These past few weeks I have been captivated by 'El Gran Reto Centroamericano de Baile!' This is a a Central American dance competiton along the lines of Dancing for the Stars. They take the two finalists from each national version of 'Bailando por un Sueño' and then they dance every Sunday for six weeks, and the group with the highest score wins. So far Costa Rica had been winning every competition, but now the Salvadoran and Honduran judges seem to be purposefully scoring them low to give their own country's teams a chance. I think what I most like about the 'Reto' is that it is one of the few ways that Central American mass media gets to show how much Central America has in common.
In part, this is fun to watch because its nice to sit together with the whole family and all talk about the same thing, in part its fun to watch because of the incredibly pageantry, and in part its amazing to watch because of the absurdity of the whole thing. The winners also receive a $25,000 prize. The prize confuses me a little, because by all rights the participants should be content with increasing their national pride, and not need a little bribe (especially since both Costa Rican participants are fairly wealthy TV personalities/announcers). So far only two teams have said they would donate their money to charity (the other teams say they will go to Hawaii, or buy a new house, or buy more clothes).
Tonight we are watching the teams perform Samba and Tango in Honduras, and it has so far been pretty exciting. Especially because for once the Honduran judge didn't give his team a nine or a ten, he gave them a seven! Samba is enjoyable because of the Carnival costumes. Tango is fun because no one can dance it convincingly, and because the music is fun to listen to.
This seems like an odd place to add that now we have two indigenous High School students living with us, because from here they can catch a bus to the school, instead of having to hike down from the mountains three to four hours every school-day. They are quiet, but very nice, and I liked them straight off because they were sweet to my(?) dog from the moment they arrived, unlike most Costa Ricans who are either merely tolerant, or violent towards dogs (my host uncle tries to kick every dog he sees, and I stopped him with a glare from doing the same to 'Malta'). The indigenous kids watch the 'Reto' with us too, and that brings everyone together as well.
Whenever the neighbor's two year-old realizes that we are watching people dance she spins around in circles in front of the TV giggling until she falls over. She just nailed a very convincing splits.
Uh-oh! Here comes Costa Rica, "Tres... Dos... Uno.. RETO!"
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