Feliz Navidad de mi familia y amigos en Guaranda!!
Here are a few local traditions and how I've been celebrating the holidays this year ...
Teresa and Byanca filling bags with cookies, chocolate and candy for kids in the campo. This is a tradition for many families and organizations here in Guaranda. Most of the families in the campo don't celebrate Christmas with gifts and Santa Clause. For the very poor families in the campo, gifts are not an option - however it is a tradition for people to bring kids bags of candy, and in some cases clothes and small presents.
Teresa's nacimiento. Families put together small replicas of the baby Jesus's birth, adding small figures, houses and animals. This nacimiento includes several scenes - Noah's arc on the bottom left, next to it Guaranda, and up top the "white house neighborhood" and Colorado!! I told my host family how we have snow for the holidays, so they made a scene with all the snow-covered houses and now call it "Colorado".
Teaching the cousins how to make snowflakes.
Snowflakes around town. I missed snow for Christmas, so I helped several groups learn to make snowflakes from paper ... and we started decorating the town white.
With work, the schools I work at had school Christmas festivals. A school hosted 2-3 other surrounding schools to come and celebrate the day with traditional dances, activities, a lunch and, a few surprises. This photo is the School Christmas Festival in Gradas Central - Un Paso de Nino - the kids dress up like Mary, Joseph, the three wise men, angels and walked to the school to begin the festivities.
School Christmas Festival - "la vaca loca" - kids from one school dress up and try to rope the torro (the opposing school). The school which successfully ropes the torro in the least amount of time wins - 19 seconds was this year's winner!
School Christmas Festival - traditional dances.
The school kids standing in line for almuerzo (lunch) after receiving their bags of candy. The almuerzo was cooked by the community and everyone that came to the School Christmas Festival received a meal.
My New Years resolution is to post more frequently on my blog :)
