The weirdest parade of my life

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Hello everyone,
Hopefully you are all well and enjoying the wonderful weather and sun and tans like we´re experiencing here... Oh wait... its winter there still right? Opps, sorry... hehe...
Well this is our last update from Junin de los Andes in Southern Argentina, mine at least, since Jenica will also write all about our last week at the school and the good times there, but I have been given the duty of writing about the weekend, with the weirdest parade of my life, a great fair, and music concert.
La fiesta de los Puesteros was this past weekend in the city and it was a celebration of basically anything the town had to offer. There were gauchos - argentine cowboys on decked out horses - every two meters in the streets, vendors selling carved wood, beautiful bracelets and necklaces and panchos and mate gourds, miniture ponies (for some reason they´re a huge hit in argentina..??..) roasted peanuts, socks, eminem cds, scarfs, see-threw pants, men selling a piece of plastic that kids put in their mouths to sound like cats being electrocuted... people thought that was especially funny when one of the vendors was demonstrating what a good prank it could be to have a big bag with a fake cats tail hanging out if it and make the noise of a dying cat as he beat the bag... As well there were also chocolates, and jams, and tiny trees, and honey, and boxes of vegetables for sale. We looked around at the vendors and wondered the little maze of tents in the city for a little while after the parade and dinner.
I´m not really sure where to start with the parade... pretty much everything was different aside from the people lining the streets to watch it go by. First, the Mayor spoke about how great Junin was and how it was growing and would continue to grow if the people would join together and work hard together. Then the Governor came and spoke about how great Junin was and how it was growing and would continue to grow if the people would join together and work hard together. Then a representative from the Capital came and spoke about how great Junin was and how it was growing and would continue to grow if the people would join..... blah blah blah.... needless to day, the political speeches went on FOREVER!!!!! The only thing that added some what of a dramatic, foreign, romantic touch was the military men lined up in perfect little rows in front of numerous argentine flags; however, the romance was short lived, and the mysterious, dramatic presence of the military faded fast after the Sergent declared loudly, RIGHT TURN!!... and half of the men turned the wrong way... I can´t even imagine the pride the argentine people must feel in a military that doesn´t know right and left. After a bit of confustion, and nervous glances back and forth, the men finally figured out which way they were supposed to face, and marched off. We should have known right then and there that this parade was not like those in Kelowna....
First came the Royalty... the Queen of Junin, and the first Princess, and the second princess, and the mother of the Queen, and the past Queen, and the second cousin of the first princess, and the best friend of the past Queen, as well as royalty of visiting cities... This city has serious issues with fake royalty.
Then the schools: the principles and some teachers and students from each and every school in the city from pre-schools to highschools. Even the circus school had representation, and were probably the most lively (obviously) with drums and dancing and barrel walking. Then every chruch in town, with the ministers, and banners. The the handball club, the swimming club, the riding club, the sign language club... you get the jist...
Then the art sellers, and all people in town who owned big trucks.. the fire fighters, post apocalyptic ski patrol, military tanks, gym cyclists being pulled on a display float (??) and random blonde girls doing samba in what looked like north american native cheerleading outfits... that one really confused us... we could deal with all the schools and clubs and trucks, but but we weren´t really sure if it was bad samba, second hand costumes, why they were in North American native style costumes and not South American native style costumes, if they were just bathing suits with sparkily beads sewed on, or why the colours were red white and blue....??
There was so much more in the parade that lasted a good two hours, but I think you all get the feeling that it wasn´t they type of parade that we were used to!
After all this excitement we went to a music concert of Soledad, a great Argentine folkorica singer here, and danced and sang. Ana and Fatima - the Argentine girls who we were living with at the school - knew every word of every song and pulled us all right in the middle of the crowd around the stage. We sang, and danced, and shouted and went wild for the duration of the concert, and then went out at night. The girls were really tired after so I went home with them while Jenica stayed out with Benedikt and some other friends for a couple more hours. All in all the fiesta de los Puesteros was wonderful with beautiful art, interesting and thought provoking parades, and an awesome unforgetable concert. It took me quite a while to explain it all, but I really wanted to express to all the confustion, interest, and excitement we all felt.
Switching gears now, I copied out some Mapuche legends from a book that Gabriel, one of the men that works here, lent us after finding out that we were interesting in culture and not just watering trees. He talked to me a lot about the Mapuches and the school and the history of the people. He said unfortunatly that most of the girls from the school don´t end up doing much with their new educations, and often get pregnant right after school ends. He said despite this that he still believes the education that the school gives them is valuable because they have more choices about lifestyle, and understand how to eat healty and cook and clean and read and write. The religion of the Mapuche is not Catholism and God like the majority of Argentines, but that of nature and spirits, Gabriel said that the beliefs are very much the same as those of the North America Natives. He said also that the boys are able to find work after school and usually go straight into work unless they have extremely high grades to win themselves scholarships since the school cannot affort to help the students with post secondary education. The school has two parallel parts, one the school for the children, and the other a moving program where teachers go out into the Mapuche villages and teach them about greenhouses and fertilizer, Spanish, and also the Mapuche language. Gabriel explained to me that becuase the Mapuche people are being so integrated into urban life, and few remain in the fields that the native language is suffering and being forgotten. Part of the mission on the moving school is to record the language and teach it to the Mapuches so that their native language does not become a dead one.

