Christmas tradition that does not exist in the US: piñatas! A common one is the "piñata de picos," a sphere with 7 spikes sticking out of it, representing the 7 deadly sins: pride, greed, envy, lust, sloth, anger, and gluttony (I had to look those up, I can’t claim to know them off the top of my head). And of course, being a piñata, it (ie, the sins) should be bashed to pieces with a stick until candy falls out. I think that’s where the metaphor ends, though. I love that everyone gets really into it, even (especially) adults, everyone shouts and cheers and laughs if (when) you miss the piñata and whack the air. It’s more difficult because the piñata is hung from a rope and someone is moving it up and down so that you can’t find it---because you’re also blindfolded and dizzy from being spun around three times. They even have a song, which varies from region to region:
dale dale dale, no pierdas el tino
porque si lo pierdes, pierdes el camino
ya le diste una, ya le diste dos
ya le diste tres y tu tiempo se acabó
The day after Christman we went for a great hike/scale/slide through a trail, up a wall of rocks, and into a cave. The gate we wanted to go through to get to the path said “NO PASAR” so Eduardo found a different “entrance” and we hacked/crawled our way through some bushes to meet the real trail halfway.
It was the first time I had been real rock climbing—I think the climbing wall at REI doesn’t quite count. I did not fall off the mountain.
The cave at the top was quite slippery and the floor was not flat, so I eventually ended up in a non-vertical position and managed to slide/crab-walk the rest of the way to the exit. We climbed back down the rock wall (much more difficult than going against gravity on a rock wall for some reason), went back down the path (where I took a nice spill and put a big bruise on my left buttcheeck) and went out the gate that said NO PASAR. It only said that on the outside, it never said we couldn’t exit from there. Overall the adventure was definitely worth the mud stain on my pants.
Playing with fire! Another awesome pastime. Fireworks come in a variety of colors, shapes, and intensities of boom—they’re illegal to sell, but not to use or set off...how convenient! You have to be careful though—don’t hold one in your hand while it’s lit if it says on it “do not hold in hand.” Just because they’re not supposed to explode doesn’t mean they don’t.
For New Years I went to a friend’s house in a village nearby. The first activity of the night was to bring a pack of twelve candles to a church to be blessed by the priest. Each candle represents a month, and they light one on the first day of every month so that the entire month is blessed. After pushing through the hordes of catholics and getting some water sprinkled on us—maybe that means we were blessed too?—we made our way back to the house to wait for midnight to eat dinner. I didn’t quite make it, I had to eat a snack around 9:00. And my friend ate some too so I wouldn’t feel bad. We passed the time by playing a bilingual game of Guess Who, so that they could practice their English. The minute between 11:59 and 12:00 was not very dramatic compared to what we do in the states. I tried to explain to them about the ball dropping in New York, but it probably sounded ridiculous to them. The youtube videos just make it look silly. When the New Year came we were making a toast, and everyone said something. It was a very family moment between my friend, his parents, and two siblings, so I tried to look as inconspicuous and Mexican as I could, but they didn’t mind at all having me there, and included me in the toast. Then we each ate 12 grapes, supposedly making a wish for each grape. I really don’t have that many wishes, if I make one wish does that mean it will come true twelve times? There was a bonfire outside and the festivities continued long into the night, yet I still heard a group of kids whacking a piñata at 9:00 the next morning. I’m going to have to find a way to concentrate more sleep into fewer hours, so I can have more waking time.
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