Alasitas - Anybody ever gone?

Just curious if anyone has every been... Heard it on NPR today...

It's called "Alasitas," the festival that makes everyone feel like a kid again.

This is a colourful, happy event tinged with poignancy. At the end of January the streets in the centre of La Paz fill with people from the city and the countryside, many of them in traditional dress, eagerly buying finely-crafted miniatures from street stalls and vendors. The figures represent material goods that the people aspire to own. It might be a tiny automobile or a bag of cement to represent a new home. A miniature passport or postage stamp might secure a dream of travel and tiny banknotes might bring wealth. One of the most popular figurine is Ekeko, “The God of Abundance‿, a popular, generous and all encompassing divinity. At the end of frenzied buying and selling there is a procession to visit the Yatiri, a wizard who blesses all the objects

All of this is blessed by local shamans who sprinkle the booty with incense and hootch.

It's Bolivia at its most pagan.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18921339

By msaucey on Feb 12, 2008, 17:56 in Bolivia rocks.

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