Today we went to the Atenas Day of Cultures event in our central park. This was organized jointly by the Municipality of Atenas and CATUCA (Cámara de Turismo y Comerciode Atenas) to celebrate the International Day of Cultures.
There was live music and dancing, lots of booths selling different kinds of foods, beautiful hand made belts, jewelry, embroidered linens, Christmas ornaments, orchids, and lots more. We headed right to the Salvadorian pupusa stand for our first snacks.
Pupusas are a traditional Salvadoran food - thick, handmade corn tortillas with fillings usually consisting of quesillo (a soft cheese found throughout Central America), ground pork meat and refried beans and then topped with curtido (lightly fermented cabbage slaw) and a tomato salsa. I could eat one of these every day.
We then moved on to a Tico stand selling strawberries and grapes on a stick and dipped in chocolate. Grapes and chocolate go very well together. Then it was a drink of cas (a fruit, also known as sour guava). To take home, I bought cheese biscuits from a Tico stand, organic dill pickles with garlic from an expat lady, Irish scones made by our very own Marietta Arce (Atenas Today), and two tamales. Someone was selling arroz con leche (rice with milk). Not sure if it this is a type of dessert or a savory. I am proud to say I walked right past the orchid stand and did not stop to buy one.
We ran into lots of friends. The weather was perfect and so was this day. I made a small video of two groups playing music. The first video features a marimba, handcrafted by the man playing it. He named it "Mi Leidy" for his wife whose name was Leidy. She passed away recently. The other video is of three young people playing bluegrass music. The videos are below the photographs.
 |
| Pupusas! |
 |
| The pupusa in all it's glory |
 |
| The lovely lady in the middle is 92 year old Yoshii Sasak. She did all the paintings shown hanging up and wanted all proceeds of sales to go to the Hogar de Vidi, Atenas' home for abandoned/abused children. |
 |
| The little kid in the plaid shirt could not stop dancing to the music. He was really serious about it. |
 |
| Marimba band. The fellow on the left side of the tent in the tropical shirt is our local, and very good, jazz musician. |
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment