El Desfile - "The Parade"

Last Monday was the national holiday Mexican Revolution Day, and the kids from grade school had a parade. All the girls and boys in Aaron, Nere, and Poncho's grades had the option of dressing up like little Mexican princesses (I'm sure they have a different name than that) and revolutionaries from 1910 (who amazingly, in 2008, wear buckled sandals, plastic bullets, and beards drawn from eyeliner... lol).

Here they are pictured above... next to the ever-present purple walls... ;)

Jenna, Zulema and I ended up going to San Ignacio early (where the grade school is), and found a spot along the side of the main street. In tow were Candi, Diego and Jose, as well as Zulema's kids - Kevin, Angel, and Keyla.

Pictured above: Zulema, Kevin, and Jenna waiting for the parade to start.

The Big Moment: The kids passed by on their short -- okay, very short -- parade route... :)

There were some little, little kids in the parade that must have been about Diego and Jose's ages... maybe in Kindergarten or something. And this little girl was amazing... she looked beautiful, but kept dragging behind the rest of the group, swerving from one side of the street to another while her mom followed behind yelling for her to get back in line... :)

After the parade, everyone gathered at the cancha for traditional dances, speeches, etc. We ended up staying for awhile; so that both Candi and Angel could see they sat atop shoulders most of the time...

And... this is the face you get when someone hasn't had her nap, is hot and sweaty (it was unusually warm that day), really hungry, and totally annoyed that her caregiver keeps taking pictures and trying to get her to smile... :)

Karla was kind enough to keep her up top, even though Candi kept whining...

Nereida and Julissa were just beautiful... and super-excited to get to wear their outfits!

Poncho and Aaron started out being really excited to get dressed up, but by the time I saw them standing in line after the parade they were well-past wanting to take them off and had moved on into downright annoyed... lol.

Samuel is a brother from Hungary that is visiting us right now, and I believe he thoroughly enjoyed the parade... basing that assumption on the number of pictures he took... lol. Here he is posing with Aaron's bullets, and one of the signs from the parade.

As the older girls danced the traditional dances, Juli and Nere stood side-by-side right on the edge of the dance area and watched... fascinated. :)

I asked Nere later if she wanted to dance like that and she nodded an emphatic, "Yes!" She got her chance the next week since their class performed for some committee. She was supposed to dance with Aaron (but apparently he told the teacher he didn't want to do it, and hid under his desk... embarrassed, I do think... lol), but instead ended up with another young boy and told me that night that she didn't mess up even once!