parades, elections and bucket baths

So San Lorenzo celebrated its 475 anniversary on June 1st and they have a parade evey year to show off the organizations that they have in the community. One of the organizations is the cooperative of san lorenzo in which my counterpart in the manager of. So I wake up that day knowing that there is going to be a parade and celebration but what I didn´t know is that I was going to be in it as well walking with her. It definitely was a little awkward since we walked in the front of the parade just behind the president of the junta parraoquial (its like the mayor ) and no one walking behind us for a great length as everyone in town is there looking at you. I didn´t know whether to wave and stop or just keep walking while drunk people are yelling in a mixture of slurred spanish and kichwa (or quichoa)...at 10 am.
Last sunday the community had their junta parroquial elections (city council), in which my counterpart and her brother were on one of the lists. I would consider their veiwpoints to be more along the lines of the green party, or some type of a liberal candidate. Suffice to say, they ended up coming in 5th place out of 5 lists (although, one person was chosen from each list to be on the city council, so my counterpart´s brother made it that way). Anyways, this is important to me because in small towns, to get any projects going, you need to converse with the junta parroquial. I haven´t talked with the president too much but from what I hear she is pretty easy to get along with so I feel this won´t hinder anything moving forward, but who knows. What I am really glad for is that the elections are finally over in this town. Not a day didn´t go by that I didn´t hear a song from each of the party´s (yes, they all have songs) lists being played ad nauseum for hours every day. 6am? why not....10:30pm?....sure, lets give it a go. Then, we have each people who represent the lists drive around in their trucks with megaphones attached to the top of the trucks yelling out their propaganda. They sure enjoy their politics down here.
On a different note, at our house, we were out of running water for about a week at the start of june so i learned how to live without running water for awhile (wasn´t too bad, just a little more work). Anyways, I had to bath myself and learned the time old tradition of the bucket bath. I don´t think I have taken one of those since I was washed as a baby in the sink of our house. I found it a little hard not to get the shampoo out of my eyes when I washed my hair, I think I need to lean back further on attempts in the future. Live and learn I guess.