dance dance revolution
Feria time again in San Ramón! I didn’t attend all the events (like church or the first presentation of the candidates for queen) but I tried to attend the more important ones. I did miss the cultural night at the colegio, which made me sad, but I wasn’t feeling well and since it was raining, I didn’t want to risk getting sicker and missing out on the disco. I taught English the next day and a few of my students came up to me and said, “You missed out on cultural night! You were brought up at rey feo!”
Rey Feo, ‘Ugly King’, is kind of a mock election that towns generally hold during their ferias. The guy candidates dress up as females but in the tackiest outfits they can find and an ugly king is crowned. But the big thing about rey feo is that people in town get roasted. For example, “Prof. Jhonny has been drafted by the Lakers because they need some tall players!” (He’s 5’3”). Mine was, “Catita, who’s your boyfriend of the month? Prof. Jhonny? No, that’s old news. Prof. Oscar? Yeah, they’re the ideal couple. No, he has 5 girlfriends. Where’s that curly head guy that visited you? Maybe he’s the new one.” I’m actually glad I wasn’t there for that because that’s pretty embarrassing.
Friday the 4th was the election of the queen. It wasn’t as exciting as last year because they didn’t do it in rounds. Instead, the candidates were presented and then people had an hour to cast votes (aka put money into an envelope) for the girl they wanted to be queen. The fun part was that during that hour, the coordinator cleared the stage and turned off the lights for a mini disco. For the first few minutes, it was similar to a 7th grade dance with people on either side of the room staring at each other. One of the kids from my class came up to me and pulled me to the stage. It was embarrassing at first, but a lot of people started screaming my name which made it really fun. Plus, the DJ said, “And here we have our North American cutie dancing with someone that isn’t Prof. Oscar! Watch out Oscar!” Soon after, people started coming to the dance floor and it was a good time. After the hour was up, the director of the colegio announced the queen and that was it. No drama of opening up each envelope and pulling out 2000 lempiras for their candidate.
Tuesday the 8th was the actual feria with the crowning of the queen and the real disco. The crowning was held on the main road and wasn’t that big of a deal, except to those who participated in it. I took a few pics but mainly chatted with people about the soon to be disco.
The disco was held in the ‘town hall’, like last year, except it was held in the outdoor part of the town hall. It was much better because it was cooler outside, there was a projection screen playing videos and it was professional looking. After all the candidates danced their traditional waltz, Luis grabs my hand and we start dancing. I danced with him and Brayan for the majority of the night. At one point during the night, a drunken guy grabbed my arm and kept asking me to dance with him (even though I was dancing with Luis). Luis moves me to the other side of the dance floor and the drunk guy follows us, stares at us for a minute then yells ‘Bitch!’ and throws his can of beer at Luis and I and leaves. Whatever. I dance until my legs are burned out (4 puntas in a row? Are you crazy?!) and I leave at 1 am. Much earlier than the year before but I didn’t have to deal with any idiots…always a good thing. My last feria… a little bittersweet. A little.
Rey Feo, ‘Ugly King’, is kind of a mock election that towns generally hold during their ferias. The guy candidates dress up as females but in the tackiest outfits they can find and an ugly king is crowned. But the big thing about rey feo is that people in town get roasted. For example, “Prof. Jhonny has been drafted by the Lakers because they need some tall players!” (He’s 5’3”). Mine was, “Catita, who’s your boyfriend of the month? Prof. Jhonny? No, that’s old news. Prof. Oscar? Yeah, they’re the ideal couple. No, he has 5 girlfriends. Where’s that curly head guy that visited you? Maybe he’s the new one.” I’m actually glad I wasn’t there for that because that’s pretty embarrassing.
Friday the 4th was the election of the queen. It wasn’t as exciting as last year because they didn’t do it in rounds. Instead, the candidates were presented and then people had an hour to cast votes (aka put money into an envelope) for the girl they wanted to be queen. The fun part was that during that hour, the coordinator cleared the stage and turned off the lights for a mini disco. For the first few minutes, it was similar to a 7th grade dance with people on either side of the room staring at each other. One of the kids from my class came up to me and pulled me to the stage. It was embarrassing at first, but a lot of people started screaming my name which made it really fun. Plus, the DJ said, “And here we have our North American cutie dancing with someone that isn’t Prof. Oscar! Watch out Oscar!” Soon after, people started coming to the dance floor and it was a good time. After the hour was up, the director of the colegio announced the queen and that was it. No drama of opening up each envelope and pulling out 2000 lempiras for their candidate.
Tuesday the 8th was the actual feria with the crowning of the queen and the real disco. The crowning was held on the main road and wasn’t that big of a deal, except to those who participated in it. I took a few pics but mainly chatted with people about the soon to be disco.
The disco was held in the ‘town hall’, like last year, except it was held in the outdoor part of the town hall. It was much better because it was cooler outside, there was a projection screen playing videos and it was professional looking. After all the candidates danced their traditional waltz, Luis grabs my hand and we start dancing. I danced with him and Brayan for the majority of the night. At one point during the night, a drunken guy grabbed my arm and kept asking me to dance with him (even though I was dancing with Luis). Luis moves me to the other side of the dance floor and the drunk guy follows us, stares at us for a minute then yells ‘Bitch!’ and throws his can of beer at Luis and I and leaves. Whatever. I dance until my legs are burned out (4 puntas in a row? Are you crazy?!) and I leave at 1 am. Much earlier than the year before but I didn’t have to deal with any idiots…always a good thing. My last feria… a little bittersweet. A little.
posted by Kathryn @ 7:03 PM
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