Battle of the Bands

Just when I thought the bands had put their drumsticks away, I find out that our school is hosting a Battle of the Bands - like competition to celebrate the Aniversario of Taulabe. This ordeal was set up as a fundraiser by the Parent Teacher Association at our school. Who knew it would be such a big deal!

To build a vibe we marched again along the same parade route of Taulabe on Friday. After the parade (it was a little less attended than the parade for Independence) we went to the stadium for a mini Olympics. Kids ran, I cheered with the little kids from the bleachers, baleadas were cooked by the hundreds, children ran around for hours, the sun cooked us all....it was a fine event. When I got home, I immediately fell asleep and slept the night through.

Only to wake up the next morning at 6 am to be picked up by the school bus and taken back to Taulabe for the Band Competition. We first went to one of our student´s (Stephanie) house to make 300 hamburgers for each participating band member. After we depleted the pans of burgers and trays of condiments we enjoyed some of the tastiest coffee I´ve had in this country to date and a muffin provided by Stephanie´s mother. We then went back to the stadium where the bands were marching to. They all got in order on the field and prepared for the competition. It was fairly straight forward and speedy. Each band had 15 minutes to perform. There were eleven bands in all - three in the escuela category (that´s elementary and middle schools) and eight in the colegio (high school) category. The judges were from all over, and the big wig of the event was the Director of the Honduran National Band. It was pretty impressive that the PTA of La Orquidea managed to get him to come and judge our competition. I guess our parents are well connected in the band world.

My job for the day, after passing out water and juice to all the participants, was to guard the judges. I did this by standing behind them. It was not too hard. I got to sneak a few peeks at their score sheets to try and get some idea of what they were being judged on and who was doing well from a trained eye. I kept thinking that my dad would love this. The bands are comprised of mostly all drums. And the Lida, which is a giant glockenspiel, or metal xylophone. I was told marching bands took a turn for the wild side after the movie Drumline came out. Everyone wanted to dance and drum at the same time. I´d like to see my papa doing that!

Colegio Technico took home second place, which was a shock because they have won all the competitions in Siguatepeque. The band that won first was a smaller band from Yojoa de Santa Cruz, which is north of us, near to the lake. They had the best formations for sure. La Orquidea took home second in the escuela category, which was expected. The first place band had about 8 times as many members as our band. Overall the fundraiser was a huge success. Hopefully we made the few thousand dollars we need to buy lockers for the children.