December 7th here in Nicaragua is day filled with excitement and fun for those who practice the Catholic Religion, which is the majority of the population. At 6pm, the celebrations begin and they go up until midnight of the 8th, the day of the Immaculate Conception, a national holiday here in Nicaragua, which means no one works and everyone gets to rest from the prior night's celebrations (aka I get to blog on my laptop, but not post it because the cyber is closed).
Living in Belen is great because from what I've heard from other volunteers, our celebrations here were slightly more exciting than in the smaller villages. I guess I'll start by explaining what exactly goes on the night of the 7th. If I were to cheapen it and compare it to American celebrations, I'd say it's an awesome combination of Christmas Caroling and Trick-or-treating, followed up by 4th of July Fireworks. Basically, there are a bunch of houses that have altars for the Virgin Mary, or la Virgin (pronounced beer-hin) Maria, out front and the rest of the people in the community walk from house to house in groups and wait in line to sing to Mary. After singing, they get a treat and then move on to the next house.
Luckily, I got to participate in the hosting activities because the grandmother of my host family always hosts “La Griteria” at her house. This allowed me to see basically everyone in the community, without requiring me to walk and sing all night! The way it works is those in town who feel they want to “host” the celebrations put a statue of Maria outside their front doors. All of the altars I saw here in Belen were decorated beautifully with flowering branches of the national tree and different kinds of lights and other adornments. These families then prepare something to give to the people that will come to sing to their Mary. This means that we spent four or more hours combined on the 6th and 7th filling goody bags – and when I say goody bags, I mean the biggest variety of goody-filled-baggies I've ever seen. Some were just filled with cookies and candies, but others had amazingly cooked rice, or homemade frescos (I know I still owe you all a blog on frescos), fruit cocktail, whole bananas, corn on the cob, and even some with a shirt, or skirt, or little stuffed animal! It was so much fun! Although I must note that not every family that hosts has the means to provide such a wide array of goodies, it seems to me that this is a day for those who “have” to give to those who “have-not.” It was really a beautiful thing.
So at 6pm on the 7th, people all over the town set off their firecrackers (the ones that only make noise) and the celebrations began! Immediately a line started to form at the house I was at, and I, along with three of the other cousins in the family, was assigned the duty of handing out goodies to the singers. It was so fun to hear all the different songs, and by the end of the night, I basically knew them all since it went for 6 hours! Luckily, my host family has friends that play in an awesome Marimba band with a guitar, two cool kinds of drums, and an awesome wooden xylophone thing (I know that was a horrible description, but I'm not really an instrument person), so for about 4 of those hours, the singing was drowned out by some great Latin/tropical music that gave us and the people in line something to dance to.
At around 11:30pm, we ran out of goodies to give out, and the people started congregating up the block around a float with another Mary on it. Then, at midnight, the mini parade to the church started. Once we got there, there was an awesome fireworks display and we all made our way back to our houses to clean up and turn in for the night. The band even stayed and played for us while we cleaned up!
I have to say it was a pretty cool holiday, and everyone had a really great time. Now I'm down to two weeks until I can report on Christmas in Nicaragua, which I will be celebrating in my much smaller training town with my training family! Merry December everyone!
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