¿Quién causa tanta alegria?

So, the feria is officially over.  My last post covered the beginning of the feria up until Monday night, so here's the rest of the feria scoop.  Honestly, I've done so many different things this week, I had to look back at the pictures I took to remember what happened each day.  I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff, but here are the highlights.  Picture uploading is not functioning at the moment, but I did put pictures up on my facebook of all of the feria festivities!

• Burro racing-- One afternoon, I went to the park to see the burro races.  Only 3 boys showed up with donkeys, so they raced 5 laps around the park (which is finally finished, by the way). One of the boys that plays baseball with me won the race and 200 Lempiras (like $10).
• On Tuesday night I finally got a chance to go on the ferris wheel.  Here they call it the "Rueda de Chicago"...not sure why.  Is there a big ferris wheel in Chicago or something?
• Wednesday night was the vigil for the virgin Mary, Sulaco's patron saint.  At 6, we gathered at the church and then walked all around town in a huge group visiting altars that were all over the place.  About 20 total.  The whole way, the group sang songs, and at each house the family said a few words and the priest led the group in a prayer of some sort.  This gave me lots of practice on my Spanish Lord's Prayer.  I think I've got the words down at this point, just got to work on my speed so I can keep with everyone else.  They also kept yelling "Quien causa tanta alegria?  La Concepcion de Maria!" (Who causes such happiness?  The conception of Mary!) which is kind of the church's motto for the week of the feria.  We made it back to the church a little before 11, and at 11 they had a service, which ended exactly at midnight.  It was funny watching all the little kids nodding off in the pews, despite the singing and clapping that was going on.  At midnight, the church bells rang,  fireworks went off, and everyone sang more songs about the virgin Mary.  Luckily, they sang the same 3 or 4 songs all night, so I was able to memorize at least the choruses and sing along with them.  It was a super cool experience, although I was super tired by the time midnight rolled around. 
• Thursday morning, I judged the finals of the singing competition.  The contestants of this contest included the winners from the one I judged before, as well as people from other municipalities in the area.  It was held in the gymnasium at San Juan de Sula, and there was a great turnout.  Some of the kids were really great singers and some of the other judges were really bad at math haha
• After the singing contest, I rushed over to the park to see the Garifuna dancers.  The Garifuna are the indigenous people of African descent that live up on the north coast of Honduras.  They have their own language and style of dancing.  There was lots of dancing, drumming, singing, and colorful costumes.
• I spent another afternoon watching the rodeo...once you've seen it once, it's not worth the 20 Lempiras to go again.  Especially when the announcer likes to talk about you all the time on the microphone...it gets a little old.
• Thursday night was the crowning of the reina infantil, Lluvia.  She's 6 years old and just finished first grade at the school where I work.  She also occasionally plays baseball with me, so I know her and most of her family pretty well.  The crowning was a huge deal, with fireworks and lots of little girls in sparkly, poofy dresses and little boys in suits.  There were so many people there that it was hard to see or get any good pictures, but it was a really big deal and Lluvia was adorable!
• Thursday night I went to another "fiesta bailable" in the town salon.  This time there was a band instead of just a DJ.  I had a good time dancing, and didn't get back home until after 2 a.m.
•  Friday afternoon there was another dance performance by a folklore group that came in from Teguz.  They did some indigenous dances followed by colonial dances in beautiful costumes.  It was an interactive performance, with dancers coming down off the stage and into the crowd, and at the end they pulled people up on the stage to dance with them.  One of the drawbacks of being the only gringa in town is that you always get chosen for those kinds of things, but I didn't mind too much :-)
• Saturday I did a lot of resting.  I passed up the dance on Saturday night, but later on regretted the decision...oh well.
• Sunday I went to the salon again to play bingo, which was a fundraiser put on by a women's volunteer group here in Sulaco.  It started out fun, but the people were way too intense.  This was the first time they'd done an event like this.  I also discovered a new pet peeve of mine...when people have to make a comment after every single number they call in bingo.  Like "esto no me sirve" or "asi me gusta."  Obnoxious.  I didn't end up winning anything.  My host dad won a new stereo for his car and my neighbor Said won a stuffed animal (not such an exciting prize for a guy who just graduated from high school).  Other prizes included cows and horses.  Those were the games that got pretty intense.
• Sunday night was the final event of the feria, the crowning of the Rey Feo (ugly king).  I didn't enjoy it very much at all.  It was crowded and hard to see what was going on.  And really all it was was just a bunch of guys dressed up with silly clothes and masks.  But everyone else seemed to get a kick out of it.
• Even though the feria is over, the rides and games are still here.  Last night (Monday), I went on the ferris wheel again with my host sisters Belen and Amada.  Amada goes to high school and lives in Teguz, but she came home Sunday to spend the holidays with her family.  The volume level in the house has gone up substantially now that there are 2 sisters here...I can only imagine what it will be like when all 4 are home.

My other project that I'm starting up for school vacation began yesterday.  I had decided to wait until after the feria to begin the day camp type thing that I'm doing with the kids here for 2 1/2 hours every morning Monday-Friday.  Yesterday we had 8 kids show up, which was a little disappointing.  I had handed out flyers and my new bff the "animador" (guy with a microphone) of the feria made me announce it a bunch of times on the microphone.  Everyone seemed interested, so I was surprised at the small turnout.  However, today we had 18 kids, so things are looking up.  It's a real challenge to come up with things to do that don't take any supplies at all.  We did a raffle to raise some money, but it wasn't enough to cover the things we needed like a ball, paper, markers, etc.  So, I ended up spending a fairly significant chunk of my own money.  I'm hoping the numbers will keep increasing...my SLCC field games knowledge is really coming in handy, we've played animal love, big wind blows, and splat so far!