Feliz Año Nuevo

In my sister´s Peace Corps station town of San Nicolás in Honduras, they have an old tradition on New Year´s Eve of stuffing a scarecrow with fireworks and sawdust, dousing it in gasoline and setting it on fire to say goodbye to the old year. As the culmination of my trip to visit Parrish in San Nicolas, I was on hand to witness the event and was able to get some great pix and video. For those of you who don´t know, El Año Viejo means ¨the old year¨in spanish and is the term used to describe the scarecrow stuffed with fireworks. Check out the pix, and 2 videos:





Me, Parrish, Fernando and some local kids checking out El Año Viejo.















Parrish and her boyfriend Mario (who is one of the people working hard to organize the re-vitalization of the el año viejo tradition) getting cozy with El Año Viejo.

















The boys from the neighborhod gatherd ´round El Año Viejo prior to the torching.




Finally, here are 2 videos of El Año Viejo going up in smoke. Be sure your sound is turned on to get the full effect...