On September 15, Costa Rica celebrated 195 years of independence and the fourteen of us had the pleasure of engaging in the festivities surrounding it for our first year.
El Día de la Independencia commemorates Central America’s independence from Spain in 1821. Though only the 15th of the month is marked as an official holiday, the country generally celebrates the day before as well as the day of, and we at ACM got to celebrate all week!
During the beginning of the week, we learned about the history of Costa Rica’s independence and crafted our own faroles. Faroles are colorful lanterns that are made in remembrance of Dolores Bedoya, a woman who carried a lantern in the middle of the night rallying for independence.
The next day, much to our delight, our talented building attendant and cooking instructor, Iveth, cooked up an entire buffet of traditional, typical Costa Rican foods that are commonly served during the holiday.
Some of the traditional foods and beverages that we enjoyed included arroz con pollo, fried yuca, pan tres leches, chorreador–made coffee, fresco de piña, and horchata.
To continue the celebration, we had an instructor come to the ACM center to teach us traditional dances. We knew that this class was going to be 2 hours long, but none of us knew exactly what we were in for… it was a very intense couple hours! Even through tripping on our own feet, we were able to pick up some Costa Rican folk moves.
Libby and I posing with the true superstar of the day, our professor Mario in his spectacularly…yellow get-up.
The next evening after classes, my host mamá, Zelmira, took me to one of the local schools in our neighborhood to experience the tradition of los desfiles de faroles, or lantern parades. A symbolic torch of independence is carried by runners throughout the different schools and plazas where people gather together for the event. While the main torch comes to light up a specific location, everyone cheerfully sings the national anthem. School bands played triumphantly and kids walked around proudly showing off the faroles they worked so hard on. We watched judges give out prizes to children competing for the best faroles, followed by a loud and lively parade of school children performing down the darkened streets.
During the actual day marked as el Día de la Independencía de Costa Rica, everyone in the country generally gets a day off of work and school! Festivities from the evening before were carried into the morning and afternoon with parades in various neighborhoods in San José. The streets were filled with the colors of Costa Rica’s flag (blue, white and red), dancers in traditional dress, school bands, and color guards. Experiencing the independence day of another country was a wonderful experience and seeing how proud ticos are of Costa Rica was nothing short of heartwarming.
Word of the day: Mae
The Costa Rican equivalent of “dude”
“¡Pura vida, mae!”
Fun fact of the day:
Costa Rican Spanish is very polite and generally pretty formal. For anyone who knows a little Spanish, one thing I find pretty funny is that my family even speaks to their chihuahua using “usted” as the go-to second person pronoun.
