Pantalones?

In the South American country we served in it is very cultural for elementary schools to put on a dance performance at Christmas. The performance was held at the theatre at the steel mill in town. Jeremy talked in Spanish with the head Maestra of the school and got the dress requirements for the kids and ourselves.The head of the school told Jeremy he could wear a nice pair of khaki shorts with a button up plaid shirt. Jeremy lives in shorts and in such a hot climate he hardly wore pants. However, in the country we lived in neither men nor women in general wear shorts. They mostly wear nice jeans.

The day of the performance we got the kids dressed as best we could to match the requirements and went in and dropped them off at the rehearsal. We left for a few minutes to get some dinner. When we came back the guards to the steel mill would not let Jeremy in because he was wearing shorts. Jeremy begged and pleaded to be let in since we came in once already and our kids were already there. The head Maestra found a solution. She went into the auditorium and asked the people already in their seats if someone had an extra pair of pants to lend to Jeremy. Praise the Lord! There was what we believed to be an angel sent by God! The kind man went out to his truck and found the pants. Jeremy got changed in our car (which happened to be in the front row facing the building) and we went inside. We tried to sneak in, but of course being the only white people there we stuck out like sore thumbs. We laugh at it now, but we were culturally lost. We found some seats which happened to be right behind the man and his wife who lent us the pants. We said thank you again and tried not to crawl under our chairs in embarrassment. Several times after that we saw him and his family out and around town. We would sheepishly laugh and shake his hand. We felt a bond with him in his kindness and mercy towards us.