Mexico – Oaxaca The hat with feathers

Today we went to a festival and there was a small fair. We all went on two things (the kids went on something), well we went on a trampoline with lots of balls it was fantastic, then we went on a bouncy castle slide it was so cool. After that we went on a walk up the hill with the dancers, I got to try on this hat with all the feathers and lots of colours , it was very heavy on my head. When we did get there there was lots of dancing with lots of colour and the women had big plaits and really long hair and in one dance there was a lady pretending to be a chicken and a man pretending to be a Cockerel. The lady laid the egg, when the man picked up an egg, cracked it on his teeth and ate it. We watched the feather dance with the big hats and the people were jumping up and down and there were fireworks.

When we went to the weaving place the lady showed us how they died the wool to the colour. It stunk of something horrid. After that the man showed us all the different wool they use to make the rug. He showed us a piece of paper how they make the different charts. They dunk it in a pot with the die in it. They hang it up so it gets the air and the colours come to life. ( Back to the paper) so the man used pomegranate inside the folded piece of paper and pressed on it – then he opened it up and it was an amazing purple. Then he put lemon on it and it went all yellowy and orangey colour. It was all natural. Then we tried it on our hand and we squished it with the tips of our fingers and there was red all over our hands. Then the lemon again and the same colour was there, then he added a white powder and it went purple .