Our little town or San Clemente really goes all out with a big community celebration downtown on the Saturday night before Mother’s day. We have reported on previous year’s celebrations in greater detail. See: https://johnandmarylivingitupinecuador.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/mothers-day-ecuador-2013/
This year was no different. Our friends from the family of Pinoche and Pocho now have organized with a name, “Amigos de Navidad” (which really means Friends of Christmas) and that group put together quite a fiesta for Saturday night. We will get to that in one minute.
First off that morning started off well. Mary had been quite sick for over a week, but Friday we got some heavy-duty antibiotics and by Saturday morning it looked like she would be feeling well enough to go to the fiesta. Her appetite returned in part, so I prepared an Ecuadorian style tortilla (unfolded omelet) with some fresh avocado slices for our brunch.
Several weeks ago, Pinoche and others had asked me to sing again at the festival, so I worked on trying to learn some more songs in Spanish. I had a couple of Mother’s Day songs down fairly good, but they seemed to lack any gusto. Generally they have me perform at the end or near the end of the night, so Mary suggested that I should dress up in my Scottish kilt and belt out some Scottish songs.
What the heck! I feel like I am amongst family here in San Clemente anyway, so we thought that everyone would get a kick out of that. We packed up the kilt, sporran and cap in a backpack and waited until just before I was to go on to don the outfit. We got there early and watched things develop. Pinoche had a leading role in organizing the festivities. They brought in six or seven large cakes, bags and bags of treats and candies, and had the gift bags and baskets out ready on the main table.
The selected mothers sat in the inner circle of chairs and family and friends started to crowd into the downtown area. The festival is held right in the middle of the roadway and hundreds of people show up to celebrate Mother’s day. This young man from Santa Teresa did several numbers on his keyboard as an entr’acte.
The seating arrangements were similar to previous years.
Mary and I were seated at a table near the stage area with Emelda and Eddie and some of their family.
A very talented group from Portoviejo performed many songs and also had some dance numbers that got everyone on their feet dancing in the street. (Pet friendly!)
The gifts were presented and the Madre Simbolo for the year was selected and presented with her banner.
It was not until nearly eleven o’clock that I slipped into the restaurant and donned my Scottish outfit.
We had a lot of fun and the crowd seemed to genuinely enjoy the songs.
The old man managed to limp on home with Mary shortly after the actual Mother’s day began. We literally fell into bed with the joys of a night spent with friends ringing in our ears.
Life is good in Ecuador!
What fun! Great post.
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Thank you. It is fun living here. Kind of like life in the 50s in rural USA. We love it.
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Love your kilt, sounds like you had a great evening. All the best to you and Mary!
Diane and Bernard
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Great to hear from you Diane. Give our love to Bernard.
Yes, you should have seen the outfit. It got a pretty good reaction from the town as many had never seen a man in a kilt before.
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Wow! Let it be said, because it’s true, but you sure ain’t afraid to have fun!
Hope Mary is feeling better today. Bless you guys.
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Yes, it is easy to have fun when we are surrounded by such fun loving people.
Also – Mary is much improved and on her way to full health.
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What tremendous fun!
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