Wednesday December 22nd, 2010
Wow, what a day……………..it started off great and ended great, the middle sucks though! We got to Philo’s bar in La Cruz and the bar had been transformed to a toy factory! Tables in a U shape overflowing with toys for big and little boys and girls with us standing around the outside filling the bags, and of course an orange in every bag! Ross and I were in the little girl section, but in our zealous we (and the other people) were putting too much toys in each bag……………don’t want to run out of bags, so we took them all apart on the pool table and just had a colouring book crayons and one toy, with a balloon and candies. What fun we had, Philo does this every year and he also has a Christmas turkey dinner on the 25th with Santa!
What we found out at Philo’s was not so fun………………………..Mike and Nick (Mike is from Calgary and plays bass guitar and Mike is from California and plays guitar) were driving home last night from a gig in Punta de mita and they hit a horse with the car! Nick just had a couple of bumps and bruises but Mike had the horse kick him in the face, ouch! He is at the Amerimed hospital in PV, his face was too swollen for surgery last night but when we saw him in the hospital he said that he should be going into surgery later on in the day. What a mess his face is, so swollen and black and blue and red………………………………………. I’m pretty sure he was on some good drugs as he would shake his head and he said he could hear his bones rattle, he had his own little band in his head! I sure hope they do a good job of surgery on his face, he will probably need plastic surgery after this.
After seeing Mike we drove to Sam’s club to get some finger food for our invitation from Geno and Alvia to go to their house in San Pancho for a posada and caroling, the definition of a posada is below:
Typically, each family in a neighborhood will schedule a night for the Posada to be held at their home, starting on the 16th of December and finishing on the 24th. Every home has a nativity scene and the hosts of the Posada act as the innkeepers. The neighborhood children and adults are the pilgrims (peregrinos), who have to request lodging by going house to house singing a traditional song about the pilgrims. All the pilgrims carry small lit candles in their hands, and four people carry small statues of Joseph leading a donkey, on which Mary is riding. The head of the procession will have a candle inside a paper lamp shade. At each house, the resident responds by refusing lodging (also in song), until the weary travelers reach the designated site for the party, where Mary and Joseph are finally recognized and allowed to enter. Once the “innkeepers” let them in, the group of guests come into the home and kneel around the Nativity scene to pray (typically, the Rosary). Latin American countries have continued to celebrate this holiday to this day, with very few changes to the tradition. In some places, the final location may be a church instead of a home. Individuals may actually play the various parts of Mary (María) and Joseph with the expectant mother riding a real donkey (burro), with attendants such as angels and shepherds acquired along the way, or the pilgrims may carry images of the holy personages instead. At the end of the long journey, there will be Christmas carols (villancicos), children will break open colorful papier-mâché objects, called Piñata’s with bats while blindfolded to obtain candy and fruit hidden inside, and there will be a feast. Piñata’s are traditionally made out of clay. It is expected to meet all the invitees in a previous procession.
We got there after 8 as Ross had is meeting to go to before we went. We put the little sandwiches on the table they had outside and Geno put some chairs out for us (we were supposed to bring our own but we forgot, and it looked like everyone else forgot too!) We met new people last night (that is one of the reasons I like it here so much, all the people you meet that you would never have met otherwise) and we got down to some pretty serious carol singing, we even had some carolers come by with their candles and they sang with us for a bit! Unfortunately our singing was cut short due to a power failure and then a brown out; we couldn’t see the words on the page. We stayed for a bit more then drove home, making sure we didn’t hit any horses……….or cows….or trucks!
All in all it was a pretty good day. Everyone say a prayer for Mike’s quick recovery!
Ross Kim and critters in Paradise
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