Here is Señora Rosa putting up the Christmas lights in our “living room” upstairs on Christmas Eve. We don’t actually ever use this room. It’s in the front of the house above the restaurant. You can kind of make out the municipality through the middle window and through the right window you can see the lights of the bakery. In Peru, like I’ve said before, pretty much everyone is Catholic so they DO celebrate Christmas (many of you have asked me about this).
But their way of celebrating is very different than our idea of Christmas. For example:
1) Christmas comes in the summer. Enough said. Is it really Christmas if you are not drinking hot chocolate by the fire? (Even if simultaneously your family is fighting over the remote control and the volume of the TV.)
2) The big celebration is on Christmas Eve, not Christmas day. At my site we actually did have a Christmas day celebration, but it was much smaller. At my friends’ sites there was absolutely nothing to do.
3) Christmas trees are optional. My host family did not have one.
4) They do not receive gifts from Santa Claus. I was the only person I witnessed giving gifts.
5) Christmas is much more community oriented instead of family oriented. We spent as much time with the neighbors as we did with our actual family (which I would have LOVED as a kid!).
For all the differences though, there were some similarities:
1) Everyone was in a great mood!
2) There were Christmas lights and people were playing Christmas music all day (even if it was blaring from the town speakers a little annoyingly) and they were mostly the same tunes we have… for jingle bells their lyrics are “Navidad, Navidad” instead of “Jingle bells, jingle bells.” They also sing “Feliz Navidad” and have a version of Silent Night.
3) Every house has a nativity scene. More on this later.
4) There is some drinking.
5) Nobody works.
I don’t think I’ve actually posted a full picture of our house yet, so here it is. I am standing in front of the municipality taking this picture, on our way to Christmas Eve Mass. I am also thinking about my neighborhood’s Christmas lights while I’m telling Señora Rosa how bonita the house is all lit up =).
So everyone goes to mass at Christmas Eve which was supposed to start at 8pm but which started at 9. As we left the church a crowd gathered outside and we had a parade through town with a band (my host dad plays in the band – saxophone). There were these comedians called “negritos” that led the parade and they would stop and make jokes about the people who were standing around them. Apparently, the jokes are really funny, but I couldn’t understand because they were talking in funny voices and I didn’t want to get too close because I just KNEW I would be the perfect target and I would just look stupid because I wouldn’t get the joke. SO I did not really enjoy this part of the night since I was trying to hide the whole time and not stand out, but it was nice to be with everyone anyway.
As we were leaving the parade, Señora Rosa and I were invited to dinner at the mayor’s mom’s house. The traditional Christmas food in Peru is turkey followed by a cake called paneton and hot chocolate. So we enjoyed that meal and went on our way to Señora Rosa’s parents’ house. I was a little bummed out about Christmas because my little cousins that I’m closest with – my host dad’s side of the family – and their parents all went to the beach for Christmas so I didn’t get to spend it with them. But as it turns out it was nice getting to know my host mom’s side of the family a little better.
Peruvians LOVE their paneton. There were advertisements about it on TV starting in October. So, I dedicate the next few pictures to the Peruvian Paneton. You may hate it, you may love it, but either way, you’ve got to eat it. Here it is in the packaging with the champagne we drank at midnight. No one makes homemade paneton. You have to buy it and lots of people give it as a gift. We ended up eating paneton until New Years – kinda like Halloween candy, you think it will never end. The best brands are Danofrio and Gloria.
Señora Rosa, doing the honors. I actually really like paneton – as long as you don’t have high expectations it’s great. Sometimes it can be a little dry though so you want to make sure you get a fresh one!
Mmm, I can taste it now. Probably my 4th piece of the night. How delicious those raisons and red and green gummies. So festive! I will be bringing one home next year, get excited!
The family standing around the nativity scene. From the left – Señora Rosa’s parents, her sister and Junior my cousin. Another tradition in Peru is placing the baby Jesus in the manger at midnight. I do not have a close up of this nativity scene or any other, but if I did you would see some very interesting and questionable characters present at Christ’s birth. These include, but are not limited to: elephants, plastic dogs, cats and monkeys, and Barbie-like dolls.
Me on Christmas Eve with one of my cousins who calls me “Tia Gringa” – basically meaning Aunt White Girl. We stayed up talking and passing around cups of beer and champagne until about 3 in the morning, at which point I was more than ready to head to bed.
