The week that Lent starts is also the week of a continental holiday throughout all of Latinoamérica.. known as Carnaval. This holiday is best known in Brazil for their wild parties, parades, and costumes. If you have seen Rio (the animated movie with the little blue bird), you'll understand on a small scale. While Brazil is the most extreme of the Carnavals, each country celebrates in its own special way. In Ecuador, there are two days designated to use "espuma" (basically foam/silly string) and water in a huge fight with your friends, neighbors, and strangers. This practice used to be aimed at the women of Ecuador as a show of male dominance, but in recent years it has developed to become a "friendly" water fight! Although the use of water is now illegal in public settings (with strangers), many people flock to beaches to continue the fun! While only two days are designated as Carnaval, you will begin to see foam and water balloons up to two weeks in advance! Mostly over-anxious kids are the ones to start early.. but at the seminary, we had to be EXTREMELY careful the week leading up to Carnaval.
In fact.. a few seminary students threatened me with water and foam, warning me to watch my back -- over a week early! I certainly did watch my back. I carried around my laptop as a shield, knowing that no one would attack when I had expensive electronics in hand.. (yes, I knew that as a fact. I was not compromising the safety of my computer) ... so one day, I decided to start the Carnaval fun for myself....
One night when Lady and I were talking, we could hear that there were a lot of girls in the next room being very noisy. I decided that Lady and I should attack. :) So Lady knocked on the door, and I ran in with espuma and sprayed EVERYONE! Then we ran back to our room as fast as we could and locked the door! The girls spent the next half hour to an hour doing everything they could to convince us to open the door.. they failed... mwhahaha.
and so.... I made a point of staying inside and locking my door at every possible moment the rest of the week.
Well the weekend before Carnaval actually arrived... all of the Americans decided to emerge from the safety of our rooms and face the unknown..... Saturday came... as did the Alpha (church) picnic on campus. I came ready for battle. I knew I would be attacked, since I attacked them a few nights before. (Some of us had bought cans of espuma in case we were attacked, and we wore clothes that would dry easily.) When Taylor and I walked up to the picnic, we saw some friends and greeted them as we walked passed. Little did we know, they were ready to attak us! They whipped around and sprayed us with foam until we were blue and pink all over! We did what we could to fight them off, but it was too late and we were not armed with enough espuma...
The rest of the afternoon turned into a water/espuma fight on the field with everyone. It was a complete blast. :)
And that wasn't even the worst of Carnaval... The American girls all thought that we had experienced all that Carnaval had to offer.. but boy were we wrong...
Sunday we were on our own and avoiding more festivities. We all stayed inside and worked on homework. (At least, I can't remember doing anything else... so we'll stick with that.) Monday we attended class as usual, while the seminary students got that day and the next day off, since they had just finished a block. I was a little worried on Monday, because the seminary students were attacking each other every once in awhile. But we all made it through safely.
Then came Tuesday... the seminary students still did not have class, and we attended class as usual. I decided to wear a t-shirt in case anyone decided to spray me to or from class. Usually, we get a ten minute break every day at 10 a.m. Our profesor told us that we would have a break at 10:30 that day, so we could have a meeting with Lucy, the director of the study abroad program. She also told us to leave our cell phones behind, so we would not be distracted. As the break approached, I was ready for a meeting, until my friend pointed out to me that all the facts pointed to us getting attacked. I finally connected the dots and realized the scheme. Our profesor played dumb about any possibility of an attack, but we knew better. So we decided to be ready for war! All the girls removed their jackets, socks, and shoes and brought their full water bottles with the intentions of surprising them with an attack too!
We all sneaked in a group to the corner, and started to cross the stairs that connect our building to the the office building.... when all of a sudden, we were all completely soaked from head to foot!!!! WHAT?! I had no idea what just happened.. When I finally realized that I was wet, I looked up to see seminary students on the roof with buckets and buckets full of water! They popped out from behind the walls with foam and more water to further attack us!
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| This was when I realized they were on the roof.. The poor little water bottle didn't do much. |
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| We were COMPLETELY soaked! |
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| I have never been so wet in clothes. |
We all ran back to our rooms, leaving small lakes on our floors as we found better clothes to play in. We spent the next two or three hours playing outside with the seminary students, the missionary kids, and whoever else we encountered! We used hoses, buckets, bowls, foam, and anything else we could find and attacked each other all day.
Allow me to share some of the wisdom I gained from this experience.
Carnaval for Dummies:
Rule #1: Do not trust anyone. -- Apparently God doesn't mind if you lie during Carnaval.
Rule #2: Always be aware of your surroundings. -- Surprise attacks are common.
Rule #3: Don't lose your bucket.-- It will be your end.
Rule #4: Watch out for hoses while running... -- Yes, I fell pretty hard on the cement and got a nice big scrape. Did I continue playing after? Why, yes, of course I did. :)
Rule #5: Lock your doors always. -- You will be attacked if you don't.
Rule #6: Get wet and dirty, and enjoy it! It's a once in a lifetime opportunity.
That evening, everyone had finished playing... except me. :)
MarÃa - the most competitive and sneakiest seminary student involved in Carnaval -- asked me many times if I could play volleyball that night. Although I could, I did not want her to plan a surprise attack against me... So I planned one against them! I spent almost an hour filling up water balloons with one of the seminary students, and put them all in bags so I could carry them up and attack everyone as they played! I decided to ask the other Americans, but none of them were up for playing more..
So I talked to Jana, our "R.A." while we are here, and she was up for the challenge! Wearing all black, we sneaked up to the gym and bombarded them with water balloons! I got my friend Kaths, who had not been attacked by anyone at all yet! But unfortunately, my balloons kept exploding on me... so I got it worse than anyone... haha, I know. Serves me right.
When we mopped up the floor, we ended up playing volleyball! So all in all, it was a fantastic day. The next day I felt much better, since no one had the right to attack me with water any more..
What a sigh of relief! We survived Carnaval! :) And it was a BLAST!
Sincerely, The Girl with Yellow Hair
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