Things That Go Bump In The Night

San Antonio de Belen is the small town just south of our house. It is full of the noise of commerce – but at strange times. We constantly hear traffic noise coming from the cars and trucks on their way from Heredia to Panasonic and beyond.

At 3 am Sunday morning, both Jim and I were awakened by booming sounds, Mariachi music and loud cheers. We lay in bed trying to figure out what in the world we were hearing. We pondered whether that many people would have been watching the World Cup in the wee hours of the morning, thinking perhaps that the US (or EU as we are called here) had defeated Britain (and then definitely hoping that they weren't cheering because US had lost). We finally realized that it was fireworks and we could have had a fantastic view from our balcony. The aerial bombs continued through the day on Sunday and culminated in a fireworks display Sunday night. Jim found out on Monday that the church was celebrating the birth of San Antonio de Belen (Belen = Bethlehem).

Last week (as alluded to in an earlier blog) we were caught in a sea of people clogging the streets of town as we tried to make our way to the grocery store. On the way back, we had to follow a detour because of the Ox Cart parade. We can’t wait to see what the little town of Bethlehem has in store for us this weekend!

Apparently two of the oxen are our neighbors, since one day last week I heard some guys yelling outside the back of our house. I looked out to see two men trying to herd two huge oxen up the driveway next door. They’ve been there ever since.