Happy Fiestas, Suchitoto

I have been missing Suchitoto a lot this week, knowing that the whole village is involved in the events leading up to a huge double celebration.  Tomorrow there'll be a huge procession and parade honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe, with all the children dressed as Juan Diego or as colorful indigenas:

 And on Friday there will be an even huger procession honoring the virgin Santa Lucia, mass with the church packed to the doors and overflowing, and a big party in the parque central, complete with food, dancing, a ferris wheel and other rides, the crowning of Suchitoto's queen for the year, and a great fireworks display. 

These two big days come as the culmination of weeks of preparation.  In the week before Santa Lucia day each neighborhood has its special day, beginning with a procession to the church before sunrise (you get wakened with firecrackers), continuing with events for the children or for the whole neighborhood, and culminating with the carroza (float) for the neighborhood circulating through the town in the evening with the neighborhood princess waving and a band playing.  It's an amazing, joyful, shared fiesta. 

And then everyone takes a two-day breather before the Las Posadas processions begin and the celebrations of Christmas take over the village.

There's nothing like it here, in the decorous city neighborhood I live in, and I miss it all very much.