The other day my friend Claudia invited me to go to the Carrera de Cinta in the canton above where I live. I was told its this horse race sort of thing. I agree to go and am kinda excited to see what this is all about. When Claudia and I get to her house there are all this high school girls from my town all dressed up and done up. Like lots of eyeshadow and by dress up I mean like 7-8th grade kinda cheesy/little bit trashy, usually a little too tight, sparkly/bling bling clothes. Claudia and Rosanna go and get all done up to and after about an hour of prepping, hair-doing, make up and all that we are finally ready to go. We walk to the field and when we get there there are people sitting around talking, ranchera music playing (spanish country music), a guy selling burgers, beer and soda, and then this row of chairs with 50 girls sitting there all prim and proper with gifts.
Then these men ranging from 18 years old to 75 come riding in on horses. I'm talking good looking horses with nice leather saddles, decorated face things for the horses, and I say good looking horses because some of the horses here are so frail, boney and just unhealthy looking and even worse when someone is riding them. So the horsemen go to one side of the field, and in the middle there are these two big poles with a string between them. On the string there are these rings with numbers on them. The horsemen all have a little sick (miniture josting sorta thing) and they have to get the stick through the hole as they gallop through. It was a process of about an hour until they got all these rings. Some guys were great at it others missed it almost everytime. But it was such a weird setting to have this like medieval sorta horse game in front of me and then behind me people cooking like greasy, giant burgers. Then, at the end, each guy reads all the numbers of the rings he has. Each number corresponds to a girl. When their number is called the girls usually shyly walk up to the guy present their gift to him and give him a hug. But there were some guys and some girls who were bold and went in for the kiss on the cheek! After all the girls had been called, the event was over until the dance.
The dance was like a 7-8th grade dance except with bollos (drunks). All the girls against one wall of the plaza sitting, the guys on the other side and the bollos on another side. The guys were creep over to the girls and ask them to dance, and the girls would either say yes or lie and say their feet hurt. It was all like partner dancing which was kinda awkward. I danced with a few guys because I wanted to dance and it was fun. You dance like arms length apart and some of the guys could not dance and then other times they'd ask me a question and loose the rhythm so we'd end up stepping on each others feet or something. Also, there were the creepers who asked me to dance and I got all flustered to think up an excuse. So instead of saying my feet hurt I accidently said my bones hurt..oops. It was kinda funny and after i said it all the middle age women who were just watching died laughing.
So I've been only telling my fun stories and non of what I'm working on and stuff. Right now I'm trying to form a town council, but its been and is going to continue to be a battle due to the politics here and each side thinking the other side is out to get them and the inability of both to come together. I mean to me I think its kinda silly because they are all poor and all want the same thing but refuse to kinda unite. Hopefully I can get more people to come...righ now we have like 30 solid people and another 50 who come to the meetings occasionally. I did successfully teach them how to make shampoo, and sold most of it! We will see though what kinda profit we have from it.
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