Fiesta!

It's fiesta time in Suchitoto, 12 days of daily processions, celebrations, parades, floats, bands, fireworks, dances that lead up to the grand patronal feast of Santa Lucia on December 13th (though I suppose it really should be a matronal feast).  Each neighborhood has its day to get up at 4 in the morning and process to church by candlelight for the 5:45 am mass - ours is tomorrow, and I won't need to set my alarm clock- the firecrackers will let me know it's time.  Each neighborhood also creates a carroza - we'd call it a float - that circulates throughout Suchitoto, visiting each of the neighborhoods, in the evening.  Here's yesterday's offering, from Barrio Concepción - they outdid themselves by creating TWO carrozas.  During the day there are special activities - today Barrio San José offered a celebration for the old folk, which I missed, and a kid's fiesta, and later fireworks and finally a dance.  Their carroza was preceded by Alcides who carried the long forked stick used to hold up the electricity lines so they wouldn't topple the display and followed by a small but marvellous brass band (clarinet, horn, trombone, tuba and a couple of drums). 

I especially enjoyed today's festivities because today we heard one of my favorite Gospel passages, where Jesus says that John the Baptist came fasting and we called him crazy, while the Son of Man came eating and drinking and we called him a glutton and drunkard....(Mt.11, 16-19).  I'm pretty sure that Jesus would love the way people celebrate here in Suchitoto.  I surely do.