August Festivals 2010

The August festival days have started in San Salvador and the rest of the country leading up to the patron saint festival for San Salvador, El Divino Salvador del Mundo. Today, August 1, had the opening Parade of the Mails. Rene Figuroa at Demotix has a description:
The first day, there is a Parade named “Desfile de correos” (The Mails Parade), leaded by the Mayor of the City. A lot of people take their children to see the Parade, lengthwise at least 5 miles. In the Parade, a lot of citizens, marching bands, floats, cosplayers, The August Old Men (men in scary masks), The Historians, The Flowers Procession, Military Forces, Clowns, among many others, file out. Also, a girl is elected as the Queen of the Feast.

Figueroa also has a set of photos of today's parade.

La Prensa Grafica has its annual special section on this week of festivals here. The schedule of the week's events in San Salvador is here.


Carlos X. said…
OK, I'm going to say this. It may not be politically correct, but I'm a Salvadoran, so I think I am entitled to say it. Salvadorans have too much vacation. The country shuts down and parties for Easter/"Semana Santa." Then, the country celebrates for another week for the August holidays/"Salvador del Mundo." Finally, there's the Christmas/New Year holiday break -- at least two weeks of hiatus. Every one of these celebrations usually leaves scores of people dead from drunk driving accidents, drowning, fireworks accidents, fire arm incidents, and other calamities. Meanwhile, the country is in precarious strats with an infrastructure that has gullies threatening to eat up neighborhoods, other districts prone to constant flooding, and much to be done in the area of public sanitation, shoring up the electric grid, and on and on and on. A little austerity?