Beaver Meadow kids and friends that donated clothes back in October. The fruits of our joint labors proved to be absolutely delicious and brought smiles to the kids and elderly of Tabuga. On the Saturday before Christmas the Queen of Tabuga gave each child and senior citizen of Tabuga gifts and a big celebration with dancing, food and candy for everyone. There was even an extra surprise being Papa Noel and the Christmas Fairy. Yours truly was the glitter covered, pointed hat, magic wand carrying Christmas fairy. I danced around with all the little kids and sprinkled glitter on their tiny heads. Bigote, the cook at the reserve dressed up as Santa Claus. He danced around with a sack of toys yelling out hohoho. It was an absolutely fabulous Christmas celebration and after dancing we elected a Papa Noel, Christmas Fairy and Christmas Princess from the senior citizens and young mothers. Bigote’s wife was the Christmas Princess. Bigote and I got to hand over our roles and special sparkly sashes to two cute old Tabugans. 
Geomaira my best friend
and organizer
Fabiola the queen of Tabuga
Bigote, Papa Noel
Me, The Christmas Fairy
Lily, The Christmas Princess
Me and Señora Yollanda
the Christmas Fairy of
the senior citizens
The Queen and Papa Noel
with the box of hand made
cards and photos for the
senior citizens.
The kids lined up
waiting for their gifts.
From here on the Christmas celebrations continued in Tabuga. The day time party for the kids was followed by a celebratory dance by the adults. Then Monday the elementary school had a party for the kids, Tuesday the high schoolers had their party and finally on Christmas Eve Day the whole community got together to bring in Christmas.
Just like midnight mass in the states, the clock striking 12 is celebrated by a big dinner, signing to Baby Jesus and dancing. I helped prepare beer ba
ked chicken and made brownies for the celebration. After awkwardly watching the people of Tabuga circle around a manger and sing repeat after me type versus at the wad of cloth representing the baby Jesus, I had a delicious meal with some of my favorite people in Tabuga. After the midnight Christmas dinner and a special reenactment of the birth of Jesus, me being the Virgin Mary, we headed to the concrete slab, aka the football field, and danced until 4am.
ked chicken and made brownies for the celebration. After awkwardly watching the people of Tabuga circle around a manger and sing repeat after me type versus at the wad of cloth representing the baby Jesus, I had a delicious meal with some of my favorite people in Tabuga. After the midnight Christmas dinner and a special reenactment of the birth of Jesus, me being the Virgin Mary, we headed to the concrete slab, aka the football field, and danced until 4am.Christmas day I spent on the beach. We ate fresh fish soup for breakfast, to cure the dancing hang-over, played soccer on the beach, swam and ate fresh fish for lunch. It was an incredible day spent with people I love but, Christmas without the freezing cold winters of NH just doesn’t feel like Christmas. I got a sunburn and I think Santa Claus up in NH probably got frostbite.
Love the blog! Great pics. Hopefully you will see this the next time you update. My name is Tommy Falby, I've been coordinating with Joe Meisel at Lalo Loor to bring a group of high school students there the first week of January to do service projects. Unfortunately, the reserve is full of college students studying with Joe. But we're battling on, looking for a place to stay in Tabuga. Joe mentioned there were two places, Hacienda Camarones and a Hotel/Hostel in Tabuga. We've got 17 people total and need a safe place for them to sleep and hopefully eat. Can you help me out with a recommendation? I'd greatly appreciate it! Tommy
ReplyDeleteSorry! you can contact me at thomasbfalby@gmail.com or thomasbfalby@hotmail.com
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