Fiesta Time!

So this entry is LONG overdue considering our fiestas already finished a month ago! I had intentions of writing about it right away, but time got away from me and here we are. I will start off by saying that I was NOT looking forward to this fiesta. I had been hearing all about it since I arrived last September and I thought it would just be two weeks of drunks wandering around the streets. Boy was I proven wrong. I ended up having a BLAST! It was some of the most fun I’ve had here in Peru and made me so proud to be a bambamarquina! Here’s my best attempt at recalling all of the fun details of those crazy two weeks. Just a warning, these weeks were packed with events so it’ll be a long one. At some point during the year, every town in Peru has a week (or more) of celebrations for their fiestas patronales in honor of the town’s patron saint. In our case, the patron saint for Bambamarca is the Virgen del Carmen so the fiesta is organized around her day, July 16th, a holiday that is recognized nationwide. However, since Peruvians love an excuse to party, the fiesta kicked off on Thursday, July 5th with a big parade. I love parades in Bambamarca because school children practice their marching for weeks in advance, only to march 50 yards on the actual day. They walk from one corner of the street to the other. You’d think this wouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. People line up in rows three to four people deep just to get a view. The parade started with this year’s organizing committee (elected every year) and continued with lots of school children in traditional clothing, a few traditional dance routines, and even a couple of bands. The Virgen, carried on a pedestal by a few community members, was the last part of the parade. I thought it was over once she passed, but instead the entire crowd waited while she was walked around town for the next half hour or so because they wanted to see the Virgen return to to the Plaza and then to her place in the church. Another tradition that gets people excited for the central week of the fiesta is something called the novena, where every night for a week the Virgen is carried down different streets in town and honored with castillos (huge bamboo towers with fireworks) and a mass exodus of people. Each of the major streets in town is assigned a different night and the people on that street decorate the street and build castillos in preparation for the Virgen’s passing. Rita invited me to her house on Saturday night to watch the primera novena because hers is the first street. I had no idea what to expect so when I got there around 8 pm, I was really confused as to why they were blowing up balloons and attaching them to a huge streamer. I thought they were decorating the inside of the house, but when they were finished they put it outside and tied to the neighbor’s house across the street. Rita explained to me that it was done to honor the Virgen and the balloon in the middle was filled with confetti that they would pop right when the Virgen passed under it. Like most things here, we spent a long time sitting around and waiting for it to begin. There is a band that accompanies the Virgen for the entire night. The tradition is that the Virgen waits at the top of the street for the band to arrive and once it gets there, the novena begins. TONS of people also walk to the top of the street to accompany the Virgen on her novena. Although it was supposed to start at 9 pm, the band didn’t even pass Rita’s house (on its way to get the Virgen) until 9:30. Freddy’s family was building a HUGE castillo though so that kept us entertained. Rita told me there is always a competition between Freddy’s family and the neighbors up the street to see who has the biggest and best castillo. They were both over two stories high so I was really impressed! We watched the novena from Rita’s balcony so we had a great view. It was so fun to see this mass of people walking down the street and stopping to watch these huge firework towers go off. Once the Virgen got to Rita’s house we had to go inside and watch what we could from there because the ashes from their Castillo were flying everywhere. Of course the kids on the street think it’s a fun game to run under the castillo when it’s going off and ashes are flying everywhere. Haha. I stayed at Rita’s house watching the rest of the street until we couldn’t see anything anymore. I left around 11 pm, but it was still going strong! It was so much more fun than I thought it would be and made me excited for all of the other upcoming events. The next night my family invited me to go to the circus with them. I was really tired and didn’t feel like it, but decided I should go because it would be a nice opportunity to hang out with my family. We thought it started at 9:30, but we got there and found out it wouldn’t start until 10. There was a little carnival in town for the fiesta right next to the circus ring so we hung out there while we waited for the circus. Most of the rides and games were for little kids except for a Ferris Wheel that looked like it was from about 1982 – there was no way I was about to go on that. Instead we watched Emily (my two year old host sister) go on a few rides and she loved them so that was fun. We went into