Santo Lunes

Today I went to work with the children in the prison like normal then rounded up some energy to continue celebrating Semana Santa. Tonight's activities included going to the cultural center with a few of the girls from the house to watch a talent show of traditional dances. Our program director, Marisol, has a friend who is in a cultural dance group and let us know that the show was happening. On our way to the cultural center we walked through the plaza to see all the flower carpets being made. Flower carpets are pretty self-explainable, different groups of people come together in the plaza and draw elaborate pictures on the street out of flowers and colored sand. It was beautiful and very interesting to see how the talented kids of Ayacucho were able to make these amazing pictures out of sand and flowers!

After a quick stroll around the plaza to look at the flower carpets we headed to the cultural center to watch some dance groups. It was really fun to see the different groups dancing. There were groups that danced tradition dances from the city and the country. It was fun to see the difference in the dancing style from the country to the city. Each type tells a story of how life is lived in that area. Most of the dances have to do

with working in the fields or finding love.

On our way home from the cultural center we happened to run into the procession in the plaza for tonight. We stayed a while and enjoyed the procession with out joining the chaos of following the float down the street and into the church. We had great timing to

see the procession but it was sad once we realized that all the hard work that was put into the flower carpets were trampled over :(