The Summer Holidays of San Nicolas

It is summer in Nicaragua. Little purple flowers decorate the hills around San Nicolas, and the rains that should be completely over by this time of year (according to our neighbors) have at least slowed down, if not totally stopped. (Global warming strikes again, this time on the Nicaraguan bean harvest).

The school year ended about a week ago for the Instituto Publico Carolina Camas Arauz, and it's been a nonstop party since then. We're discovering that Nicaraguans love holidays, and it seems that a lot of them are concentrated around the end of the year. Here are the special days we celebrated this week:

San Nicolas Day, December 5

Where is more fitting to celebrate jolly old Saint Nick than in San Nicolas, Nicaragua? Answer: NOWHERE. (Although I'm still not convinced that December 25 is not the real San Nicolas Day . . . But I guess the people of San Nicolas know best).

San Nicolas Day is a big deal in San Nicolas, and rightfully so. People came from all of the 40 or so surrounding communities, walking very long distances in very fancy clothes, to celebrate. San Nicolas Day is, of course, a Catholic holiday, and when we meandered over to the church for mass in the morning, there was a long line of people stretching out of the church and through the park. We asked the guy who sells us enchilada snacks at school what they were doing, and he told us they were waiting to greet the bishop, who was coming all the way from Esteli to do the mass.

After the bishop arrived and was given a royal greeting, people made a rush for the church door. They clamored into the church – little girls in froofy dresses, women with elaborately braided hair, old men still wearing the spurs on their heels from their horse ride into town. People were packed into every corner of the church. We stood at the back in between the drunken cowboys and the offering table, which overflowed with bags of beans and rice.

During the service, lots of kids from the surrounding communities were confirmed in the Catholic Church. Afterward, they got their pictures taken with the bishop, and everyone shared a meal together in different houses around San Nicolas, since there were so many people.

Davie's Birthday, December 7

There isn't actually a Nicaraguan national holiday celebrating Davie, but maybe one day there will be. Apparently the birthday custom here in Nicaragua is to make a cake on the birthday person's head. Lucky for Davie, this culinary miracle didn't come to pass on this day. Nicaraguan birthday tradition is, we're told, to crack an egg on top of the birthday person's head and sprinkle some flour and other cake ingredients on top of the egg. It seems to me that this would result in a rather gooey cake, but maybe I will do some experimenting.

I did bake a cake yesterday, though in normal cake pans rather than on a head. We invited a few friends over to share the cake and Davie showed off our new, huge map of Nicaragua on the kitchen wall and his new baseball mitt that he got for his birthday. Then later one of our coworkers, a teacher at the Institute, stopped by to wish Davie a happy birthday too.

La Purisima, December 7 and 8

We had heard that the Purisima is a really big Nicaraguan holiday for celebrating the virgin Mary. But apart from a few bouts of middle-of-the-night firecrackers that woke us up this past week, we were not convinced that the Purisima was anything special until today.

On Sunday, instead of waking up to firecrackers, we woke up at 4:30 a.m. to loud trumpet music coming from the mayor's office next to our house. Then, during church a cheer went up several times, saying, “Who do we celebrate today? The Virgin Mary! Why do we celebrate her today? Because of the immaculate conception!”

We had been wondering why the church was so unusually packed with kids this Sunday. After the normal service ended, the religious sisters asked for some kids to volunteer to sing a song to the virgin Mary, but since the kids all stared back blankly, an old lady went to the front of the church to sing the song instead.

Then a group of people from the mayor's office brought around box after box of treats to hand out to each person in the church. We each made out with some pretty impressive loot, including a mysterious pink beverage, honeyed pumpkin, sugar cane, fruit, candy, and a bowl. It was a fun celebration, and it was cool to see the people of San Nicolas, who so seldom get anything for free, carrying around big bags of treats.