All around the world

 I don't know where you're from, but no matter what your frame of reference is, there are things about your culture that would seem a bit...odd...to others. 

You mention Spain and people think of great cathedrals and music and food while I think "What's with this chasing after bulls in Pamplona, and how about that huge tomato fight for a waste of food?" In Nicaragua, instead of pointing their index finger, people point our directions or call your attention to something by pointing with their lips. Where we have Groundhog Day, during which a rodent pops out of his warren to "predict" more winter or not, Russians have Conception Day, September 12, where every fertile couple is excused from work to stay home and do the hibbidy-dibbidy all day in hopes of creating more Russians.

Among  the Yoruba people of Nigeria, the young people drop to their knees to greet their elders, and mature women kneel and men lie prostate to say hello to their seniors.  Americans who are hale and hearty will fake not being so in order to get a permit to haul their dog around in stores and restaurants, under the guise of being "service animals." In South Korea, it is verboten to use red ink if you are writing the name of a friend of loved one, because red symbolizes death.

And in Mexico, the mayor of a small town gets married to an alligator in order to make sure his people have an abundance of everything good. That's right, Victor Hugo Sosa, Mayor of San Pedro Huamelula, recently married an alligator in a traditional ceremony as dancers danced and bands played and merriment ruled the night. 

Several times, His Honor bent down to plant a wet one on the little reptile's snout. Wisely, the mouth had been tied shut. 

This is serious business among the Chontal and Huave indigenous communities in Oaxaca, so that the locals can pray for nature's bounty.

"We ask nature for enough rain, for enough food, that we have fish in the river," said Sosa. His town is just a small fishing village on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, which is a region rich in culture and tradition. Where other Mexicans have done away with customs of the past, Oaxacans have kept the old languages and folkways.

This ritual is a perfect example. The little alligator is dressed in colorful wedding finery, and regarded as a deity, symbolizing the marriage of humans and the divine. 

"It gives me so much happiness and makes me proud of my roots," said Elia Edith Aguilar, the godmother who organized the wedding.

She is honored to the the caretaker of the tradition, and took great pains to find just the right getup for the "bride."

"It's a very beautiful tradition," she said.

Hey, it works for them, right?