the circus (that cost 1 sol – about 30 cents) at 10 to get the “good” seats in the front row. It turns out the good seats were plastic lawn chairs, but they sure beat the old rickety bleachers. Of course the circus didn’t actually start until about 10:40 pm. It was pretty good, but my family was making fun of me for screaming so much. There were absolutely no safety nets and the “floor” was this thin carpet over the cobblestone ground so everytime someone did a stunt I would jump and let out a little yelp because I was sure I was about to see someone fall to their death. One guy was riding a bike on the tight rope – tell me that’s not scary! The circus was actually better than I expected, but it was no Ringling Brothers. My family couldn’t even fathom the idea of a 3-ring circus when I told them about it. My favorite part was definitely the clowns. They were really funny and made me laugh really hard. I was so glad I went – it was great bonding time with my family and helped take me out of my funk (since I had just returned from seeing Giff). Not too much was going on the following week besides for the novena each night. The teachers were on a national strike so kids weren’t in school, but other than that, everyone else was working. I started spending more and more time with my host family though and it was wonderful. We ate meals together, walked around town, and talked a lot so that made me really happy and SO GRATEFUL to think about how far we’ve come in the past year. One day I made Peruvian style s’mores (over the stove with choco soda crackers – chocolate covered saltines) with Carol and Martin so that was fun too. It was my mom’s birthday too so I called her on Skype and Karina and Marta sang to her. It was so cute and they were SO EXCITED to see my parents – they were screaming and kept telling my parents they loved them. Things started to pick up again on Friday, July 13th. Karina and Marta taught me how to make tamales and then we went to a dance contest of marinera (a typical dance from the coast). There were 29 couples in 5 different age groups from all over this region (including some couples from the coast). It is a beautiful dance and now I really want to learn it. It seems really complicated, but I love it. The girls wear these beautiful dresses with huge skirts that they hold and use in the dance with them. It is a very flirtatious and romantic dance. The contest lasted almost 3 hours that afternoon, but it was so much fun. The whole time I kept thinking, we don’t have anything like this in the States, this is so cool! I told Marta that we don’t have fiestas patronales and she said, “So everyday is just the same?” Haha – compared to this country and all of the rich fietas and traditions they have – yes! After the dance contest, my family and I ate our tamales, which were delicious, and then we made balloon chains because it was the novena on our street. Nobody wanted to walk down the street with the Virgen so Karina and I went by ourselves. We even got to carry the Virgen for a little while which is a really big deal. They were all so excited I did it and told me that it means I’m catholic now. Oh geez. My family all watched us from the balcony and took our picture walking with the Virgen. We didn’t finish with that until 11 pm or so. I was invited to a birthday party that night so I went for a little while, but only stayed about an hour because everyone was already drunk when I got there and I was bored. On Saturday I went to an agricultural fair with Karina and her friend Sara. It had been going on for a few days and we’d been meaning to go, but didn’t have time. There are tons of stands set up with the best agricultural products, artisan goods, cooked food (LOTS of cuy), etc. There was one stand with a model of the future of Bambamarca with a mall and movie theater! Who knows if it will really happen, or when, but I could never picture Bambamarca like that. We got there just in time to watch the finals of a huayno (traditional music/dance of the sierra) dance competition. It was fun to watch because this type of dance is so different from the marinera we had watched the day before. There were only three couples in the finals and the man in one couple was albino or something. I thought that people would tease him, but instead everyone was cheering for the “gringo” (they say that about anyone who has lighter skin or hair)! He and his partner ended up winning so they got a huge standing ovation. It made me so happy to see how supportive everyone was. The fiesta really seemed to bring out the best in everyone. We were going to stay to watch a cow-milking contest, but it started raining so we went home. In the afternoon we went to the finals for the marinera contest, which turned out to be a fiasco. It started raining there too and the ground got really slippery. One girl fell during her dance and really hurt her leg, but got back up and toughed it out enough to finish her dance. She and her partner were excellent dancers and got a perfect score. Combined with their score from the day before, the perfect score put them in first place and they won the gold medal for their age group. Well as you can imagine, some of the other moms were NOT happy about this and were yelling at the judges. Oh boy. They