UMARELA 2015 Countdown Featuring Manny the Woolly Mammoth

UMARELA 2015 starts in about 2 hours, giving me just enough time to post a few pics of some of the preparations earlier today.  It may be hard to believe but this may be even better than years past.  Excitement is very high and nothing makes Umarela more successful than high spirits. 
  

 

This year the engineers, the men who really make UMAR operational, have outdone themselves with their mobile structure of Manny from the Ice Age movies.  The details are incredible.

 

Here are some of the team members in front of the construction. 

 

 

It's entirely made with the inner skin of coconut shells, perfect for the shaggy woolly mammoth  look.  The natural color was preserved with an alcohol based wood lacquer.  The children are going to go wild for this when it rolls downtown tonight.

 

  

 

Yay.  It's the annual Christmas lunch.  I'm one of the early birds.

 

The food was great as always.  Everybody left happy and satisfied and well fortified for the event coming up in less than an hour from now.  I have three cameras packed so I should be able to capture a lot of the fun.  Away I go.