The San Marcos de Colon Fair

Well, I have finally found some time to blog. We have had groups here since June 1st and that has kept all of us pretty busy. I don't know what it is going to be like when it is just Chad, me, Jarrod, Alli and Meredith. We are not going to know what to do with ourselves. I am sure there will be plenty of things for us to get in to.

Yesterday was the opening day of the San Marcos de Colon Fair. It was an exciting day. Chad and I began our day with breakfast at about 9:30 and from then on we were with friends and had such an amazing day. The parade was to begin at 10:30 a.m., so we invited the 12 interns and the Beltrand children and their caregivers over to watch (the parade went right in front of our house.) The interns showed up around 9:45 and frosted the cookies while I made coffee and got other things ready for the kids to come at 10:00. We all enjoyed a wonderful refreshment time with cookies, rice Krispie treats, coke and coffee until the parade began. It started right on Honduran time, 11:15 a.m.

There were floats and everything. The best thing about parades here is that they not only throw candy from the floats, but they also throw bags of frozen chicken and homemade cheese. I about got knocked out by a flying bag of cheese.

After the floats they had some really nice cars and then horses. They were all really cool. The horses were the neatest to watch. Some just trotted right on through and stayed in line. The best ones though were the ones dancing. We had a horse from Las Palmas that participated in the parade along with one of our ranch foremen, Holman. Don't they look good?

A little side note; Chad and I just found out this past week that we are going to have another baby horse. We are very excited. This white stallion is the daddy.

After the parade, we took the kids and went walking around town. I do not have any more pictures from the day because it was not really safe to carry the camera with us due to the crowds of people in the streets. We walked to the other street where the parade was going through and got to see the horses again. There was a pick up truck bed full of men playing instruments and the horses were dancing and prancing to the music. Then, it started raining, so we went and hid under some trees in the park for a while until the rain slowed down.

We went up to the holding area where the horses were eating and the riders were having a celebration. There were also some little shopping booths and some fun stuff for the kids to do. The little kids jumped in a blow up elephant and the big kids played on a big blow up slide. They had so much fun that they had to of course have something to drink and a little snack afterward. They needed to leave, so Chad and I stayed and walked around a little bit and then decided we would go watch the bull riding.

It was so funny. The bulls would come out of the shoot bucking and kicking for about 10 seconds and then they just stood there with the rider on them. There were 3 men that were dressed up like clowns that had red cloths and spears. They were teasing the bulls to make them run around some more. Up in a little booth there was a live mariachi band. Latin America culture is to have the speakers set so loud you cannot hear what is being said. The music overpowered everything. A little while later, the MC guy announced that they were going to have a soccer game in the middle of the corral. He began collecting money from the crowd to pay the winning team. Some people were giving $5 and $10. He ended up with about 3,000 lempiras, about $150.

They began the game with a large bottle rocket. The object of the game was to get 5 goals. The guys played for a few seconds and then a large cow with huge horns was let loose into the corral where the men were playing. Everyone went crazy. It was so funny watching the guys try to get away from the cow and the cow trying to figure out which one she was going to go after next.

It was a fun day. We were beat when we got home. It was really neat to see the similarities and differences of how they put on a fair here. There were parts that reminded me of being at the Williamson County Ag Center at the Fair.

Thanks for reading!
Shelly