ended up moving the competition from the patio of the high school to the canchitas (soccer courts) because they are covered. I stayed for a little while, but started feeling really sick so decided to go home. I decided to stay in that night and rest. Thank God I did because it ended up being the last good night of sleep I had for a week! On Sunday my doctor from Peace Corps, Dr. Jorge, came to visit. He likes to visit as many of our sites as possible to see what our realities are like because he has lived in Lima his whole life. He is so much fun so I was really excited to have him in town. We walked all around Bambamarca and visited Chabu and the kids. That night was the vispera in the Plaza de Armas. The vispera is the kickoff for the central week of the fiesta. They had three HUGE castillos in the plaza that Rita said cost 5,000 soles each! Dr. Jorge loves castillos and had never seen any that big so he was really excited. One of them was in the shape of the church and had a little marinera dancer on it that spun around when it was lit. I wish I could have video taped the whole thing because it’s hard to describe what a cool experience it was. Rita called me to meet up with her family in the plaza. It was nearly impossible to find them because the plaza was PACKED with people. I have never seen so many people concentrated in one area in Bambamarca the whole time I’ve lived here. There had to be at least 5,000 people. While we waited for the castillos to start, we were drinking and dancing with Rita’s family. There were two bands (one from Chiclayo!), but they weren’t playing very good music. When they took a break though, I would dance with Freddy and huge circles of people would form around us and watch, saying, “look at the gringa dance!” Haha. Surprisingly, I wasn’t embarrassed at all, it just made me laugh – probably because they kept serving me so much beer. I kept having Dr. Jorge pour out my cup of beer on the ground when Rita’s family wasn’t looking because I had already had plenty and they insisted on serving me a full glass every time – oh man. Before the castillos started, they were also sending these huge paper balls into the sky by lighting the inside on fire. It was so dangerous and would definitely be illegal in the States. A few even landed on people’s rooftops! The castillos finally started around 11:00 pm so we watched them and headed home. Dr. Jorge didn’t know it was Bambamarca’s fiesta when he planned his trip so he really lucked out. He loved it and I was so happy to have him there. He even took videos of me dancing huayno (and attempting marinera) in the plaza! What a great night! I was up early the next day to eat breakfast with Dr. Jorge and send him on his way to Chota to visit more volunteers. Rita’s family had invited me to go on a paseo (outing) with them so they picked me up right after breakfast and we were on our way. We went to a place called Maraypampa where we visited a Vivienda Saludable (healthy household). These are households the health center has chosen to work with to set a model for the rest of the community in how they can live healthier. Most houses in the campo are just one big room where everyone sleeps and eats with lots of chickens and guinea pigs running around. The viviendas saludables are different in that everything is separated – they have their sleeping quarters in one part and the kitchen in another part (with the animals penned off). Most families in this area use leña (firewood) to cook because it is a lot cheaper, however, in many houses, the smoke does not have a way to escape so another aspect of these healthy households is that they have cocinas mejoradas (a better designed kitchen with a chimney for the smoke to escape). The family who owns the house we visited is incredible. They have taken the initiative to build an entirely new house (using their own resources) just in the past eight months, with separate bedrooms for the children, a cocina mejorada, and even a HOT shower (they designed a system to heat the water using the smoke from the kitchen). They have turned their old house into a cuy farm where they will be raising guinea pigs to sell for additional income. The house was beautiful and the family members were so kind-hearted. We returned to Bambamarca in time for lunch and then I headed home to nap a little bit. There were more castillos in the plaza that night as it was the official holiday of the Virgen del Carmen. That night there were four castillos so I went to the plaza with Karina and Sara to meet up with Freddy and Rita’s cousins to watch them. Each castillo has a name on it that lights up at the end to recognize the person that sponsored it so I kept joking that the next one would say “Miss Massachusetts” – haha yeah right, like I have that kind of money! On Tuesday morning there was a huge parade. My host mom had to march in it with all of the health center staff that work in the entire region. All of the different schools also marched in it so it was a really big deal. We went for a while, but I got so annoyed with people pushing that I went home. I started out in the front row, but by the time I left, I was about five people deep into the crowd. There were guards there to “control” the crowd, but they didn’t do much. Most of the time