Rain of Fish: The Honduran Town Where Fish Fill the Streets After the Storm
Once or twice each year, when the first heavy rains of May or June break over the small town of Yoro in northern Honduras, residents step outside after the storm and find the ground alive with fish. Hundreds of small silver fish lie flapping in the mud and puddles of the streets, far from any river. The event is old enough that nobody remembers its beginning; townspeople say it has happened for well over a century, and since 1998 they have marked it with the Festival de la Lluvia de Peces, the "Festival of the Rain of Fish," a parade and carnival timed to the season's first great downpour.
Local tradition ties the phenomenon to a Spanish missionary, Father José Manuel Subirana, who is said to have prayed in the 1850s that the poor of the region might never go hungry. The fish, the story goes, are heaven's answer. It is a beautiful legend, and like most legends it explains everything and proves nothing.
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