Caballos y Volcans

Saturday we got to witness our first fiesta, or at least a community event. It was a horse race. When it was first described to me I got that horses would race and the riders would try to hit something, and if they did, a niña or mujer would give them a present. That is more or less what actually occurred. There was a rope, strung between two poles across the street. From it hung 14 leather straps each with a metal ring. The rings were less than a inch in diameter, and the straps were designed to release from the rope. The riders would line up about 70 meters back, and then race one at a time towards the rings. As they picked up speed, they would drop one hand from the reigns and draw (usually from their mouth) a short stick about the size and shape of a large pencil. They would aim this at one of the rings and if they hit the target, they would pull free the ring and its strap.

This was not an easy feat, you could tell these were very good riders, with very well disciplined horses, and still they only succeeded about 1 in 10 attempts. A fun aspect was that when a successful rider would return with his ring, he would get a present from usually a young girl, sometimes an older girl, and the grandmas had their fun too. It didn’t happen often, but a rider was allowed to request a kiss. The shouts of “beso” from the crowd if they thought it was a good pairing created some funny moments. Our mom made sure that Katie took a present (some money in a nice pouch), which she ended up giving to Don Tive one of the sons of our mom (he is around 35 and has three kids). He didn’t request a kiss from Katie. It was a nice time to spend with our family, many of our niñas gave presents away to the riders. At the end, the rider who had the most presents won some extra cash as well.

On Sunday, we joined up with our whole Peace Corps trainee group and climbed the big Volcano that dominates our area, Chinchontepec. It was an easy climb in many ways. There is a “road” almost the whole way, but much of the road is very steep, not something you could drive up, and the last bit is a steep slippery trail. The reason it becomes a tough hike is that there is a steep continuous pitch for about 4 to 5 hours of straight hiking, then you turn around and have to worry about slipping more as you descend for 3 hours. It’s a tough day, and it’s not like we have really been doing much physical activity for the last 3 weeks or so.

Still it was worthwhile. The views were nice, though of course clouds dominated the top. It was also good to be physically tired… it has been mostly mentally exhausting the rest of our time here. This week is our “immersion days”, where we each go off to a community and stay with a family by ourselves for two nights, then meet with a nearby PCV and spend the final night with them. We leave on Thursday and return on Sunday. Next update sometime next week, thanks for reading!