Carnaval

So here in the Dominican Republic, every Sunday of the month an event occurs which is called "Carnaval". I'm honestly not really sure what the cultural significance of it is, other than it occurs in each town in the country and that people dress up in costumes and funny looking masks. (I'm being blatently honest that I am completely ignorant to the cultural importance).

Anyways, the biggest of all the Carnavals is in La Vega, which we will be going to this coming Sunday. Montecristi is apparently known for having the most violent Carnaval, and then Santo Dominigo and Santiago have pretty big celebrations as well. Since it rained the first two Sundays, we finally got a chance to go this past Sunday to check it out. And, well, it was an experience.

Basically we went down to the monument and saw a ton of people drinking and hanging out in the streets. As we got closer, people with masks started to appear.

Then we started to see the traditions. The first tradition that apparently is unique to Santiago is that they throw confetti at people. And then there is also the lovely tradition of whacking people in the butts with some sort of hard rubber attached to a whip, so you have to watch your back a lot (which occurs all over).

So we shoved past people to get to the main street, where the piropos were very strong. Basically what ensued after was us getting to see a bit of Carnaval, but mostly getting a ton of confetti thrown in our faces/mouths, which is great considering at the end most of it was "recycled" paper that people picked up off the street. Mmm.

Apparently it's really fun to throw confetti at gringas because we definitely were getting more than anyone else around us.

My favorite piropio of the day though-- "bye bye my American visa". Hahah.

Well, it was a cultural experience but I think we were all glad to get the heck out of there.