Guanacaste Independence Day

All this week has been a celebration of our province of Guanacaste being independent from Nicaragua and staying with Costa Rica. We have had celebrations in the schools as well as parties in the central park of Nicoya (including the first female president's visit on the 25th). Matthew participated in the "reinado del maiz" which was basically crowning the king and queen of corn at the different schools. Corn is very important in Guanacaste and many foods are made from it including, delicious corn bread, homemade fresh corn tortillas, choreadas (like corn based pancakes), baby corn (that's what I call it but don't know the real name in English), cornmeal and of course....corn on th cob. The children who want to participate dress up in a traditional indian costume from Guanacaste back in the old days. Matthew won at his school last year and got to ride on a float (aka pickup truck.....see picture on main blog page on the right hand side) so we participated this year too. Didn't win this year but I had fun making the costume as usual and Matthew didn't have fun wearing it as usual. He's not keen on dressing up in costumes or wearing any type of head pieces. This year I got him to wear the indian feather headdress though and last year I couldn't make him.  I guess we're making progress.

We went to the celebrations in the park a couple of days ago and then again  today to play on the trampolines and kids' mechanical cars, eat some yummy typical food and hear some typical music, etc.