Meet La Chatona …
y el Caballito (little horse)
Adelaida dropped by the other day to ask if I would like to see her school project before she passed it along to its new owners. I gladly assented and we walked over to her house where I saw these colorful giants waiting up on her porch.
Wow! What kind of project is this? Adelaida jumped into the Caballito costume
and proceeded to give me a spirited description of the meaning behind the large characters.
As near as I can understand, it seems that la Chatona was a famous woman of the jungles of Petén who would come riding her little horse to the dances and always be the life of the party. She is now a fixture at all parties and dances in the province … so much so that on December 6th, 2007, the dance called El Baille de la Chatona y el Caballito (The Dance of Chatona and Little Horse) was declared by the Minister of Culture and Sports to be “a part of the intangible, cultural heritage of the nation for its expression of the history, culture and art of the region”.
Apparently our local school children were saddened that they did not have a Chatona and Caballito to liven up their celebrations. And Adelaida had been assigned the task, for her main project of the year, of creating something lasting for the local school district. She made an excellent mark on her project … and the school now has its own La Chatona y el Caballito.