The “old man” we made with our fellow missionaries.

New Year’s Eve in Ecuador is a time when families gather together, make a scarecrow like figure they call the “Old Man”, which represents the year coming to a close, and burn that figure.  Sometimes they make their scarecrow look like someone they don’t like, or make the figure take on aspects of something they want to change in their lives.  Others make their old man to look like political figures or to represent negative things that have happened during the year.  New Year’s Eve is a time for family, friends, food and fireworks.  It is just one more way of expressing that it is time to go “Out with the old, and in with the new!”

Burning our “old man”.

This “Old Man” is a politician riding in a burro-drawn cart.  Sign reads “Burrocracia”  (Bureaucracy).