New Year's Celebration

It's always interesting to see how other people celebrate New Year's, and this year was no exception. We got to see burning bodies everywhere. That may be a little blunt, so let me clarify. The tradition down here is to create a flammable dummy out of something, like cut grass or old clothes, and stuff the innards into an old pair of pants and a shirt. Most bodies have a messege stating something that home didn't like that year (i.e. some sort of person, place, thing, event, idea, etc.). An example, "Por loco, estoy aqui" was on a body outside of the mental health institution on the road to our town...something that wouldn't, and shouldn't, ever happen in the US. A few of you understand why. Anyways, at midnight the bodies get burned, ridding of whatever problems were attached to the body, and a new year begins. Unfortunately, we drove through and took video when the bodies were nearly all burned. A friend of ours got video going down a street covered with trash from all the partying and bodies burning everywhere. It looked like a warzone...and we were a little jealous. :) Here are some pictures of our own body that we burned with the girls...at 9:30 pm instead of 12. The little ones need to sleep and have a little New Year's fun, too.

Here are the remnants of a body burned on the median of a major road in town. The smoke was thick in the air that night.