Alfombras

One of the traditions here in Leon is to make alfombras. These are images made of dyed saw dust that they create in the middle of the street. There are tons and tons of these. Here are a couple of pictures that I took. This first one is a couple of kids putting the finishing touches on a cross.

Here are a couple more folks working on an alfombra.


And lastly, here is a completed one:

The Last Float

This was the only video I took that turned out well all the way through. Most of the others have shoddy camera work and poor lighting, so I'm leaving those out for now.

La Chica CUUN

A while back, I posted about Mr. and Miss Law School. Well, now all of the departments have elected their Miss (and in some cases Mr.), and now they're electing "La Chica CUUN," which is the basically "Girl of the University." Turns out this is a huge deal and they have a parade through downtown Leon. Each department has a float for its candidate. And there is also two floats for the beer company that sponsors the event, one of which is the first picture. The second picture is the float from social sciences, if I remember correctly. For most of the others, I took video clips so I'll try to post a few of those. If anyone knows of a free, good, easy-to-use video editing program for avi files, let me know. I'd prefer to just string the highlights together and make one decent video rather than half 5-6 half good videos. By the way, I have little idea what exactly "CUUN" stands for, and most university students don't seem to know either, but the word "universidad" is probably in there somewhere.

Mr. and Ms. Law School

Back on September 26, they had the election of Mr. and Ms. Law School. This is a pretty big deal at the university. Students pack the auditorium. They have a variety of rounds such as a question-answer session, dance competition, and even a swimsuit competition. Some faculty members serve as the judges. There is also lots of entertainment between contests such as guitarists, a stand-up comic named Poncho, and one faculty member played the marimba. Unfortunately, this competition lasts for several hours and I was getting a little tired, so I went home before finding out who won. The next night, they had the election of Ms. Medical School (there is no Mr. Medicine). All of the schools/departments each elect a Ms. (and sometimes a Mr.) and then there is some university-wide competition for the Mr. and Ms. UNAN-Leon. I guess this is vaguely like Homecoming King and Queen at UNC. But not really.

One additional clarification: Yes, Mr. Law School candidates do the swimsuit competition too.

Urban Cowboys

Some cowpokes at the procession for La Virgen de la Merced. This happened last month, but I'm still catching up. By the way, those are fake plastic horses, just in case you were wondering.

Light My Fire

This preist is setting off fireworks for the festival celebrating La Virgen de La Merced, who is the patron saint of Leon. This means it's a local holiday and it's a big deal around here. The celebration takes place at the Church of La Merced and they decided to celebrate by setting off fireworks and ringing the church bell...all month long...even at 4 am...two blocks from where I'm staying. This photo is from September 24, the peak of the festival and the day procession in town. I knew that the event got going at 12 pm, so I went close to the church to get some pictures. Unbeknownst to me, they set up fireworks around the church and suddenly they started going off 30 feet away from me. It was fairly terrifying. As you can see in the from the smoke in the background in this picture, the fireworks around the church are still going off. Meanwhile, the priest and a couple helpers are setting fireworks off by lighting them while holding them in their hands. Upon ignition, the firework then shoots up out of their hands. It seemed a little dangerous to me, but I don't think anyone was hurt.
Fortunately, since September, it's been a bit quieter here in Leon, especially at night, but I still occasionally am startled by booming surprise fireworks in the middle of the day.