Did you hear the Fiesta Cruiser has been turned into a 24-hour disco on the beach? How about news of all the streets in the Old Port being paved with used rubber tires? What’s even more exciting than that…well, all development projects in Rocky Point are slotted to be finished by summer of 2012 and Rocky Point doctors discover cure for Montezuma’s revenge! Sound too good to be true? Don’t be fooled, Dec. 28th is known as Day of the Innocents here in Mexico, similar to April Fools Day in the US.
The holiday, originally drawn from biblical history when King Herod had thousands of male infants (innocents) killed in an attempt to exterminate the newborn Messiah, has evolved into an occasion to catch people off guard through harmless jokes and pranks. The tendency to play tricks on people is particularly obvious through headlines that pop-up around Mexico on Dec. 28. Curiously, some of these headlines have been picked up by US papers in the past who did not know it was a joke and, well, confusion ensued.
So, keep your wits about you on Dia de los Inocentes and don’t be fooled (plus, it’s a bad day to lend money they say). If you are caught in a joke or a prank you may hear someone say: Inocente palomita, que te dejaste engañar, sabiendo que en este día, nada se debe prestar. Innocent little dove, you let yourself be fooled, knowing that on this day, you should not lend anything away.