Friday was the celebration of the Anexation of Guanacaste. My daughter dressed up in the typical dress and insisted on braiding her hair. I’ve never been certain what the exact history is of this holiday other than Costa Rica took the province of Guancaste from Nicaragua to call their own. Supposedly, the land wasn’t working out so well for Nicaragua. Take? Give? Like I said, the details are a little unclear, but it’s a good reason to dance.

Costa Ricans are thrilled that Guanacaste is theirs. And since the area is now one of the most popular beach destinations, it’s incredibly important to the bottom dollar. In my life, it means dressing the kids in red, white, and blue and eating beans and rice. Coco is thrilled with any, and every, holiday. Dressing up in this big old skirt adds to the thrill. Before she left for school, the nanny sang one of the traditional songs and Coco twirled back and forth. One of the most commons songs to hear is Punto Guanacasteco, a courting song. The boy says: Que si! and spins his bandana above his head. The girl says: Que no! and with her skirt in her hand, spins around.

Even though the holiday fell on Friday, the government has made the official day Monday. At the end of our three day weekend, Coco and I were reading a book about world peace. (You know, one of those books that are for kids but really help us parents figure IT all out.) On the top of the page was a quote by Anne Frank: How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Who’s Anne? she asked.

I told her how we went to Anne’s house, which is now a museum, when she was just a year and one-half. She asked all sorts of questions about how they ate and played and where the secret doors were. Perhaps I made a mistake of telling the whole story about Anne hiding in the attic; I didn’t sugar coat it. I told her the ending. As I looked back at the page to continue reading, I could tell Coco was going to cry.

Why do they do such things to kids? Just because she was playing and making noise in the attic?

I assured her it wasn’t because of the noise and explained that these really bad people just wanted to kill and hurt others because they weren’t like them. Coco grabbed several of her stuffed animals and placed her chin upon them. She told me she had a plan:

I know what the kids can do next time. We can dance with our skirts and twirl and say: Que no! The boys can take their banaderas and spin them over their heads! That’ll make them go away!

I couldn’t think of a better way to find world peace than to dance. This may become one of my top holidays of all.