The 4th Food Festival

We finally got around to hosting another food festival this past Sunday. I was a little worried when we only had two vendors at 7:30am, but who are we kidding. This is El Salvador, and nobody shows up on time. Everyone was in place by the time Mass let out at 8:30, and sales were good! The festival lasted until about 2:00pm, which is a bit longer than normal. If felt like our preparation work was much easier this time around, which I'll take as a sign of everybody starting to get the hang of things. Having now hosted four food festivals, I think we have a good little tradition going. More and more people are getting interested in the event, and I'll take the fact that we haven't failed yet to be a sign of success.

Special thanks to Tyler, Erica and Jesse, my fellow Peace Corps volunteers who came out to support the event, and Sachi and Akifumi, the JICA volunteers who joined us. It truly was an international event. I didn't take many pictures of the actual event because they would have looked exactly like the previous three festivals. But, I did manage to snap enough shots to make a blog posting.

None of the vendors decided to sell sodas this month, so the lady who runs the tienda next door (see that building in the picture below with all the posters on it) made some good money selling them. A can of soda costs $0.50. A 2.5 liter bottle costs $1.50. Of course Jesse, Tyler and I went in on a bottle. Instead of using cups to share, people in El Salvador use plastic bags and straws. I got us 3 bags and 3 straws and we enjoyed the soda to the fullest. I am a firm advocate of the fact that food and beverage always tastes better when consumed out of a plastic bag.

(Me and my bag of cola.)

(Tyler has the bag drinking down to a science.)

(Jesse makes bag drinking look classy.)

(The cheese on CM's riguas was stringy, and he opted for the hands free approach.)

(Peace Corps, JICA and my Mayor with his son. Quite the group.)

(La Chanchona and the Mirimba. Some good music in the park.)