The very last day of my very last fair

I climbed the steep mountain road at 4am on Tuesday with a bit of a bounce in my step because, finally, it was the last day of the fair. I loved the fair! But I'm extremely exhausted. I want to sleep this off for the next month. I went to my last alborada, for maybe forever, with my host cousins and enjoyed the tamales and stars. I opted to not take a picture of myself this time, and snapped one of these kids playing checkers with beer caps instead. How aren't they tired?!

You kids are crazy. 

Because I DON'T have kids and I DON'T work in the milpa, I went back to sleep. People were trying to make me feel bad about my ample time, but puchica to that!

Last night we capped off the fair with the awesome cumbia band La Dinamita Salvadoreña that played in our cancha. I really liked them! They were very energetic and had some slick dance moves. I was feeling proud, content, and peaceful looking around at my community all together enjoying the music. As angry and frustrated as I've been here when things don't work out, I also really appreciate the good things. They seem so much better, too.

My host sis and mom eating elote loco. They're so funny!

Auxi and Karyme, two candidatas. 

Remember Marco!? He sang to the candidatas. 

Manuel and Xiomara, my new host parents. They're great!

Cati! I love her deadpan humor. 

 Finally around 11pm they announced the winner. Here's our new queen!

Bow down.

Exposición

I was very proud to celebrate the hardworking jóvenes that participated in the drawing and painting class on Monday. We started out with over 50 hopefuls, and ended up with a nicely sized group of about 20 dedicated students. Some of the kids came over to the casa comunal at 8am to clean and mop the floors (probably for the first time in years).

I'm embarrassed to admit how ridiculously difficult it was to make those letters. 

Just getting started! 

Here is some of the students' work:

I replicated a photo of my grandma. It's not very good, but I set the sell price at $1,000 for kicks. 

While we had the open house, the carrera de cinta was taking place outside. This made things troublesome when our referigerio arrived and grabby people threw their hands in my face for panes and wanted two more for their friends outside. It kind of defeated the purpose of the exposición de la clase de dibujo y pintura. We're here to celebrate the KIDS! They didn't even look at the paintings. I got fed up with some bolos and told them they had to tell me what their favorite painting was, who painted it, and how much it costs before they could collect. That at least forced them to acknowledge there were paintings in the room.

The open house was worth it though. I'm so, so, so proud of the kid's work! Leo has been a great partner and teacher as well, and I hope he continues with the class.

The longest day EVER

Sunday was our day to host the fair. I know I'm the PCV for all of my canton, but I think it's only natural to favor your neighbors. And I got a lot to like about them- we had the best day of the fair!

We started at 4am with an alborada. The alborada was like last year. We shot cohetes into the air and passed out plates of tamales y pan, with a cup of tepid sugar coffee. I got to see Job, of the Caminemos Con Job campaign. I was glad to see that he's doing much better, though still relying on crutches.

I picked up a plate with a lot of pan. It's Orbe's pan, and it's delicious! 

Auxi, a candidata, looking super cute at 4am. 

Old ladies are my preferred alborada companions. Especially these two!

 When things were starting to settle down, I got a big surprise when the band dedicated a song to me. I didn't know it at the time, but the song they played has words and it goes something along the lines of "I love you, but you just want to be friends." I thought this was awfully ironic coming just 4 hours after I left the discomovil dance floor...

Thanks for the song, bub.

I snatched a few more hours of sleep then started getting ready for the series of activities that were taking place in and around my house, starting with the celebration of seniors! I always love this part of the fair because old people are cute. We had a clown (of course), pupusas, a raffle for gifts (socks and tupperware) and we ended it all with a piñata. Speeches were given. I thanked them for sharing their community with me all this time, and I'll surely cry when I leave in September. A few shook my hand and thanked me back. It was all in all fun.

Glendi and the clown give out a gift.

The seniors pick up dulces as the kids look on from the road. 

Otinia and the clown! She makes friends with everyone. 

Just a few hours of downtime and it was time to shave the pig. I really didn't like the chancho encebado in the pueblo, and I was scared to see how kids would handle it. Luckily, the event went quick and a burly 10 year old carried the chanchito off in the third round.

You poor pig. 

Haven't you seen BABE!?!?!

But wait, there's more! Immediately after the chancho, we had a comelon de pupusas. Five contenders ate 15+ pupusas within 30 minutes. The winner ate 19. Just for reference- three pupusas makes me feel stuffed and I'm the girl who eats entire boxes of Mac'n'Cheese. Because it would be a crime to not, the pupusas were served with ample cortido y salsa de tomate. They were also given Pepsi's to wash it all down.

The crowd that left all their chip bags and soda bottles in my yard. Grrr. 

Eat! Eat! Eat!

"I hate to tell you this, but you're losing."

(....Son of a beech.)

