Sunday in Zihua

Yes, I realize it's Tuesday (and July, good lord) but yesterday was a little crazy. Among other things I've discovered ant nests in the handles of my blender AND coffee pot, a hornets' nest on the nightstand, and killed at least six cockroaches. Gross.

Sunday was election day here in Zihua so I went down to the plaza to take pictures of what I expected to be a chaotic scene. The two parties have campaigned heavily for the past month, plastering cars with their candidates slogans, covering buildings with banners and signs, and blasting recordings through megaphones. I assumed there'd be more of the same on the actual election day, so I hurried to the plaza to watch.

This is what I encountered:


The ballot boxes were in the gazebo and that's the only place I saw any sort of sign. This was the line:


I admit I was shocked at how quiet and orderly things were. Later that night Ibis and I decided to head down to the plaza to see if anything was going on. The community gathers there Sunday nights for food and entertainment, but we hadn't been in a while.

There was quite a display, complete with tribal headdreses and skimpy loinclothes. The vendors are in the same place as the election line in the previous shot. The rest are of different dance groups. They seem to have a thing for fire here.




Note the tiny little boy in the center of the circle. He's holding a torch as big as he is!


Here's the two of us.


And finally, boxing! Rumor has it there were supposed to be four fights, but only two boxers showed up. We stayed for the first couple rounds but had to leave because the bugs were eating me alive.


In all, a fun night!