Sunday, December 28, 2008

Christmas

Hello all,

Well, this week was a fairly eventful one for down here. Christmas was a mixed bag. On Christmas Eve I ran into an American tourist I met in the regional capital of Chivay. He had walked all the way to my town, an hour´s ride by combi and a 3 day trip taking it easy. We hung out most of the night and then went to my municipality at midnight to share in hot chocolate and paneton, a type of fruitcake before heading off to bed (as that is significantly past what I´m used to staying up to down here... I´m turning into an old man).
That is pretty much all that happens down in the valley on Christmas. The next day the municipality hands out toys to the kids in town and paneton to the families to enjoy. Then the families go back to doing what they usually do, which means going out to work in the fields like it was any other day.
The next morning I gave my family their presents (a small radio they can carry to the fields so that husband and wife will both have one and markers for the little girl) and walked to the nearby town of Lari to watch my buddy place a soccer game. I actually did get a present from the municipality, which was a little unexpected because adults don´t generally receive anything. It was my own entire Paneton, which I shared with my friends a couple of days later.
To celebrate Christmas using some English, me and some buddies from the area took a day trip over to a town called Tapay in the canyon. It is very unique for a couple of reasons. First off there is no road there. You need to hike down a mountain to get there, which takes 2 and half hours down and 4 to go back up if you´re in miserable shape as I still am, regardless of all the weight dropping. The second reason that it is unique is its temperate climate. It is nestled in the canyon next to the river and has an almost tropical climate. It has lush vegetation and fruit such as peaches and pears are grown there, a rarity in the valley. It was a nice trip, although I wish I had spent some more time there, if only to rest, as I was pretty much broken at the end of the day.
Well, that is about it. I hear that not much besides drinking is accomplished on New Year´s Eve, which would be consistent with most places worldwide. I will probably try to use this opportunity (because nothing will be accomplished that day) to bounce down to the capital and take care of some errands during the day, like finally getting my bank changed over to one that is at all useful to me, before doing a little cookout in the evening to celebrate (it is summer and all down here)...

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Pictures

And here are the pictures as promised...

http://picasaweb.google.com/zijerem/Peru4#

Update

This week was a busy one work-wise. I have just put the finishing touches on a gargantuan forty-page report about every aspect of my town I could think of, which means it probably could have been even longer. It also was the official last week of school, although I had quit working there a week earlier due to finals. I went to the clausuras, or closing ceremonies, that the primary and secondary school put on which were generally longer than they needed to be meaning I got to bed at the horrifying hour of 10:30 p.m. two nights in a row. Still, I sat on stage among the teachers making me feel at least marginally important and got to see some interesting skits and performances by the students, particularly those of the primary school. There was a manger scene complete with live sheep that got a little out of control and some pretty inappropriate sketch comedy to provide some laughs for all concerned and the hot chocolate on the second night was appreciated.
I have also just put the finishing touches on my vacation request for February. It has shrunk from an extremely ambitious four-country month-long deal to a simple drop down through Chile to the tip of the permanently populated world and back up to Buenos Aires before heading on back. The shrinkage is due to the entry policies of my own dear country which are so stringent that countries down here have decided to follow suit, making the devil-may-care world traveler a thing of the past down here- at least for those of us without the monetary resources our lawmakers do. I’ll get where I want to go eventually, but I’ll have to waste some precious vacation time in Lima waiting on visas and shelling out the little I’ve got on intrinsically worthless passport-sized sheets of paper.
On the bright side, Christmas is around the corner and I’ll be able to talk on the traditions down here. Also, for New Years I hope to spend a little time with the volunteers in the area and celebrate it proper. Other than that, it will be a pretty dull winter as a good portion of the population will be heading to other areas to find seasonal work and the rain that is turning my courtyard into a swimming pool at the moment will be an ever-present friend. It’s not all bad as I’ll have plenty of time to work on a better English curriculum for the upcoming school year and I found a classic film shop with movies for a buck a pop that I would have trouble tracking down in the U.S. even. And, of course, with time flying this quickly down here Spring Training is right around the corner…

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Pics

Hey,

Don´t have the pictues yet I promised, but you can see some and read more on the festival at my fellow volunteer´s blog- ryanspcextravaganza.blogspot.com. I¨ll get those up when I can.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Fiesta de Chivay

Well, it´s been awhile since I wrote and I´ll try and get back to my once-a-week pace now that things are settling down. Between Reconnect, regional meetings, and Chivay´s town festival I haven´t had time to do much of anything the last several weeks.
Chivay is the biggest town in Colca and where I go, as I´ve mentioned before, to get a bath and communicate with the outside world. This last week they had their fiesta patronal, or town founding celebration, which is always huge. I was there most of the week because pretty much everyone in the valley comes to town (as well as relatives from all over) to celebrate and I wanted to take part in a priceless cultural experience.
The festival started off slow and built up to a wititi competition on the final day, which I unfortunately wasn´t able to attend. Wititi is the traditional dance of the area. Males dress up in skirts and wear hats that resemble lampshades to obscure their faces. This was because in the past males would do this to trick the fathers of eligible females that they were dancing with other girls instead of potential suitors. The females wear the same skirts, with matching vest and a flat-brimmed hat. I´ll have pictures up tomorrow most likely, and the link will be right here. The dance itself is a kind of subdued jog-in-place with a series of different types of spins when the music picks up tempo. The music is played by a marching band and sounds like Sousa was played by a southern black, Drumline-like university at double-time. I really like it and even did some dancing with some pretty attractive women myself, although without the traditional dress which I´ll look into for next year.
The town does a mini-makeover for the fiesta as well, with tall poles being planted all over the square to make a kind of concourse. The poles have a piece of cloth decorated with all kinds of gaudy items stretched between them and at the end of each row is a giant display with light-up items and polished silver all over them. The first day people carried statues of saints and virgins around the square and attended a mass and after that it was party time.
The next few days bands could be heard walking around the city going to parties in the four different areas. We went to a few, enjoying the free food and drink as well as the companionship. The set-up and socializing reminded me a lot of Amish socials I´ve been to, minus the drinking of course. Everybody sits around talking and eating/drinking for most of the day and then heads to the square to dance and enjoy more of the same. The dance groups grow larger and larger as the day progresses until there are three bands and dance lines going at once in the middle of the square with people all around them watching and doing more eating and drinking. This will go on well into the night, with the square being chock-full up up until midnight.
After all this excitement, and our regional meetings in the capital this weekend, I´m pretty tired out. It was a great experience and I´m looking forward to next year´s festival already - where I´ll give the skirt deal a shot. Should be fun.