January Feria

This month was full of crazy experiences-it was the month of my town´s fair. I still haven´t quite decided whether it was a good idea, but in December I volunteered to be part of the fair committee. I went to multiple meetings during the weeks prior to the fair, and indured many cat fights and lively discussions. Even though it was tiring at times, it was totally worth it when the fair came. I got a cool shirt to wear around and a badge that got me in free to all major events (my sitemate Joe was a little bitter about not having one for himself—but when I offered to let him use mine for some reason he didn´t think people would buy it…weird). People from all around Victoria-people who lived hours away—came to Victoria. The main road was completely filled with stores and tiny restaurants, and people never started leaving until the wee hours of the night. There were banners strung everywhere and there was always music being played (usually “te aaaamo, te aaaaamo, te aaaaaammmmoooo”). We held children´s games (maybe not quite as cool as pig riding at the Johnson County fair—btw my sister Shelley won that once), soccer games, a cow competition, a horse parade, jaripeo (bull-riding), karaoke nights, a Miss. Victoria pageant, and tons of fiestas. The children´s games were one of my responsibilities, and they always turned out pretty well, it was just hard when 60 kids would want to play at the same time. The soccer games were pretty popular, not that anyone should be surprised since I am living in a Latin American country, but they were great because we had teams travel to play against our own team. Due to my extensive amount of dancing, I wasn´t able to get up in the morning to see the cow show and horse parade, but I heard they were pretty cool too. Jaripeo was definitely a little more mellow than what we are used to in the States, but nonetheless it was worth watching. I think my favorite part of this event was when one of the bulls, which they had been working so hard to piss off, broke out of the pen and ran at a big group of us. I´m not sure I´ve ever had an adrenaline rush like that—but I feel like I had a taste of what it might be like to run with the bulls in Spain. Well, maybe.
It was always a treat when it was karaoke night. The typical singer was a drunk guy that took a break from his card game-they usually had a hard time standing none the less trying to pronounce words in a comprehensive sentence. However once in a while our ears would get a break and a person with some talent took the microphone. The pageant was a lot of work. It took us all day to decorate for it, and the rest of the day to walk through the program with the girls. Totally worth it though. I was very happy about the results—my good friend Sindy won, and that was after my lessons on how to walk down a runway. Which, as I should give credit where credit is due, was not because of my extensive experience modeling, but the Victoria Secret modeling shows that I saw once or twice on TV. Worked though!
I have to say that I think my favorite part of the feria were the fiestas or dances that they had at night. There was a dance every night from Tuesday till Saturday 9-3am, and you bet that I went to every single one. Now, by the time I got to Friday I was switching between my heels and flats, and on Saturday I didn´t even try it. Even though my feet were completely dead by the end of the week, I don’t regret any of it. This is also how I gained my nickname, la bailadora, or the dancer. On Wednesday, which was the big dance of the fair, the committee had a band come in from San Pedro Sula and so we had live music all night. I had so much fun that night and was twirled around so much that I lost my two favorite rings and even my earrings! I was pretty sad about it the next day but it was totally worth it, hands up.