Carnaval at Colonia Ecologica
Carnaval in Bolivia is over now, so hopefully we will not be getting wet anymore. You probably think: "Getting wet, what does that have to do with carnaval?" Let me explain. Carnaval in Bolivia involves a lot of dancing, drinking, streetcorsos, etc. - the normal things at carnaval. But in Bolivia there is more involved with carnaval, namely waterfights. These originated from when the Spanish first came here and tried to convert the indiginous people, baptising them with holy water. Throwing water balloons and spraying each other with foam seem to be the biggest things these days. Luckily it is summer in Bolivia at Carnaval!
When we visited Colonia Ecologica they were doing some games with water balloons (globos de agua). Because there are very small children, Kiko and Carmen take a lot of care so that the bigger kids don't just bomb the small ones with globos. They invented a game where the small ones have to hit the small ones (from a small distance) and the bigger ones have to try to hit the bigger ones (from a greater distance)-whereas in town, everybody hits everybody - and often as hard as they can. We joined in and luckily didn't get hit that much. Than Kiko started a big waterfight and we were soon soaked. Buckets of water got emptied on everybody. If that wasn't enough the children smeared mud all over us and everybody was soon covered in mud. Even Kiko and Carmen. After a wash in the stream we all changed in dry clothes and the last day of the carnaval weekend was over. The children really enjoyed themselves, as did we of course.
Unfortunately we won't be able to join the carnaval next year or maybe ever again. It is a really great experience and we will miss it a lot.
When we visited Colonia Ecologica they were doing some games with water balloons (globos de agua). Because there are very small children, Kiko and Carmen take a lot of care so that the bigger kids don't just bomb the small ones with globos. They invented a game where the small ones have to hit the small ones (from a small distance) and the bigger ones have to try to hit the bigger ones (from a greater distance)-whereas in town, everybody hits everybody - and often as hard as they can. We joined in and luckily didn't get hit that much. Than Kiko started a big waterfight and we were soon soaked. Buckets of water got emptied on everybody. If that wasn't enough the children smeared mud all over us and everybody was soon covered in mud. Even Kiko and Carmen. After a wash in the stream we all changed in dry clothes and the last day of the carnaval weekend was over. The children really enjoyed themselves, as did we of course.
Unfortunately we won't be able to join the carnaval next year or maybe ever again. It is a really great experience and we will miss it a lot.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home