One of my favorite traditional events thus far is the Carrera de Cinta. This is a horse competition. To begin, 15-20 cintas (metal rings sewn to a leather strap, which forms a loop with a button closure) are hung on a line strung across the street about 8’ off the ground. The riders all line up about 60 feet down the road from the line and wait for the announcer to call their names, “Juan Luis Ortega Nuñes y su caballo Fuego de Satanás!” Then one at a time, they gallop toward the line leaning forward on their horse, eyes lined up behind a small palito, or a pencil if they’re novices, at one of the small keychain-sized rings. At the line they thrust their hand forward at the ring, and point their palito toward the sky, and to score they must joust the ring, and pull the cinta off the line. The difficulty is not only to be accurate, but also to keep the ring from shooting off the palito, which often happens when the unsnapped button flings the ring off the line.
For Día de los Niños we had dances and skits in the school, and for a grand finale a “carrera de cinta.” The boys, 1st-6th graders brought their own old-fashioned stick horses, complete with authentic names and orneriness, and ran past a line with their horses between their legs. The girls, true to the tradition, dressed up as reinas and tied handkerchiefs to the arms of those who scored rings. A few VERY authentic actresses gave their riders timid kisses on the cheek along with their prize bandana.In October we had our mid-term medical appointments in Tegucigalpa. I was a bit scared to go to a dentist here, but to be honest, that was the nicest dentist office I’d ever visited—complete with a flatscreen to show me HUGE images of my own teeth or watch cooking shows while the dentist cleaned food from my teeth. Other than discovering that I’m still alive and kicking, I got to go see Lion King 3D and eat some semi-American food at Fridays. A few days after getting back from Tegucigalpa, a dear friend from the University of Montana, Ari, came to visit me. She had served in Peace Corps Peru, and it was great to hang out and compare experiences.
Also in October was the communities official Mass where Padre Walter came and 3 children had their baptism ceremonies. (Pictured at right is my host brother Carlos Roberto ready to be baptized.)And wow, November is passing already. Thanksgiving I spent at the clausura of the school. School has been on break since early November, but the official send-off was Thursday where the kids got their report sheets and we broke a piñata and played some games at the school. The day after was a graduation for the 6th graders (keep in mind that here, graduating from 6th grade is about as big as graduating from high school in the U.S. Some may go on to study in high school, but many don’t have enough money and will just go out and work now. That’s why a 12-year-old here sometimes has a community role of a 18-year-old in the U.S.) So it was a very formal presentation complete with speeches and an elaborate lunch of roasted chicken, rice, chismol, a salad, and, as always, several glasses of refresco (in this case orange pop).
And now, aside from finishing up signing people up for an improved wood-burning cook stove project we’re doing here in our municipality, it’s coffee-picking season, and I’m going to go see if I can break some personal records.
I'll put more pictures on FB sometime this afternoon.
