A Peruvian Wedding

While my boss was in town for my stie visit, my host mom took the opportunity to ask her if I could go with them to their cousin’s wedding on the coast. Since my whole family was going, she gave me permission to go (without taking away any vacation days)! The wedding was held in Ferreñafe, this town about 15 minutes away from Chiclayo. I was really excited to go to my first Peruvian wedding, have some bonding time with my family, and go to Ferreñafe since Dr. Martin and his family are from that town. Chabu and the kids spend their summers there so I would also be able to visit them! Apparently my host mom wasn’t kidding when she said the whole family would be going to this wedding because there were 14 of us who traveled to the coast together! As you can imagine, this was very overwhelming for me at times since we did just about everything together. Being from a small family, that was a big change for me. The first day we arrived at 5 am and after eating breakfast at the bride’s house, we all went to this one room to get ready for the civil ceremony. I decided I needed to go for a run to escape for a little bit. The run felt great, but coming back and walking into the room with everyone changing and my host mom standing there topless was quite a shock – even more so when they told me to take a picture of her! I was speechless. Maybe I thought it was weird because I’m not from a big family like that, but I couldn’t believe sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, etc. were all just getting naked and changing in front of one another! Luckily there was another room that I could go in for a little privacy. It didn’t have a door, but I think my host mom knew I was overwhelmed because she offered to stand in the doorway and block traffic until I was done. Needless to say, it was much appreciated.

For the most part I had a good time with my family, but it was hard at times. I felt like one of their brothers, who is 25, was constantly making fun of me even though Karina said he wasn’t trying to be mean, he just thought he was being funny. He kept saying things to me in Quechua and pretended it was Spanish and that I didn’t understand. Plus he kept begging me to teach him English because everyone here seems to think you can learn it overnight. He has met Jessica before and asked why I didn’t invite her to go to the wedding with us because she speaks better Spanish than me. I know she does, but why do they always have to point that out? Peruvians have a lot of great qualities, but comparing people is not one of them. They constantly have to be comparing your body, your appearances, your level of Spanish, etc. to others and it drives me crazy. Why can’t you just accept me for Kristen, rather than having to compare me to someone else?

Shopping as a family was a bit much for me too. The entire battalion went together, they didn’t have much of a plan, and it was HOT so my patience didn’t last very long. Plus the stores in the market we were in were big enough for about two people to stand in while the rest of us had to stand in the aisle waiting and being pushed and shoved by the moving traffic. The best part was that my host mom felt the need to breast feed during all of this so she is walking around with her boob hanging out and Emily drinking when she wanted it. I am definitely a proponent of breast feeding, but not when it means you’re walking around in public with your breasts hanging out. This does not only happen with my host mom, but with the majority of women here. Everywhere you turn, there is someone breast feeding because they use it like a pacifier. In my opinion, they also breast feed for way too long. One day I was walking down the street in Bambamarca and saw this woman who was sitting on a bucket on the sidewalk. Her son was STANDING in the street and breast-feeding! Are you kidding me? When your child in old enough to STAND and ask for it, I think he’s too old to be breast-feeding. But who am I to say? I know for many of these people, it is the only away to provide their children with food so I cannot judge. It’s just definitely shocking to see at times and something I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to.

Now on to the wedding. Of course every two seconds I was asked if it was the same as in the United States and I would say for the most part, the traditions here are not that different. The ceremony at the church started at 9 pm. I’ve heard that daytime weddings are very rare here. I’m wondering if that is partly because of the heat because good Lord is it HOT on the coast right now. My family was DYING and sweating up a storm the whole time we were there. To make matters worse, there is only water in Ferreñafe from 7-10 am and 4-6 pm so houses just have huge trash cans and buckets filled with water. My family would run to the buckets every five minutes to dunk their heads in and pour water all over their hair. They couldn’t believe I wasn’t dying like they were. They are so funny. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was really hot, but it wasn’t humid so I didn’t think it was as bad as they did. After living in San Antonio, that didn’t even come close to comparing for me.

