The Carnaval celebration in Ecuador has its origin in the Roman Catholic tradition of intense partying and engaging in all sorts of “sinful” acts before Ash Wednesday, which kicks off the period of Lent leading up to Easter. We have even seen 13-14 year olds drunk in the street, a very sad sight.
The tradition here in Riobamba consists of throwing water balloons (bombas) at people, pouring buckets of water on unsuspecting passerby, shooting squirt guns at cars with open windows, and getting people dirty with flour, eggs, and/or canned foam. Although it is mainly children throwing balloons at one another, adults are often willing accomplices.
We got together with some of the youth group and "played" Carnaval. As you can see from the pictures we had fun and it was messy!
2 comments:
cool! I can see some of the ones we talked to not in pictures. They must have opted out of playing! Looked fun!
Yep, a couple of them "chicken out" of playing.
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