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Published: February 16th 2010
Carnaval is water wars in the streets, traditional folklore music and dancing, talco (baby powder), creepy out of towners, and pretty much the Peruvian version of Marti Gras.
It all started on Saturday morning with the day of the competition. We got to FINCA at 9:30am to get braided and painted with makeup like a clown/doll. We looked ridiculous! We ate this “puca picante” meal (that was not going to keep me going for the next 8 hours until we danced at the plaza), and left FINCA at around 11:30am. We got to the Magdalena park (?) at 12pm and waited until 1pm to head to the plaza. This journey dancing down streets to the plaza (and number 46 out of over 100 groups) took over 7 hours. We finally arrived at the plaza to dance at around 8pm. Everyone was very amused by the gringas who could dance and sing in quechua. I got interviewed (where are you from? Is this your first time at carnival? How do you like it?) and was on channel 47 local Ayacucho news. Whoohoo!
On Sunday we went to a local “Corte Monte” festival. We danced down the streets to the plaza
(following the man with the ax and followed by a sweet band) and back to the local gathering area where they had stuck a tree into a hole in the cement. Everytime the band started playing their “carnaval” music, we all started dancing around the tree and taking turns taking a whack at it with an ax. This went on from 4pm until 9pm when the tree was cut down. The person who cuts down the tree has to host the town festival next year. It was very amusing!
Monday was almost a repeat of Saturday, but without the competition. We decided against dancing to be official FINCA paparazzi….and we were a bit tired and had tons of blisters. We hung out at the plaza until around 6pm when we went to find our FINCA group. They were around 2 blocks from the plaza, so we just danced and hung out with them until they got to the plaza. Monday we got asked around every hour to take pictures with locals who were baffled by seeing gringas around town. I am totally against doing this because it makes me feel like a zoo animal that is worth taking a
picture with because I am white. I also had some creepy old man following me around and asking me in quechua to come to his house with him. Good thing we had our friend Walter from the Corte Monte celebration with us as our bodyguard and translator. Right when FINCA got to the plaza to dance it started pouring rain. So soaked and covered in baby powder we headed back to FINCA for our chicken dinner. At FINCA we realized that one of our co-workers had had a little too much to drink. She wouldn’t stop crying and was telling us all about her past hardships—her father was killed by the Shining Path terrorists when she was 8, these terrorists tried to rape her when she was 5 but she escaped, her ex-husband had beat and abused her, and yet she still missed him (because it is almost a sin to not be married when you have a child and are older than 25 in Peru). It was really shocking to hear all of this from her. We made sure someone was taking her home and headed back.
Needless to say I have never experienced anything like this in
my entire life. It was really exciting to be apart of it and represent FINCA Peru.
I will also never be caught dead in this outfit ever again.
Megan
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Aunt Carol
non-member comment
!que bella!
You look great in your costume. I like the make-up! Love and kisses, Aunt Carol