Christmas Day, I have to admit, was not a happy day for me. I was NOT in a good mood nor was I in a mood to speak Spanish and try to mingle with my host family and the people in the community. I love Christmas and this just wasn’t cutting it for me. I definitely reached a low point as a sat in my room with my fan aimed at me reading by myself on Christmas Day. I just kept thinking about how comfortable I would be in my own house celebrating Navidad my own way. I know that it was not the right attitude to have, but even commiserating with my volunteer friends didn’t cheer me up. I tried to hide my mood from my family here, but to be honest, I really don’t know if it worked.
In the afternoon we went back to the mayor’s mom’s house for some Christmas activities and they served us lunch. Soup with some mystery meat and probably potatoes and rice. I don’t remember. Another low point, sweating, waiting for the slow drinker to my left to pass me the sangria cup. I was briefly entertained by the activity taking place in the photo above. They had bought a bunch of clothes and gifts for boys and hung them up on the pole and then tilted another pole against the first one and greased it. The boys had to climb up the greased pole without using their hands and make it to the clothes. The first one to do this got all the goods. This is Junior trying his best to win – which he doesn’t.
I also gave my host family gifts on Christmas. My parents had sent some things from home for them and they LOVED them. Here is my host dad proudly sporting his new Bengal’s T-shirt (which he wears probably every other day now) in the local “pollo a la brasa” restaurant. I’m pretty sure he has no idea what the Bengals are. He says you hardly ever see this color shirt (gray) here in Peru and that it’s “bien bonito” – very pretty. I told him my dad would be very proud. I’m pretty sure he didn’t understand me.
Needless to say I was ready for a break. A vacación, if you will.
So I went to Piura for a little Gringo Christmas at my friend Susan’s , complete with trivia, a rendition of 12 days of Christmas, and pumpkin pie (not mailed in time for Thanksgiving). Then some friends arrived and we went back to Vice – I was super excited because this was the first time I’d had visitors at my site.
Here we are enjoying some lunch at the restaurant with my cousin Aranza. It was nice to show my host family that I actually have friends my own age and we actually all have personalities and are not silent when we get together. I’ve said earlier that one of the hardest things about this whole experience is the fact that I can’t express my personality because of my limited language ability. They finally got to see how I actually interact with people when I can communicate.
They got the guided tour – we are in the Plaza de Armas of Vice in front of the nativity scene (the nativity scene stayed up until January 6th – Epiphany, also my brothers’ birthday, or “Bajito de los Reyes Magos,” when they take down the three kings).
While we were touring, we ran into the presidenta of the artisan association of Vice who invited us, or rather insisted that we accompany her, to the chacra. This was my first trip to the chacras of Vice, which were beautiful that day. Here were are in the middle of some rice holding freshly picked mangos with Rosario (presidenta), Isabelita (her daughter) and Astrid (my little cousin).
The chacra – I think it’s translated as farm, but in my experience more closely means “field” – Rice and mangos. Lots of mosquitoes. Lots.
And then we were off. We had planned ahead, reserved a few beach side rooms, and delegated our responsibilities to people who would most likely not complete them like we wanted. We were carefree and ready to ring in the New Year – 2010 – which we knew would be spent entirely in this glorious country.
Well not everything went to plan. Snag number one: in my excitement and readiness to leave site, what did I forget? What is the most important thing to remember when you’re going to the beach? Sunscreen? No. My bathing suit. Normally, this would not be such a problem. But we are living in Peru. We are “Big People in a Small World” (video clips coming soon). I did manage to find a bathing suit that covered maybe half of the necessary parts, but the “White Wonder,” as this so-called bikini came to be known, remained an entertaining joke for the entire trip. There is no photographic evidence.
In Mancora, a beach town in Northern Peru (in the department of Piura) known for its New Year’s celebration and rad waves, we met up with volunteers from all over the country. We had a great time relaxing and catching up and we forgot, for just a little while, about the poverty that surrounds us. We were amazed by the array of food options available. Forgive me for going into details (Barcelona emails flashback) BUT I have to. We were mesmerized. We had Mexican, sushi, shrimp salad sandwiches, barbeque, waffles and pancakes every morning (at least three people told me I was fat when I got back to site, thank you Peru) and we had an amazing New Year’s Eve dinner at an Italian restaurant with three courses and good red wine…. Ok I’m getting sidetracked.
Anyway, as Mancora nights turned into Mancora days we did our fair share of celebrating. At some point, 2009 turned into 2010 with a burst of fireworks and cheers. I realized in that moment that there is no place I’d rather be. All I know is that somewhere in that small beach town, there is a little Peruvian surf instructor named Frez who will never forget his Icelandic loves… or their crazy accents.
Feliz año! I hope you all had a great holiday season!
Mando mis saludos a todos con cariño…