My favorite event was the palo encebado. If you're paying attention, you know that encebado means greased. So yes, we find a very tall tree, sand off the bark, and grease it. The menfolk work in teams to strip off the grease (a universal strategy) and retrieve the $20-$40 nailed to the top of the palo. This would be a great team building exercise! A little messy though.

I could totally Mulan that. 

That top man strips the grease down to the bottom. 

Then they use dirt to add traction. 

They grab anything to climb up. I saw a lot of butt.

It was dark by the time they got the money, so this is the last pic I have that isn't blank. 

I watched the spectacle with my host mom and a gaggle of kids. It always surprises me how much the kids love me here. I love them right back!

Break it down!

Saturday had the usual alborada and clown festivities, but I chose to pass on them. The casario that was hosting is far and I didn't have the ganas to go. But I did go to the road to see the parade of the little candidatas in the afternoon.

I declined a request to be a candidata last year and was pleased when nobody had the gall to ask me again this year. It's actually a very big expense for families to give up a daughter to be a candidata. You need to have fancy dresses and shoes, a car for the parades, and you need some relatives who immigrated to the US to send you lots of money. Ideally, candidatas ask you the community members to buy votes at about 10 cents a piece, and whoever has the most votes wins. But what usually happens is the girl with the richest uncle takes the crown. I don't agree with this method of fundraising, but it's pretty ingrained in the culture here that if you're going to have a fair (or raise money for church, or raise money for school) you gotta have candidatas.

The parade was nice, even if there was mass confusion decorating the pick up truck that was going to carry our candidata through town.

How many people does it take to paper maché a pick up truck?

After the parade (in which it was too dark for my pictures to turn out), I had a major debate over whether or not I was going to the discomovil/presentation of the candidatas. It was far, and it would be dark. And dancing, oh my. There could be chambre tomorrow! But I've also hit the point in my service where I just don't care what people think or say anymore, so I dressed in my campo best (black v-neck, black pants) and broke it down on the dance floor.

And how we danced! Salvadorans are notoriously penosas (a character trait of being painfully self-consciousness and the need to conform to the crowd). That all seemed to melt away on the dance floor. Obviously, not everyone made it out to the dance floor. Pena still prevails on a whole! But my new host family and I had a blast. I also appreciated the groups of young men that did a jumping/gentle mosh pit dance together throughout the night. When they played the Spanish rock/ska music I got pulled in to their circle and we had the weird jumpathon. At some point the DJs played a remix of oldies and I did the twist with all (ok not all, but at least some) of the young people in my community. It was totally amazing! I had no idea they had it in them.

Night out on the town!

I was 'shipping Glendi and Obed so hard... then I found out they are cousins. But they dance really well together!

Sweaty discomovil pic! Eric loves selfies. 

I can't really explain how wonderful it was to dance in my community. I'm not a very good dancer, but I like to bust a move. I think I did a good job of breaking men's hearts, too. I agreed to dance with a friend of my old English class student, and I danced with some sorry little preteen when Eric ceremoniously yelled "CAMBIO!" and I had to find another dance partner. He was dancing all Rico Sauve but I was so tired I just kind of shuffled my feet around. Cumbia is very tiring music to dance to! I got asked to dance a LOT, by bolos and by some poor young guys thinking they stood a chance. I've worked hard to have a squeaky clean reputation in my gossip fueled community, and I wasn't prepared to let that get tarnished over a batachata song and flashing lights!

The fair begins

We kicked off the fair on Friday with a parade of La Giganta de Jocoro Batucada con Chichimecos. Or in other words, we brought out a giant wooden woman and had her dance with devils and teenagers on stilts.

Because I'm foreign, everyone wants to talk to me when I'm out and about. Usually it's the same "How old are you? How many kids do you have? Are you single?" questions, but sometimes the inquiring Salvadoran will try to impress me with their cultural knowledge. Oscar, man who claims to have worked in the casa de la cultura in the municipality of Joroco, told me that the giantess represents the Spanish women who came across the sea with their conquistador menfolk and always dressed in fine jewelry and nice clothes. That's why the wooden lady has so many rings and necklaces. The tradition started over 100 years ago and it was the Salvadoran way to ridicule the Spanish rule.

Or a quick Google search will tell you that the Giganta de Jocoro is actually based on bones dug up in Jocoro that were very large and as the legend goes, appear to be of a giantess.

Either way, it was fun to see the tallest man crawl inside and walk the giantess in the parade. The giant is also followed by men in devil and old lady masks. I didn't quite understand why there are devil masks involved, but I'm sure Oscar would have had some take on them. Unfortunately the picture I have with the chichimecos didn't turn out.

Me and a candidata in front of the giant. 

Truck selfies! Me and the committee team that represented my casario. The girl in blue is my host cousin! 

Making our way around the mountain. The candidatas threw candy as we went. 

We ended up in the cancha where a wily clown entertained the crowd. Here, a dance off.