Antecdotes from San Jacinto

Fiesta Background:

Being a majority-Catholic country, Peru is very big on its saints. Every town I’ve been to has a Patron Saint that they honor every year with a big party that usually lasts a week or more. They do this with anniversaries too, celebrating every town’s birthday. In Vice, our patron saint is San Jacinto, and to be honest I didn’t quite understand his story or background so that will have to be saved for next year. The central day of the fiesta is January 24th. People come from out of town and every night during the week leading up to the main day is a mass. After mass the people of Vice hang out outside the church and there are different events like clown acts and talent shows. The women pass around chicken (any part of the chicken) sandwiches and coffee with more sugar in it than water. At the same time there are also different booths set up with games like that one bottle game we always have at parish festivals where you have to throw a ring around a bottle neck to get a prize. There were foosball tables and those inflatable trampolines for the kids. The last night there is a mass called the “vispera” and afterwards two bands competed against each other playing different types of Peruvian music. These bands are what we would consider marching bands or brass bands probably. They played cumbia, marinera, huayno, marengue, salsa. My host dad is the director of one of the bands but they lost in the end and we are still talking about it. Afterwards everyone walked down to the outdoor basketball courts (for lack of a better description) where they had built these giant bamboo structures called castillos, or castles, with tons of contraptions. My understanding was that they were going to light them on fire and they would just burn and make a big fire, but that was not what actually happened. There are fireworks attached to the Castillo and what we really saw, instead of burning bamboo, was an hour long, pretty badass, fireworks display. The next day, the procession started. People walked all over town all day long with the bands playing as they walked. The men carried San Jacinto on their shoulders and had to keep switching when he got too heavy. They had to duck occasionally to avoid the streamers that people had hung over the streets in between houses. Every once in a while the procession would stop at a house where someone would say a prayer and then we would move on. We ended at the church with a party!

A picture of the fair and games - taken while waiting for my artisans that never showed up.

We upgraded the house! Paint, a sign, and all! Doesn't it look awesome?!

Battle of the Bands outside of church one night after mass.

The procession on the Dia Central - January 24th.

Some random events that took place during the week that I appreciated:

1) I don’t know if I’ve mentioned the family dog yet, but we do have a dog. Dogs in Peru are not treated like dogs in the states. Dogs may “belong” to a family but they all just run around on the street and come home whenever. They don’t where collars. I kick Esmit (“Smith” in English) more than I pet him. We feed him only leftovers and when there are none he doesn’t eat and we constantly tell him to get out of the house. I know it’s weird, but you really have to be in the situation. