Guanacaste Day

On Guanacaste Day (July 25), Costa Rica celebrates the annexation of the Guanacaste province from Nicaragua in 1824. At La Palabra de Vida, the celebration included a school-wide assembly. Here's one of the kindergarden kids at the assembly reciting a part of a story. (Okay, actually we didn't really understand what he was saying, but it was really cute!).
As the assembly progressed, each grade (pre-school through 11th) either danced or presented a skit. Then it was the teachers' turn.

I'm not sure exactly how we got roped into it. But probably due to some combination of our poor Spanish and our inability to say no, we volunteered to dance at the assembly. Of course we were assured that we would be thouroughly taught what to do. But at the scheduled reheasal, the coordinator (the only one who knew the dance moves) didn't show up. So, the day before the event we had a crash course in the Caballito Nicoyano.

In the Caballito Nicoyano the dancers are dressed "campesino style". The man wears a white shirt, work pants, a campesino hat and a bandanna. The woman wears a white, off the shoulder blouse accented with lace, and a flowing, tiered skirt of bright colors. The dance is between the character of a male cattle rancher and the woman he is trying to impress. The man in the dance is the cattle rancher and the woman is a colt that needs to be ‘captured.' The music mimics the sound of horses' hooves. The man follows the woman around in a circle attempting to lasso the ‘colt'. The dance ends with an intensifying chase as she twirls toward him, and is finally caught. I'm not sure our rendition of it was quite as dramatic as all that. But we did give the students a good laugh, and once again confirmed that many years back we made the right choice when we decided not to be professional dancers.