elections

oooh the elections..

everyone gets SO excited and into the elections here. especially in the weeks leading up to voting days, the streets were filled with people waving their party's color, honking, giant trucks announcing different candidates, parades, and just a ton of noise. signs and billboards go up all over the place and candidates make appearances everywhere. the night winners were announced TONS of people in montellano stood outside the public school where they were counting votes to await the results. the streets were blocked off and people were standing around for hours to see who won. people standing on different sides of the school would compete to see who could cheer the loudest for their party.. everyone gets really into it.

THEN after the winners are announced there are MORE loud parades to celebrate. parades down the highway, parades all over monellano.. parades. parades. basically people ride around on vehicles or motos screaming, waving their colors, honking.. (sidenote- the night omar sanchez won kendall and i rode around in the parade on johan's moto. it was nuts. we of course waved white shirts around and yelled like crazy people. i mean, you just have to.. our protective neighbors weren't too fond of the fact we went bc it really is craziness but, hey, we are still here :)

here's a video of one of the parades after omar won the elections.. this is right in front of our apartment. actually, we were driving back from puerto plata and accidentally got into this parade. haha.. ok here it is:



i'm not going to lie.. it was fun but i'm glad elections are over!