Since we have been in Mexico we have not worn regular shoes. We wear flip flops and sandals everywhere. We go shopping all over town in them. We ride the bus to Vallarta in them and we live in them. Hence, shoe shopping was made more complicated because or feet had spread and have become quite wide. There is not a lot of variety in shoes here and the size difference limited our selection further. I ended up with some very basic lace up and JD found some blue suede boat shoes. We felt like Cinderella's ugly step sisters trying to jam our feet into the glass slipper. We had to go up several sizes to get a decent fit.
We found clothes that fit, but again, we are larger than most Mexican men, both height and width wise and finding things we liked was a bit of a challenge. It wasn't until we got home that JD discovered the secret message sewn into the fly of his pants. It reads "you look beautiful today". What nice thing to be reminded of when you are getting dressed up.
On Thursday we went to a benefit for the primary school. It was quite the event with lots of food and entertainment. I still have not learned that, at Mexican functions, the first rule is to sit as far away from the speakers as possible. I don't know what it is about Mexicans but music is always played at full volume, no matter the time of day. This is one of several placed around the area.
We arrived early as we still believe that events should start at the time posted. I don't think we will ever be able to adapt to the Latin idea of start times, sometimes as much as two hours later. There is always something fun to do while we wait.
One of the things that really surprised us was the bar located at the back of the plaza. We shouldn't have been surprised because alcohol is everywhere here but we just didn't expect that it would be part of a primary school function. There were children everywhere, some of them offering desserts. Margaritas and pina coladas were available for about $4 each.
We met these people before things got busy. His name is Jamie and her name is Susan. They live in Mt. Vernon, WA and have been busy this year painting the murals on the primary school. They finished this primary school abut a week ago and were busy with another primary school in the area. It is a lot of work for two people, but they managed to love every minute of it. Not the most flattering picture, but I'm sure they will forgive me.
The parents of the children put in a lot of work to make this an authentic event . There were lots of dancers, some better than others but what I admired most was the willingness of all of the performers to get on stage and do what they did for the school. They put in hours of practice and the results were delightful.
These women were performing a dance called "La Luz". If you look closely you will see that each of the dancers has a lit candle balanced on their foreheads. It takes quite a bit of skill to keep them from falling off. There is no adhesive allowed, just years of practice.
These gentlemen are a Mariachi band. They were actually quite good. Notice the lack of large brass instruments and drums. It was nice to hear something that wasn't amplified to near eardrum shattering levels.
There were also some guys dancing with machetes, another dance that takes years of practice. Later, another group of guys did what is called a beer dance. While they are dancing they hold beer bottles with their thumb covering the opening and shake the bottle causing beer to spray everywhere and on spectators close to the stage. When we asked our Mexican friend, Victoria, why they did that she just laughed and said, "because we don't have champagne!"
Love to you all,
Jan
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