Anyway, back to the wedding. Of course we didn’t get to the church until 9:10 and when we arrived, we heard a wedding ending and a couple walking up the aisle! We thought we missed it, but luckily it wasn’t their cousin, it was a different wedding. Then we heard there was another church in town and were scared we were at the wrong church, but someone reassured us that Samuel’s (their cousin’s) wedding was about to start. Well they weren’t kidding because about 2 minutes later he walked down the aisle and then the bride did. Her entrance didn’t seem like a very big deal like it is in the States. Everyone stood up and all, but there weren’t many people there (attendance had doubled by the end) and people were talking and not really paying attention. They also don’t have ushers or bridesmaids – just a best man and maid of honor (which they call padrino and madrina, literally meaning godfather/mother) – and little kids (a girl and boy each for the bride and groom). Other than that, it seemed like a pretty traditional Catholic wedding minus the bat that was flying around the altar during the ceremony. I haven’t been to very many Catholic ceremonies, but it seemed pretty similar with lots of singing, praying and then communion. They gave it to the bride and groom and offered it to the crowd, but only 3 little kids went up and took it. I thought that was kind of weird, but I don’t know how it usually is. I thought one of the little kids in the wedding would have had the rings (since that’s how we do it), but my host mom’s dad had the rings and had to walk up from his seat in the audience during the ceremony to give them the rings. I also noticed the priest never said, “you may now kiss the bride,” but I think he just made a mistake because Karina said they normally kiss. Before they walked up the aisle together, they went onto the altar and took a few pictures with some family members. By 10:30 the wedding was finally over and the new couple walked up the aisle together. I thought it was really strange because the bride looked really pissed. She looked that way the entire time. I only saw her smile about 3 times the whole night (including at the reception). I thought it was weird because I know that at my wedding, I will be bawling when my Dad walks me down the aisle and then glowing the rest of the time, but she just looked so mad. Maybe it was just nerves…..I hope so at least.

Everyone hurried over to the reception after the wedding because there are no assigned seats at the tables. The bride’s sister kicked this lady and her husband out of a table so our little army could be seated. That lady’s family wasn’t there yet and we were so we took precedence I guess. Since there were so many of us, we didn’t all fit at one table of course, but were able to get two tables next to each other. The place was decorated pretty nicely. It wasn’t anything special – very typical Peruvian. In my opinion, they decorate all locations pretty much the same for any occasion, whether it’s a baptism, birthday, graduation, or wedding. They use lots of fabric, fancy lettering, and have lots of cakes.

I was expecting to wait forever for the bride and groom to arrive as is the case at home, but to my surprise, we only had to wait about 20 minutes. As the entered the room, they made about 3 loops around the place and then instead of eating, they did all of their dancing with their parents, the best man and woman, etc. My host grandparents are the godparents of the groom, but they are in luto (mourning for my hostgrandpa’s mom who died in September). When you’re in luto, you’re not supposed to dance or party so my host mom and her brother had to dance in their place when their turn came. There was also a time when any woman could dance with the groom and any man with the bride so of course my family made me go dance with the groom. They were so excited and insisted on taking my photo. I have about 8 million photos from the wedding because everyone would say, “Oh Señorita Kris, please take my picture!” I loved that. I thought the dancing part was kind of weird because every single dance was to the same song – some bridal waltz which got annoying really fast. I told them that in the U.S. the couple picks a song that is special for them to dance their first song, but I guess that is not the tradition here. Well after lots of dancing and the bouquet and guarder toss (Karina caught the bouquet and screamed she was so excited), we finally got to eat – at midnight! We were all starving because no one had had dinner. I had a Luna Bar in my purse because I knew this was going to happen, but what was I going to do? I couldn’t bust it out in front of all of them so I starved right along with them. I thought what we were served was dinner, but it turns out it was just the first course because at 2:30 am we got the main entrée! In the meantime there was a lot of dancing and pictures. The bride and groom take their picture with anyone who wants it and then the bride changes out of her wedding dress! I thought that was strange, but they said that is the custom here. As you can imagine, since I was the only gringa there, lots of people wanted to dance with me, but I decided to stick with family members only. I had a really great time dancing with them (minus the times when I swear my host dad was flirting with his nieces and the cousins flirting with each other – gross!). There was lots of drinking too because Peruvians will use any excuse they can get to drink, but I didn’t drink very much – enough so they wouldn’t bother me about it, but not enough to get drunk. All in all I had a really good time, but by 4 am I had had enough. They still hadn’t cut the cake, but I couldn’t hold out any longer. Luckily my host mom wanted to leave too so she could put Emily to bed! I couldn’t believe my one year old sister was outlasting me! How do they do it?

