Carnival is here and you HAVE to be in a good mood!

Carnival 2009 has finally made its way to Merida.

It officially started yesterday - exactly a week before ash wednesday with La Quema de Mal Humor which is a big celebration in the center of the town. Last night about 15,000 people - including the kings and queens of carnival and the mayor - gathered in the main plaza for festivities, during which they have a big bonfire to ¨burn¨all of the bad thoughts. Other than signifying the official start of Carnival, it means that you have to be in a good mood for the next week of Carnival. Thats right - no one in the city is allowed to be in a bad mood.

Today´s main event was the desfile infantil or the children´s parade. We got down to the centro at about 3:30 (parade starts at 4) and were met with a wall of people. The streets were all crowded with parents, friends and spectators to watch the children parade down the street. All of the children that came to watch also were adorned in bright costumes.

The parade started at around 4:30, which is pretty good for Mexican time. The parade consisted of several preschools or dance schools all made up of kids around the ages of 4 to 7. You could tell that they had worked for a long time on their coreography, even though most seemed to have fogotten it in the excitement of being in front of a crowd. Their costumes all looked amazing and some of those kids really knew how to move!

This year´s theme for carnival is peliculas or movies, some of the many costumes that we saw today were Marilyn Monroes, Aladin, The Jungle Book, Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Pinocchio. It was a nice change from the parades to come, which consist of mostly advertisements and barely-covered twenty-somethings.

My Lesson of the Day: It really is hard not to be in a good mood now that Carnival is here.