Anthropologists alway argue about where the Mapuche people originate from, Chile, Bolivia, Northern Argentina, no one is really sure exactly. When the Spanish came the Mapuches were pushed down south further and further and displaced various times becoming isolated and diversifying culturally. Now there are different pockets of indiginous people all over Argentina, mostly in rural areas, and they still have no land rights for the land they work or legal rights. Anyway, here is a story (or two, depending on my time...) from Gabriels book:

In the underworld, below the waters, lived Kai-Kai-Filu, the enemy serpent. One day the waters began to rise: in the hills that roll over the upper worlds lived Tren-Tren, the serpent friend of dry land. He advised the people to climb the mountains. The water rose and rose, but so did the hills. Kai-Kai could be heard seething. Tren-Tren could be heard weeping over the pitchers that coveredevery head. Some could not be saved. They are the fish, they are rocks. The closest to the solar fire turned brown. Those who were saved made sacrifices, the water became calm and so did hte mountains. Those who were saved climbed down the hills, spread over the mapu (land), populated its valleys. And so the Mapuches were born, the people of the earth.

What is older? Silver or Gold? Silver is older according to the elders. Once the sun father struck his domo, the mother moon, making her fall and shed blazing tears that burnt so much they became silver. Then she went away, leaving her husband alone. When he realised the evil he had done and how it had made him lonely, he too cried scalding tears that became gold. That is why we say that silver is older than gold.

Hope to talk to you all soon,
Lots of love
Lindsay

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Photos

a weekend of strange events
the fire works. (obviously)

samba USA?
we're still not quite sure about how we feel about the parade and especially this act

romantics
right turn. i mean left. did he say left? which way is that? my left or his left? oh geez, this is tricky. i hope no one saw

my favorite
the float of cyclists. i instantly thought of Laura!!!

again, not sure
skis + poles + machine guns + painter's outfits + earphones + military boots = what we like to call post epocalyptic ski squad

in the evening
benedikt and the girls at a very smokey, cloudy and crowded club.

al show
the volunteers gathered together, freezing in the evening air, before the concert heated things up

jenica y barbara
our new friend who always sticks her tounge out for some reason when she sees you, is excited or any reason really.

VAMOS SOLE
una vez mas, y no jodemos mas!!!!
great times yelling, jumping and moshing around.

Comments

[hails]

viva la joda!
viva la joda una larga vida. aprovechan cada ratito, pasan demasiado rapido. las quiero como la **** madre. ciao bellas!

[Michelle]

amigas (a)doradas!
When you said you'd give more details this time, you weren't kidding! I loved reading every line. The story is beautiful. I hope all of our tears turn to silver and gold when we look back on them. Keep taking it all in my darlings. Las quiero tanto!!