Election Colors

Driving down the main road with every lamp-post covered!

Where we come from there are just red states and blue states, with maybe a mix of the two from place to place. Where we’re living now there is a rainbow of colors because of the upcoming election. On the first day that campaigning was allowed, suddenly their appeared all around town tons of colored banners, sashes, and streamers. There are about 15 parties who have a presidential candidate and a few other small ones. Most parties are a solid color, but a few are bi-colored, and one even has a sunburst in the middle of its banner. People also tie sashes of their party’s colors between the handle bars of their motorcycles or side mirrors on cars. I’ve even seen some bright political colors worn as headdresses. More recently there are some huge banners with candidate’s pictures on them as well, hanging from gates or the second story of a few buildings on the main street. So far the campaign process hasn’t been a rowdy as I thought it might, but things also promise to heat up a little in the final week before the first run-off. During the past two weeks, lots of people have brought up the US primary elections as a topic of interest, most marveling that we take about two years to do what they do in three weeks of public campaigning. I don’t point out that we have a much larger country to cover and draw from, but I do like to compliment them on how streamlined their system is. Hopefully there is a good result!

-- El Padre