No students, this isn’t a riot….. It’s an Ecuadorian New year! And wow, I’ve never seen anything like it. Whenever I met someone new, most would ask me if I was going to be around for new years. When I told them that it was my first time here for new years, they got all excited and told me I was going to love it.
Well, I did love it. It was absolutely insane.
This is the Ecuadorian New Year’s Tradition. In the weeks before January 1st, people make paper mache figurines or “Año Viejos” (Old years). Some Año Viejos are imaginary creatures,
some are politicians,
and some are cartoon characters.
The purpose of the Año Viejos is to represent all of the bad things that happened in the past year, hence the name “Old Year”. When 12:00 hits on New Year’s night, people stuff their Año Viejos with fireworks and set them ablaze in the streets. This is the celebration of out with the old and in with the new.
When midnight hits, you are supposed to watch one Año Viejos with family and friends. Well, this was the first Ecuadorian New Year for my sister and me, so we ended up running through the streets trying to get to another house. I videotaped on my digital camera as we dodged burning Sponge-Bobs and exploding figurines of Rafael Correa. (I can’t put the video up now, but I can show you guys when I get back)
It was funny when people asked me, “What do you do for New Years?” It’s almost as if they assumed that in the U.S. we did something similar, if not crazier. I told them how we typically hang out with family and friends with some great food. Then the climax of the night is when we all gather around the TV to see glass ball slowly lower in New York City as everyone counts down from ten …. so boring…
Q: Willian and his two twin brothers, Jesús Anthony and Jesús Manuel have 10 different kinds of fireworks to light off with their Año Viejo. They want to light off 3 at the same time. How many different ways can they do it?
Hint: You are finding the number of combinations of fireworks, not permutations.
No comments:
Post a Comment