We headed back to the house we were staying at and I crashed. There was only one double bed and one single bed in the room so it was really fun when the rest of the family came home at 6 am and had to find somewhere to sleep. They were so loud and acted like I wasn’t in the bed. They were throwing clothes on top of me and sitting on my legs. I was so annoyed, but too tired to say anything. Plus they were drunk. I think about 4 other girls ending up sleeping on the double bed with me. There were about 4 more in the single bed, 3 on the floor and the rest went somewhere else to sleep. At one point I got up to use the bathroom and couldn’t find my flip flops anywhere. I finally find them all the way across the room and when I put them on they were soaking wet. I was not amused. Nor was I happy that when I got back from the bathroom someone had taken my pillow and sheet. Oh boy. It was a fun weekend, but I was ready for it to end. The next day we went to the bride’s house for lunch and I saw the cake in its entirety. They told me that some people cut it at the party, but usually they take it home and share it with family members the next day. I snuck a bite of a piece that was cut out, but no one else got any. I know, I’m bad.

On Sunday we were supposed to go to the beach, but everyone in my family was either sleeping, hungover, or vomiting so we never went. I had had a great weekend with my family, but decided to use the opportunity to visit Chabu and the kids for a little while since I hadn’t seen them since before I went home to the States. It was really fun to see them and meet Chabu’s mom and siblings. Her family is so nice and welcoming. They had someone from Switzerland live with them for four years when Chabu was a teenager so they are used to having a “gringo” around. I felt so comfortable and relaxed with them – what a nice feeling and huge contrast to the weekend I had just spent with my family.

While I was on the coast, I also had the opportunity to see a bunch of my Peace Corps friends. On Saturday my family went shopping for the wedding gift. All of them were going together and they didn’t know what they were going to get so I opted not to go. I decided to call one of my friends who lives close to the city to see if she wanted to have lunch. It turned out to be my lucky day because almost all of the volunteers from that department were in town for a planning meeting for camp ALMA. I met them in the city and then we all went to the beach to eat ceviche (raw fish that I actually liked!) and hang out. It was such a nice break from being with my family and lots of fun to see a bunch of friends who I rarely see. I also met two married couples from Peru 8 which was really nice for me because they could really understand my situation and how hard it is to be away from Giff.

On the way back from the beach something happened in the combi that really reaffirmed my faith in Peruvians. The man who collects the money on the bus tried to overcharge our friend Matt who lives about five minutes away from the beach (so he obviously knows how much it costs). He argued with the guy telling him he was trying to rip him off and the guy kept insisting he pay more. Matt refused so the guy kicked him out! I was talking to two other girls so we weren’t really sure what was going on, but all of the Peruvians on the bus started yelling at the guy and telling him not to take advantage of the tourists. One of my friends said, “he isn’t a tourist, he lives here and works at an orphanage down the street!” She said she hates to pull that card, but sometimes it’s necessary. The people kept telling the guy 20 centimos is not going to make him rich or poor so just let our friend back on. The driver ended up pulling over and insisting Matt get back in the combi. After a little convincing he finally did and when he tried to pay again, the guy wouldn’t accept his money because everyone on the combi had just embarrassed him so badly. It was really nice to see how quick the Peruvians were to stick up for him since so many people try to take advantage of us here when they see our white skin.

I better stop now before your eyes get too tired from reading. I’ll write more later. I miss you all so much and hope you’re all doing well and surviving the cold weather….