they would just stand there allowing people to push and shove, but once in a while, they would use all of their weight and shove against the person in the front row to push everyone back – sometimes is was these tiny little campo women and I found it completely barbaric and abusive. When they did this, nothing was accomplished though because everyone in the back would just push forward. Honestly, I’m surprised no one got trampled because it was horrible. I stayed for about 20 minutes, long enough to watch my host mom, but then I left with her when she finished because I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t see anything anyway and I was being pushed around like an animal. The parade went on for at least another hour. When everyone got home we all ate lunch together and then headed to the bull ring where I would witness my first bull fight! The bull ring is on the outskirts of town up this huge hill so everyone got a ride to the top and walked home at the end. Since I knew the bulls would be killed, I had mentally prepared myself for it so I wouldn’t freak out too much. I didn’t think I would really like it, but I wanted to go for the experience. Well surprisingly enough, I really enjoyed myself. It’s just as much a social and cultural event as anything else. It’s like going to a baseball game – there is so much to look at that you don’t actually have to watch the main event the whole time. It was fun for me to look around and see if I could pick out any familiar faces, but it was PACKED so I wasn’t too successful at that. There were two different bands that kept playing Bambamarca’s song, lots of vendors and activity, and a fight that broke out between two women so of course that got everyone’s attention. It was fun to watch how into the bull fights some people got. One of the guys (not the matador, but one of the assistants) is from Bambamarca – or married a bambamarquina – so he was very popular and amusing. There were six bulls that day and one of the matadors did the whole thing on horseback. It was so cool! I actually really enjoyed that one. At the end he walks around the ring and people throw things at him, it reminded me of ice skaters – hahahaha. Some people threw stuffed animals or roses, but others threw shirts for him to wipe his sweat on and throw it back! A little while into each fight, a picador comes out on horseback to stab the bull a few times and lower his stamina. Apparently they just started doing this about five years ago and the people do NOT like it – they boo at the guy and throw oranges and plastic bottles at him. I thought it was really funny to see how riled up they got. By the end, it seemed he wasn’t stabbing them as hard or as long. There was so much excitement that before I knew it, it was over. There are three days of bull fights and we ended up going back every day. Karina said her family hasn’t gone to all three days in a very long time and was so happy how united we all were this year. I had so much fun going with them and felt like we really bonded. By the last day, I was a little bored with it, but there was a 9 year old matador so that spiced things up. He is from Lima and this was his first bull he ever killed. He was a little spit fire. A few times the crowd would gasp because the bull had knocked him over and he got up and looked at the crowd with this look on his face that said, “WHAT?” He was so funny and entertaining, not to mention talented. He got two ears and a tail (that they cut off from the bull) for his fight – the highest honor! Chota is supposed to have the best bull fights outside of Lima and everyone from Bambamarca goes to their fights, but this year the word on the street was that our fights were way better than Chota’s! That night I attended my first quinciñera with Karina. Chabu was decorating for it and told me the girl’s mom (a single mom) spent 20,000 soles on the party! That is the equivalent to about two years’ salary so I have no idea where she got all that money. The party was on the patio at one of the high schools, but they brought in these huge tents so it looked like an elegant affair. The mom hired a really famous band called Don Guillermo’s from Cajamarca to come and play and bought 100 cases of beer! It was my first quinciñera, but I knew it was very extravagant compared to most. I had no idea what to expect from the little coming of age ceremony before the party started, but it reminded me very much of a wedding. The girl wore this really fancy pink dress and had 15 damas y caballeros (like bridesmaids and groomsmen) who were also dressed really fancy. The ceremony started with the girl handing off this doll to her little sister to symbolize her passing on her childhood. The girl also had a boy who sat up in the front with her and danced with her for her first song. At one point she gave a speech and so did her mom. She also had a bouquet which she threw to all of the damas, but I didn’t get what that symbolized – the one who catches it will be the next to turn 15? Haha just kidding. There was another dance where any guy could go up and dance with her and there was also a time for everyone to congratulate her and give her presents. The most amusing part to me was when she and some of her friends did a choreographed dance to