In English: Virgin Mary's Super Pure Assumption to Heaven.
Pretty much all week there have been more fireworks than normal (everyone sets off fireworks all the time here. I don't understand it... But I think it's great). Then, at noon today everyone and their mother set off about 50 million all within 10 mins of each other. It was crazy! But it was also really cool to see everyone on the streets celebrating at the same time... it was kinda like New Years... but it was in the middle of the day.
Then at 600 the exact same thing happened- only more fireworks!
Apparently, in the central square there's a gritería or a big shout, but it was raining. Everyone goes in when it rains, so we didn't bother going down to the centro. But, we chatted with our neighbors and they taught us about what would happen next.
Are you ready for this?
It's like Halloween- except religious- and you don't dress up! [Which is really quite a shame... we've been waiting for a good reason to break out our Virgin Mary costumes...]
It's fantastic.
So everyone wanders around town and they approach the houses that they can see an altar to the Virgin Mary inside. They they say/ yell, "¿¡Quién causa tanta alegría?!" Which means, "Who causes so much happiness?"
Then the people inside either say, "¡La asunción de María!" or "¡La concepción de María!" Which means either the ascending of Mary into heaven or Mary's conception. And then the people in the house give the visitors candy. And then the trick-or-treaters (I mean... quiencausatantaalergria-ers) say, "¡Viva la Virgen!" And they move onto the next house.
There's also some rule about how sometimes the people sing... but I don't understand that rule quite yet.
But we went to Merced's house to get the dinner she cooked for us, and I thought I would try out this Nicaraguan version of trick-or-treating.
It totally worked.
Here's a picture of me standing by their altar just inside their house.
Then, while we were waiting for Merced to bring out the dinners, their house got attacked by a swarm of quiencausatantaalegria-ers, children and adults alike. I grabbed my camera and got a quick video.
It was a beautiful thing.
After we had dinner, Michti, our neighbor, came over and as a joke, yelled, "Quien causa tanta alegria?!" into our house. Playing along, I grabbed a bag of candy we had nearby and give her and her cousin a piece. Then all of the sudden there was a swarm of kids yelling "Qiencaustantgria!" and sticking their hands through our gate. Luckily, we video documented part of the experience. It's sideways though.
I said, "Oh no," because at that point the giant ziploc bag that was about 40% full was completely empty.
So I stopped pretending to be catholic so I could give candy to cute Nicaraguan children (and their parents... ??) But it's still a really fun holiday. Our neighbors say that everyone saves their best fireworks for midnight tonight... So that'll be fun.
Happy Purísima!!
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