'Feriados' aka Public Holidays

In last couple months I had a privilege to experience the celebrations of two public holidays here in Costa Rica. The first one was on 25th July and the other one is today - 15th September. Both accompanied with some interesting traditions. Here is a little bit more information about both and of course some pictures and videos :)

The annexation of Guanacaste Day (25th July)

It's celebrated on 25th July and commemorates the annexation of the province of Guanacaste to Costa Rica. This occurred in 1824 - prior to this year, Guanacaste was part of Nicaragua. Due to the fact that Nicaragua was active in many civil wars at the time, Guanacaste’s inhabitants requested to be annexed to Costa Rica. The Central American Federation approved the annexation; hence Guanacaste became a part of Costa Rica. The ‘Guanacastecos’ (people living in Guanacaste) have always been well identified with Costa Rica and take pride in being a part of this country. This annexation by choice celebrates Costa Rica’s core values of democracy. The Guanacaste Day is celebrated with a nationwide public holiday and bustling celebratory activities and events, especially in the province of Guanacaste. The celebration is comprised by parades, folk dances, typical music, cattle shows and more. Bullfights are also typical of the Guanacaste Day celebration. However, bullfights in Costa Rica are very different than those in Spain. Tico style of bullfighting does not involve killing the animal; it’s all about young unarmed men teasing a bull or cow around a ring for a few minutes. Guanacaste’s streets fill out with handicrafts and typical Costa Rican food like tamales and grilled meat with tortillas. Concerts, fireworks and folk dances are also part of the celebration.

Here are few pictures from my own experience :)

Pictures from Guanacaste 

                                      

Children wear traditional outfits and have some special activities at school

Celebrating with our women from microfinance site in Los Guido

Costa Rica's Independence Day

Costa Rica’s Independence Day is celebrated on September 15th. It commemorates the independence of the entire Central America from Spain, which took place in 1821. The Independence Day of Costa Rica has been declared an official national holiday in the country and is celebrated with much joy and cheerfulness. The national holiday is marked by raising the National Flag, patriotic parades and the singing of the National Anthem. Even though September 15th is Costa Rica’s official Independence Day, festivities begin on the 14th, with the reenactment of the notification of Costa Rica’s liberation carrying the ‘freedom torch’. At 6pm, the popular ‘faroles’ parade begins – homemade lanterns symbolizing the original freedom torch. Children in traditional costumes perform typical dances and then the fireworks begin. Another important parade takes place on the morning of the 15th. School bands march along with children wearing traditional dresses, dancing at the beat of drums and lyres.

And again...some pictures and videos from today - enjoy! :)

More pictures here

Videos:

http://youtu.be/BIJzJk1a6vo

http://youtu.be/mWQJof9znR8

http://youtu.be/NWzh6HZdzfc

http://youtu.be/7qo42K3CDR8

http://youtu.be/I8E8xf0u90M

Summer update!

Wow! Once again I am back here after very long break - in fact after the whole summer! And so many things happened in last few months...Where does the time go????

So here we go! Here are some of my highlights of this summer :)

At the beginning of July all the kids in Costa Rica had two weeks of holidays (something like holidays in winter, just without Christmas :) They don't have the long holidays here in summertime but in wintertime, around Christmas. Well...wait...they don't actually have summer or winter here! They have a dry and wet season! Have I confused you enough?! :))

So going back to 2 week holidays...during this time Students International organised some special events for children of the communities where we work. We (microfinance ministry) decided to do something for our women and their children - we called it a 'Family Day'. Together with our colleagues from Sports Ministry we organised a fun event in one of the parks in San Jose - it was a day full of fun, games and good food! It was almost 160 of us! Here are some pictures from this day...

Summer for Students International is a busy season! In the months of June and July (and partly May too) we had outreach teams from the States helping us at our ministry sites. They came for 2 weeks and besides helping us in the communities every day, they had a full program of other activities. When they arrived, they went through one day orientation. Then they had a night of testimonies with SI staff, Solidarity night (learning about the poverty here in Costa Rica and worldwide), Cultural night (where they got to taste some interesting types of fruit), the tour of San Jose (mostly accompanied by heavy rain), one day trip to the beach and early morning devotionals. Besides the teams, we had our lovely interns who came to help us for three months. There were the connection between us as a staff and the outreach teams. Our intern was Kylee. She  quickly became part of our microfinance team and we missed (still do!) her a lot after she left! Here are some pictures with our teams and different activities that we had with them.

 Cultural night (3 pictures below)

Women from our microfinance ministry selling their products to the team members

 Microfinance ministry with some of our outreach team members

With summer outreach teams

...and our lovely interns 

Lastly, I would like to tell you a little bit about how we celebrated Mother's Day with our women. Mother's Day in Costa Rica is celebrated on 15th August and it's quite important. The reason for that is the important role of women as mothers in the society. To mark this special day, we took our women from all the communities where we work for a day out. It was a surprise for them until the last minute. We took them to a hotel outside San Jose, situated in beautiful surroundings. First, we went for a walk to see nearby waterfall. The plan was to go and see it and return back to the hotel. However, the ladies enjoyed  it so much and even ended up swimming there! Finally we made them leave to be on time for lunch!:) In the afternoon we enjoyed the hotel pool and took an advantage of the meeting room that we had available throughout the day. Because we had all the women together (and it doesn't happen very often), I decided to use this time to tell them about Slovakia and its culture. We also officially said bye to our intern Kylee who was leaving the following day. Besides that, we played some games and gave away some prizes. It was a fun day!

If you would like to know more about summer 2014 at Students International, visit https://www.facebook.com/sicostarica and http://sicostarica.blogspot.com/.