Que viva el niño Jesus (Now with pictures!)

Holiday cheer has had a different feel this year, probably because of the lack of miserable, cold weather here in Cuenca.  Nonetheless I have found many new ways to celebrate.  Here are a few ways I have gotten my spirit on.

Festival of Lights, Cuenca

• Villancicos:  Villancicos are Christmas carols down here.  I went to the mall to hear my students from the school where I volunteer sing a few in Spanish and English a few weeks ago.  Since, I have had the pleasure of hearing more villancicos all over the place.  Just like other tunes here in Ecuador, they tend to repeat frequently.  I was a judge at the local high school for Christmas English projects and heard various versions of the same carol back to back for quite a while.
• Latacunga Festivities:  Another Fulbright ETA in Latacunga threw a holiday cocktail party that was a true treat on my trip north last weekend.  The party included a delicious spread of festive food and drinks and a chance to catch up with Fulbright buddies, which was a highlight this holiday season. 
• Mom:  To really make my trip north exciting, I met Mom in the airport in Quito and we came back to Cuenca together.  Merry Christmas!
• Cookies:  I was disappointed to learn about the more than temporary problem with my oven and stove this month.  However, I felt better after I had a chance to bake cookies with my Norwegian pals in Cuenca and again with my Fulbright friends in Quito.
• Faculty Party:  The Department of Languages at the U (as they call university here) was an interesting event to attend.  We had cheap boxed wine, cheese cubes and ham slivers followed by a guitar sing-along.  We also celebrated the retirement of a department employee who is leaving after more than 30 years of work.  For his retirement he received a cheap scarf, ugly wallet, and shaving gel.  I'm still not sure what to think about that.
• Cuenca Events:  No day is any day in Cuenca without some fireworks and December was full of all combinations of events and juegos pirotécnicos.  There was a festival of lights in which the streets were closed and filled with luminaries, fireworks were ignited, and tissue paper balloons with flames were sent into the sky.  We attended a live nativity in which Joseph had a quite lenghthy monologue to God in which he wondered, "How is it possible?  I haven't had relations with Mary."  The pase del niño viajero is a Christmas Eve day-long parade of children dressed in costumes, riding on trucks, horses, donkeys, and strollers.  As if the parade weren't enough, it was preceded the night before with a night of dancing in the main square, in which the dancers wore paper mache figures on their heads that sprayed fireworks.  This event was topped off with three firework castles. 

Joseph in the live nativity

one kid of thousands in the pase del niño viajero

• Christmas Eve with Conchita:  Conchita invited Mom, Will, Kevin and I to her place for Christmas Eve for a gigantic party that she threw for her entire, enormous family.  We ate dinner at 10:15, drank plenty of wine and whiskeycitos, and departed around 2:00 a.m., several hours before the rest of the guests.  It was lovely.

Conchita, me and 2 of 8 of her siblings

• Christmas Day:  We spent the day in the apartment and enjoyed all kinds of tropical fruits, wine, hard cheeses that aren't part of every day down here, a small Christmas tree that mom brought all of the way from Kentucky, and time to relax.

Me, Will and mini-tree

• The 26th:  Following Miller tradition we headed south the day after to warmer weather and relaxation.  This time, instead of going to south Florida, we went to Vilcabamba in south Ecuador.  More to come on that next time.