Navidad is everywhere

We hope everyone is doing well. We really appreciate your updates and notes either through email or as comments on this page. Cuenca is beginning to feel like home. The streets are familiar, we have found a favourite lunch spot, and we are conversing with our neighbours – it is amazing how much better we can communicate after just three days of Spanish lessons! Our Spanish school has become an instant community for us. We are always welcome there, and are encouraged to make it our home away from home. The two women who run the school are amazingly organized and helpful, and they are always offering us tea and snacks, which we love. They are also helping us with our apartment hunt. We are hoping to move in to one on Monday or Tuesday, for a month. If we stay for a month it sounds like there will be opportunities for us to teach English and/or trade English for Spanish either at our school or one of the other language schools in the area.
Although the weather makes it hard to believe Christmas is around the corner, you can´t avoid the Navidad enthusiasm here in Cuenca, with celebrations happening on every street corner, day and night. Navidad, as you can imagine for this country that is 90% Catholic, is a very important and religious holiday. Christmas decorations are being sold throughout the markets, and the churches, parks and streets are decorated with lights and nativity scenes, but no Santa Claus to be seen! The most interesting celebrations that we have witnessed, thus far, are firework shows outside of Churches, after their evening services. People love fireworks here, and they are ignited from 7 in the morning until late at night for a variety of occasions. At this time of year they are mostly for Navidad. Last night as we wondered the streets after dinner, we caught two firework displays outside nearby Churches, in fact we had to duck and run for cover during both shows, as random rockets of colour exploded in the streets. It was fantastic, hilarious, and a little frightening. Here are some pictures to prove it!
The first one was a high-end display, with spinning wheels, rockets, cheery bombs, shooting sparklers from every direction. At one point it was so intense all the church goers (in their long dresses and suits) and the on lookers (including us) had to run around street corners and into nearby shops!
As we walked home, we found a second church gearing up for their display. This display looked a little less extravagant, but just as interesting, as it was a papier-mâché cow with a snake like tail completely covered in rockets and sparklers! As we waited and listened to music, they had playing out of the church, we were offered a lovely warm and very potent lime drink. We drank it down in a couple gulps (they needed to keep passing around the glasses) and took it as a sign that we were welcome to stay and watch. Eventually the show began with one man hoisting the cow above his head and lighting the tail, he then started dancing up and down the streets as the cow exploded and whistled fireworks into the sky, into cars and shops, and yes, into the crowd, and again we all ducked, took pictures, laughed and cheered!
We are pretty sure this is just the beginning of the festivities this Christmas season!!