Cinco de Mayo Festival

Rich left early this morning and will be gone most of the week. It's going to be pretty busy around here with people coming and going, but for today Kristina and I were looking forward to attending the National Cinco de Mayo Festival at the Mall. Except it was raining. We kind of hung around the apartment for a while waiting to see if it was going to clear up. When it looked like it would maybe let up for a little bit we grabbed our umbrellas and went.

The Maru Montero Dance Company performed a lot of different numbers at the Sylvan Theatre which is an outdoor stage by the Washington Monument. I was surprised at how well the dancers kept right on dancing even though it was raining, pretty heavily at times too. I got to see La Bamba which is always one of my favorites. Even though the stage had pools of water in places, the dancers still made their bow. If you've never seen this performed, a long red sash is unwound from around the man's waist and placed on the ground. The dancers manipulate it with their feet and at the end of the number it's picked up and should hold together in a bow. I can't imagine how hard it was to do in puddles of water.

Between numbers this guy had a pretty big job to do:

They were really great to watch, but we didn't stay all that long as it kept right on raining. There were tents set up for food and activities, but since there weren't that many people there, they were closing down. This is more than half of the spectators:

It was pretty disappointing as I could tell that it would ordinarily be a really fun festival.