That picture came in the mail just in time for Christmas. It along with the rest of the contents was the icing on my Christmas Cake.
It's always interesting to see how other people celebrate holidays that we share in common.
Christmas was no exception. After a few invitations fell through at the last minute Elliot and I geared up to maintain some of the traditions that he and I share in common, namely gorging ourselves and taking it easy. We did a mediocre job at the gorging and an amazing job at taking it easy.
The Nicaraguans celebrate in similar fashion to us; they gather with family, exchange gifts, and eat a tradtional meal of stuffed chicken, (turkey is prohibitively expensive for most people to purchase, i saw one in the market that cost over 1000 Cordobas which is about a third of a months wages for a state paid teacher. Can you imagine paying around 800+ dollars for a turkey?) But there is one part of Christmas that they celebrate quite differently than I am used to, the Noche Buena. We call it Christmas Eve, and for those of us that celebrate it where I am from, we usually go to a church service and maybe have a small dinner. Not so with the Nicaraguans. Holidays are always good conversation starters and I had used the days leading up to Christmas to start many a conversation. I wanted to be fully informed about what to expect. Everyone talked about the Noche Buena more than the actual day of Christmas though, and of the Noche Buena they mainly talked about what happens in the late night. In Nicaragua it seems that hours leading up to a day and the first few hours of the actual event, whether it be Christmas, New Years, La Purisma... are the always the most important. In the continuing effort to integrate Elliot and I decided that it was in our best interest to celebrate alongside the locals in the way we were told they celebrate.
We started the night with some sweet bread and lager out on the corner with the local neighborhood security guards. It only made sense to find other people who were spending the night without family and enjoy it with them at least for a bit. It was great! We provided the eats and they brought the conversation. They told us all about the Noche Buena and that we needed to make sure to be awake for the tiradera at midnight. If you look in your Spanish dictionary I don't think you will find the word "tiradera." I will describe it to you and you can translate it how you think best.
We asked if there was a prime location to witness the tiradera and they said "nope, as long as your in Masaya then your in the right spot...just be awake at midnight." We decided that the central park would be our vantage point. On our way there I noticed that just about every home had their doors open with their kids playing on the streets and the parents sitting in rocking chairs chatting and waiting for midnight. My understanding of the tiradera up to that point was that it was a fireworks display. It wasn't organized or centrally located enough to be that. We got to the park about 11:30 and at 11:45 someone somewhere jumped the gun and lit off what sounded like 200 blackcats -a small but loud firecracker. That touched off what would be 30 minutes of a 360 degree assault on my ears and pleasure for my eyes. Back home we have some written and unwritten rules regarding fireworks that everyone goes by i.e. don't light fireworks off within city limits, if there is a burn ban then no fireworks at all, always be aware of where you are lighting off your firework, don't point them at people or at cars, and I am sure there a probably a few more. Every single one of those was completely ignored. The only rule seemed to be light them off as fast and furiously as you can. I loved it, except for the bottle rocket that landed and went off about 3 feet from my foot.
The night was still young. We were told that tradition also dictates that dancing is necessary to properly celebrate the night. So we danced. I made it my aim to find señoritas who would tolerate my two left feet - they're out there!
Our first Noche Buena in Nicaragua exceeded all expectations. Though we are hoping to celebrate with a full house this time next year!
Hope your Noche Buena and Navidad were fantastic!
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