So, do they celebrate Halloween in Nicaragua?
Well, no…
And yes, in one place at least. While the majority of the country sympathizes with those protesters in Managua holding signs about how Halloween is evil and “contra la biblia,” citing bible verses and blasting Christian rock in Spanish out of gigantic speakers (I more than once had a conversation in which Nicas professed to sincerely believe that people who celebrated Halloween abducted children and sacrificed them to Satan over a bonfire in the woods), there is one city where people embrace the holiday with open arms. In Masaya, home to two giant artesania markets, great Chinese food, and our friends
Alex and Alex, they take the darkest themes of the holiday and parade them around their garbage-choked streets for a weekend every year. We saw
the parade of little kids (so cute!),
then went and painted our faces and dressed in black, and then went back out on the streets to see the adults parade,
which was where the real fun costumes,
live animals,
desecrated baby dolls,
demons,
fire-belching spray bottles, and all around ridiculousness was.
The next night, we had an American/Nica party at Alex (Scooby)’s house, with lots of PCVs and a few Nicas partaking in that most American of pastimes, Beer Pong. We had a tournament, of which
Donna and I, dressed as Nica High Schoolers (NOT Mormons!),
were the big winners. Woo!
So, do they celebrate Thanksgiving in Nicaragua?
Again, no, as a rule. It is, as Jocelyn pointed out at our recent summer camp, pretty much the only holiday that’s uniquely American. However, when Americans are abroad, we band together, and celebrate anyways, even though we’re away from home. This year was even better than last, which I spent at our former Country Director’s house with about 30 PCVs, only a handful of whom I knew. This time, Donna, Liz and I got together at a hotel on the Island of Ometepe with three of Donna’s friends from the States, and made a huge meal for ourselves and Donna’s Host Fam. We had
pumpkin pie, courtesy of my mom (thanks mom); brownies; steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots; stuffing from Trader Joe’s (which I combined with the veggies with wonderful results); mashed potatoes; bread; corn on the cob courtesy of a lady on the side of the road halfway between Jalapa and Honduras; Pizza, in case Donna’s fam couldn’t find anything they liked, and finally chicken for the meat-eaters.
The dinner was a huge success. Liz cautiously told the story of the first Thanksgiving for Donna’s Fam, and then we all went around the table and said what we were thankful for. The food was delicious, and we were all stuffed at the end.
Donna’s family seemed kind of overwhelmed by everything, but tried a little bit of everything, and seemed very happy with it all. For our post-Thanksgiving, instead of going shopping, we all went to San Juan Del Sur, which is one of the biggest tourist magnets in Nicaragua, and spent a couple nice idle days laying on the beach, seeing turtles laying eggs (it felt really intrusive, and I wasn’t even one of the ones taking close-up pictures of the eggs getting shot out of the turtles’ backsides and into the sandy hole they’d just dug), and eating touristy Nica food (pancakes with gallo pinto for breakfast, veggie shish kabobs for dinner, for example).
So, do they celebrate Christmas in Nicaragua?
Unambiguously yes, in the land where the question is not “What religion are you?” but rather “Are you Catholic or Evangelical?” There are no other options. The kitschy rapidly blinking Christmas lights and
fake (and in some cases corporately sponsored) Christmas trees were seemingly omnipresent this year, way up in scale from last year, according to everyone I’ve talked to. In my old host town of Dolores, the government hung Christmas lights from poles, and provided
a saxophone-playing animatronic Santa next to a sparkly white Christmas tree in the gazebo of the central park. I went back to visit my old host fam, and was pretty impressed. I also took lots of pictures of
their kids posing with Santa, and they insisted on getting a bunch
of me posing with him as well.
Thanks to Donna, Claire, Laura, Alex, Alex, Jocelyn, and Donna's Host Fam for appearing in the pictures!
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