Everyone Loves a Parade

Today there was a parade celebrating the 1910 War of Independence. I am not sure how these holidays work, Monday was holiday for that very event I thought, but the parade is today, apparently the day the War of Independence is celebrated on. When I looked up holidays celebrated in San Miguel to find out it said it was on Nov 20th. Interesting, I also found out that there are 50 festival days in SMA - More than I could even imagine, I guess my friends were not kidding when they said it seemed there was a long weekend just about every week.

I was amazed at how many youth were marching in the parade, however when my friend Susan pointed out that the average age of a Sanmiguelenese is 18, then it made sense. 40% of the population of 59,000, the population which live in the city proper, are under 15. Every school and youth clubs, such as martial arts and gymnastics, seemed to be represented.The parade was made up just about entirely of these youth groups, well except one small group of abuelas (grandmothers) and a few police on motorcycles heading the parade.

The group would walk a bit, then stop and perform their "show", dancing, drumming, gymnastics, skipping and baton twirling. The parade moved slowly as each group moved 100 paces or so and then repeated their routine.

A favourite costume was a revolutionary, gun in hand, bullet clips on shoulder belts.

There was even a group dressed in their football uniforms, as if ready for a game.

Not sure what the board carrying paraders were all about.

There were a group on horses, the ladies In their finery, riding side saddle. This little girl was particularly cute.

The older University students were toward the end of the parade. Interesting - all dressed up and ready to fight a war. The older students either paraded as revolutionaries or they paraded as students - performing choreographed dancing to North American pop tunes as if they were being filmed for a music video,

Little kids in daycare were glued to the sights.

There were several princesses on top of cars.

The staging area where the older students were waiting their turn to parade. The parade lasted about 3 hours, which is impressive given that it was entirely youth groups.

Tomorrow I will blog about my tour around the Botanica Jardin and Reserva and the other things which have kept me busy since my last blog. The parade today kind of sidetracked me from my planned topic.

 

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