Although Halloween isn't really a Mexican tradition, we had a costume contest here at the high school home and the volunteers at the home in Miacatlán put on a haunted house for all of the little kids. We found out on the day of Halloween that there would be a costume contest that night with a pizza dinner for the top 3 winners. Whitney decided she was going to dye her hair black and borrow one of the high school girl's uniforms to dress up as one of the pequeñas here. Meghan decided to join her and they both dyed their hair (it was permanent dye! haha). I said there is no way in hell that I am dying my hair black, so I had to think fast of what I could dress up as. All of the kids tell me that my hair looks like the dried hairs from corn on the cob (go figure) so I decided to dress up as.....CORN ON THE COB! lol I sewed on some yellow paper circles onto a yellow bed sheet and wrapped it around my body to serve as the actual corn, put my hair up in a ponytail on top of my head to serve as the "pelos de elote" (corn hairs) and stuck big leaves in the sheet at the top for the husks. For the contest there were about 20 participants, but some competed as a group. Each group had to make their entrance in front of everyone and put on a little show/dance. When I made my entrance they randomly chose some slow gangsta song, so I just did my pimp-walk and skipped around a little because I didn't know what else to do. hahaha I think it was entertaining enough. They introduced me as the "elote diabólica" but I made sure when people asked later that I was actually "elote feliz". I didn't get the memo that for Halloween in Mexico people only dress up as scary or evil things, so dressing up as a happy corn on the cob was a confusing concept to grasp for some of the kids. Anyways, I got 4th place! haha I don't think a 4th place actually existed, but the judges loved me, what can I say? ;) The Happy Corn on the Cob was a HIT!
The next two days were All Saints Day on the 1st and Día de los Muertos on the 2nd. I took photos at all of the events and just posted the story on the intranet, so it will be up on the
NPH Mexico website in a couple days. Pictures are worth the thousand words that I could make you suffer through, so I'll just let you check out all the event photos of the
high schoolers and the
little'uns with these links. The offerings the kids made were beautiful! It was so great to actually be in Mexico on Día de los Muertos and really experience the rich culture with all my senses, instead of just reading about it or making crafts in my Spanish classes in the US.
Sidenote: I realized today how much I miss being able to turn on the radio whenever I want and listen to 107.7 The End. I appreciate the Mexican music they play here, but I get sick of hearing the top hits all of the time here at the high school: Pitbull's Give me everything tonight, Katy Perry, J Beebz, Lady Gaga, Avril Lavigne, Mr. Saxobeat, Black Eyed Peas, Jennifer Lopez Get on the Floor and the kids especially LOVE to sing me the song "La gente es muy loca...what the F***" by Sak Noel. So to ease my craving for some good old grunge/alternative music in English, I listened to 107.7 on the internet while writing this blog. It was great to hear some Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mumford&Sons, Franz Ferdinand, Smashing Pumpkins, Flagpole Sitta, Foster the People, Black Keys, Naked & Famous, Offspring and Sublime. :D
No comments:
Post a Comment