Primavera

¡Primavera! The first day of spring. Of course the holiday is celebrated with a parade. Everything in Mazatlán is celebrated with a parade. And because my home was on a busy main street, every parade went right past my front door.

Some of the parades, I must admit, began to have a sameness about them. Gorgeous girls with long dark hair and beautiful black eyes wearing tight sequined dresses and sparkling tiaras. Military bands and dancing horses. Music booming from speakers the size of my kitchen stove.

But the Primavera parade is something special. Held on the first day of spring, it is a day for preschoolers and kindergartners to dress like flowers, butterflies and baby animals. Mothers walk alongside their children or push them in fancy strollers along the parade route. Teachers walk with their entire classroom of preschool children, all of them holding hands. Often, to my horror, tiny boys and girls were perched on the hoods and even the roofs of cars and trucks decorated with balloons in every possible spring color combination.

The parade would never be allowed in the United States. It is certainly too dangerous to allow babies to ride on top of moving vehicles. And yet, the smiles on the faces of the children and their proud parents made this my favorite parade of the year.