Britney Spears’ Toxic. After all of the formalities and pictures with her in front of the huge cake, dinner was served (this was about midnight) and the dancing began. At first no one was asking Karina or me to dance so we were getting annoyed. We decided we would wait another half an hour and if we weren’t having a good time, we’d go to Rita’s house because she was having a party (and they’d already called me about 8 times to come). Once the first guy was brave enough to ask me, I didn’t stop dancing until the music stopped at 5 am. I must admit that it’s really entertaining the things guys will say to you when you’re dancing. One guy told me he’d give me free surfing lessons if I went to Chiclayo, another told me I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, blah blah blah. I’m not being conceited, but when you’re the gringa, you have celebrity status and it’s so funny the things people say to you. Karina and I both really wanted this one guy to ask us to dance because he was by far the best dancer in the place (and there were 500 people so that says a lot). We didn’t know his name so we kept calling him amarillo because he had a yellow shirt on. Every time a new song came on, Karina would say “Amarillo come ask my friend to dance!” We were laughing so hard, but of course he couldn’t hear us. The doctor and Chabu were there so we ended up hanging out and dancing with them. While we were over there amarillo came over and asked me to dance. Karina and I looked at each other and started laughing because we were so excited. Haha. I ended up dancing with him the rest of the night and had a blast. I was happy because he was such a great dancer and not gross like the other guys. Karina and I left at 5 am, but only because the music stopped – otherwise we would have gone on until the sun came up! I tried to sleep in the next morning, but my host brother woke me up at 9:30 to see if I wanted a ticket for the bull fight that day. The bull fight was fun, but what I was really looking forward to was the dance that night in the canchitas. Grupo 5 – my favorite Peruvian band – was coming and I couldn’t wait. Everyone had been asking me if I was going for weeks because they all know how much I love Grupo 5. I went with Karina and some of her friends. We left the house at 11 pm and even though we live about 100 ft. from the canchitas, we didn’t get into the dance until 12:15 am. They love to do vueltas around the block a million times to check out the crowd before getting in line. We finally bought our tickets and got in line and right when we were at the door, Karina told us to get out of line because another friend was on his way. I was SO annoyed and freezing. I just wanted to get inside to start dancing! We finally made it inside and shortly after arriving I ran into Juan Pablo (amarillo). I was so happy to see him because Karina’s friends don’t know me and were already hitting on me and being gross. I ended up dancing with Juan Pablo and his friends all night. At one point when he went to the bathroom, some lady came up to me and asked if she could videotape me because she thought I was so cute – haha. She wanted me to go up on stage, but I wasn’t ready to do that. [Sidenote: the bathrooms were SO GROSS. There is a whole in the ceiling and when I was standing in line some guy was up there watching all of the girls pee. He was gone by the time my turn came, but the toilet in the stall was so gross that we just had to pee on the floor! Eww!] The music stopped around 5 am so we had to leave. Juan Pablo and his friend were hungry so we went to eat caldo (like chicken noodle soup – that’s what they eat here after a night out – not exactly Jumbo Slice in Adams Morgan). I think it was caldo de cuy so I did not like it. I sat with them while they ate it and then we got in the car to go home. Next thing I knew it was 7:15 in the morning – we had all fallen asleep! Hahaha. I went home to get in my own bed for a few hours before my security director came. He was supposed to pick me up at 9 am to do some site development in a nearby town. I got into bed at 7:33 and he called at 7:38 to tell me he was outside of my house! Ahhhh! We got back around 11 and I tried to sleep a little bit, but my family is so loud that even with my earplugs, I didn’t get much sleep. I got up, shoveled some rice and potatoes in my mouth and was off to the last of the bull fights. By that time, I had just about had my fill of bull fights, but it was still fun to go with my family. That was the day of the little boy so it was a good ending to the three days. There was free music in the plaza that night so Karina and I met up with Juan Pablo and some friends. We hung out in the plaza talking and laughing until the middle of the night again. I think that was my “earliest” night to bed – around 4 am! The next morning I was up by 7 to catch the bus to Cajamarca to meet Luke and Jocelyn! I’ll save those stories for the next entry since this is already plenty long. As you can see (if you even made it this far) I had a blast during our fiesta! I spent so much time with my family and really bonded with them. I really felt pride for Bambamarca and enjoyed every bit of the fiestas! Whenever I come back to visit in the future, I’ll definitely be coming during fiesta!