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Cinco
De Mayo
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Cinco De Mayo (which means "The 5th Of May" in Spanish) is a Mexican holiday. But do you know what it celebrates? If you think it's to celebrate Mexico's independence from Spain then congratulations... you're absolutely wrong. It's actually to celebrate the battle at Puebla, Mexico where the Mexican Army defeated Napoleon The Third's French Army in 1862. For more on the history of Cinco De Mayo click here. Regardless of the fact that most Americans have no idea what Cinco De Mayo is, they celebrate it none the less. Why do they celebrate it? Because they love Mexico, Mexican food, and Mexican alcohol. My friends and I are no exception. |
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So
on Monday May 5th, 2003 I took the day off work and began to get ready
to celebrate the Mexican Army victory. I went out and bought a sombrero
(pictured on the right) and even sewed together my very own Mexican Flag
T-shirt (shown on left).
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Later that
evening I went to a friend's house for a Cinco De Mayo party. We had
sons of delicious Mexican food such as Taco's, Fajitas, Corn Cake, and
Nacho's with dip and salsa (pictured on left). Everyone made sure they
were washing down these tasty treats with their favorite Mexican beer.
For some that would be Carona, for other's Cordon Negro, but for those
of us with more refined tastes [i.e. Me], we were sipping on ice cold
Dos Equis Amber Lager. There were also plenty of Margaritas (I'm holding
one in the picture at the top right of |
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| And of course no Cinco De Mayo party would be complete without a piñata [a word that comes from the Italian word pignatta which means "fragile pot"]. A piñata is made out of paper mache and is filled with candy and sweets. All the people at the party gather around the piñata and one by one take their turn trying to bust the piñata open to get the sweets. However, it's not as easy as it may sound. First the person is blindfolded and spun around (pictured above right). And then while they're trying to hit the piñata another person lowers and raises the rope in an attempt to make them miss [this part is optional, but we added it on for our game to make it more fun and difficult]. |
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I
tried to bust open the piñata, but to no avail (on left). Soon
after my embarrassing swings and misses I realized it be more fun to be
the person controlling the rope and making everyone else miss and look
foolish (on right). And that right there was the highlight of the night
for me.
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Making the rope move up and down made the game much too difficult for dizzy, blindfolded people whom had been drinking to hit the piñata So eventually I go flustered and, without being spun or wearing a blindfold, and attacked the piñata repeatedly. I beat it with a stick, kicked it with my feet, and smashed it against the ground. And suddenly there was candy for everyone. Since I had busted the piñata more or less all by myself (whether I cheated or not), I felt I deserved the candy more than everyone else and greedily started gathering it into my upturned sombrero. At the end of the night I had reaped some pretty sweet rewards for all my hard work. Just check out the picture on the left and see for yourself. A have a handful of sweets and a candy bracelet that can only be described with two words. And those two words are "Bling" and "Bling".
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