Happy New Year’s!
We tried not to expect too much from New Year’s this year, which is sad because I always try to do something different or go somewhere fun. We were told there was a BIG dance in town with a live band and Estefani said she was having a party in the restaurant as well.
The evening rolled around, I taught my last adult class in the evening and we waited for the clock to toll. On a few street corners in town, people made straw dolls out of real clothes and set fire to them at midnight. We couldn’t get anyone to explain exactly WHY they do this, but everyone was excited to burn the dolls. The dolls on our corner had cigarettes in their mouths and beer bottles in hand. I’ll pretend it’s an out with the old theme. It rained, but eventually the dolls burned up, people randomly aimed fireworks (mostly in the air) and loud music was everywhere. Estefani made a little bonfire on the street in front of the house and some people came to warm up in front of it. Not believing in said party, we went to check out the dance. The music was live, but it was mostly cumbia, which is awkward to dance to. Neither Matt or I feel comfortable doing it…it involves shuffling some feet and usually not holding hands or looking at your partner.
So, we decided NOT to do the dance (the room was about half-filled with shuffling folks) and headed back to the house, where some people lured by the fire came into the restaurant and sat in chairs. Social situations in this town are very interesting. We have been to a few parties and people don’t really talk, they just sit on benches and stare at each other. Conversations do pop up, but rarely and it feels like a junior high dance. I bought a box of wine to share with Estefani and Omer, but since people showed up we shared the box among the crowd, a toast was made and the music (cumbia) was turned up on the CD player. We danced a little in a circle which was fun, then some partner dancing, then more of the bench sitting. The CD was actually a DVD played through the TV and it kept shutting off (perhaps because it was at max volume), so Omer went to a neighbor’s to borrow their CD player and 4 speakers. We figured this would take at least an hour to set up, so we went to bed instead. Apparently everyone stayed up until 5 am “dancing,” but I had an interesting evening enough and was glad to get a decent night’s sleep. At least I didn’t have to work this New Year’s eve doling out soup. I was able to spend it with my husband and watch straw dolls burn while dodging fireworks. Hope your New Year’s was good!