Costa Rican Independence Day Sept. 15

September 15th was Costa Rica's Independence day, celebrating 184 years of indepence. The day of freedom is celebrated by having school children march in rigid formations, or at least make the attempt. Each class, or school sends the children off to march, or dance. Each class has their own drummers, all of which compete at a different pace.



Costa Rica doesn't have a military but all of the school children know how to march. They do this march every year. I wonder if this is a subconcious cultural act. There were a number of different marches but there was one popular march that was illustrated by stepping with your right foot and dragging your left foot forward until it reach the right foot. Nope, it didn't go past the right foot, but sort of made a half step. The kids liked to drag it forward with painful sarcasm. None of them seemed to happy to be there, with mother's tagging along the parade bribing them with sugary drinks. Currently the debate is about how long the girls skirts should be. The president has signed a new decree that all school skirts should be past the knee in length. So far nobody has heeded the creed. This is the typical Tico way, ignore the law if you want. Nobody is going to do anything to punish you.