Tour of El Sauce

Sunday afternoon.

Today, Kellan and Yacarely picked us up from our host houses and took us on a walking tour of El Sauce.
It's a city but more of a small town by U.S. standards. There are 10,000 people here but many seem to be scattered on the outskirts, on farms or small houses down dirt roads. The city center is a few square paved blocks with small privately-owned stores and a few commercial stores, like Eskimo ice cream and the phone company. People often have stores in their homes; selling towels or juices or small toys out of their living rooms, some bars and a pass-through hole separating family from customers.
There is a huge festival Jan. 16-18 and already vendors are moving onto the main street, setting up makeshift tents and shelters to sell crafts, juices, food and whatever else to the 30,000 people from all over Nicaragua who will come to celebrate the Cristo Negro, or "black Christ."
Long ago, when the Spanish conquered this region, they converted the native Americans who were here. Those native Americans in Guatemala asked the Catholic church for a representation of Jesus that they could relate to. The church provided a dark-skinned Jesus on the cross to replace the traditional symbol.
Yacarely told us it was sent to many places and when it came to El Sauce, the man in charge of it happened to die. The church sent someone to retrieve it and they too died. They took it as a sign and here the Jesus should stay. Every year, Christians congregate from all over to celebrate and make pilgrimage in the central church, inside it's yellow ornate walls.
In two weeks there will be 30,000 or more people and Christian pilgrims in El Sauce for three days of fiesta and religious service.