually starting to tan pretty well. I didn't think it was possible, but I guess two months in the sun will turn anyone tan.

Once the parade started we were all up on our chairs watching all of the dancers and floats go by, it was really pretty. They were throwing food, cups, and other things off of the floats, and between Missy and I (she's Chinese and English) we stood out just a bit and got a lot of things thrown to us. I have to say though, the people here are crazy about their free stuff- especially the giant plastic cups they were throwing out. Bianca made the mistake of putting her cup down by her chair and it disappeared. We're all pretty sure the little old ladies next to her stole it. The parade had such a strange mix of people in it. There were a bunch of different dance groups, some with kids or teenagers doing salsa or some other dance, and then the huge commercial floats from Coca-Cola or Sol with go-go dancers in thongs. The whole parade was really commercialized, more so than a lot of parades I've seen in the U.S., which was really surprising to us. The strange mix of the half-naked dancers, men and women, and the number of families in the crowd really caught us off guard as well.

Overall, I did really enjoy Carnaval, and it was really nice just to have a weekend to enjoy the city, even if it was super crowded. I think we were all expecting it to be more of a party like Mardi Gras, and I think a lot of Mexicans expected us to act like it was- my host mom's son-in-law told me as I was leaving the house at 9:00 am not to get too drunk at the parade, "Only have four beers." But we behaved ourselves, even if we looked like freaks in fairy wings.

I have soo much more to tell you about that I've done over the last few weeks! We've been traveling a lot with the group and on our own since the program is winding down. We rented a beach house one weekend, went on a class trip through Chiapas and Tabasco, went on an "adventure tour" at a nature preserve last weekend, and this weekend I'm off to Playa del Carmen and Cozumel so expect a LOT of updates!

I can't believe I only have a week and a half left of the program and less than three weeks till I leave- Eeeek! I am starting to miss the little things from home, but I really don't want to leave. Mérida has really become a home to me and I'm so sad that the program is so short. But I guess I have to get on with school and try and graduate in five years, which may be harder than I thought since I'm leaning towards adding another minor in Community Service - surprise Mom and Dad!