January 1st, 2009--New Year´s!

Well my Christmas might have been a little more mellow that I had expected, but my New Year's was certainly satisfying! The festivities started around 8pm when a group of neighbors made a bonfire in a tire in a field in the center of town. A small group sat around with music blasting, and I went and visited them and tried to take some pictures of the bonfire and the people there and those passing by. I then went down to the Evangelical church where they were having a service until midnight. There was plenty of singing and praying there. At 11 I went up to the Catholic Church where there was a mass being performed by a member of the community who is currently enrolled in the seminary. We prayed, sang, gave thanks, discussed what we wanted in the New Year, and at about 15 minutes till midnight everybody started to sing. The atmosphere was very upbeat and at midnight everybody sang loudly, hugged each other and danced around—even my host mother and some other older ladies were jumping up and down and dancing!
After midnight I headed down to the third evangelical church where both evangelical congregations and gathered to wish each other Happy New Year's. I went down and greeted them all and then the kids gathered in the back of one of the churches where they too had a bonfire going. That night they were doing a type of Secret Santa gift exchange (although, to give you an idea of the differences between here and the US, here the cost of the gift was supposed to be about 2 US dollars). After everyone settled down they started the exchange, and every person who was giving someone else a present had to present it—most people made a little, funny speech and then sang a song, which was fun, but some got even more creative and rapped or sang some kind of reggaeton-type song and danced around. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun to watch!
On New Year's day I headed to the nearest beach (which is about an hour away) to meet some fellow volunteers who had spent New Year's eve there. It was, of course, very relaxing and gorgeous. I came back to my community only to be invited to yet another church celebration where another gift exchange was taking place. This celebration was more like a normal church service, but the highlight was when four seven-year olds did their first “pantomima” (a kind of pantomime/interpretive dance the evangelical girls do to Christian music) and then when that same group of seven year olds got up and sang accompanied on the drums by a two year old who actually did a great job on his little toy drum!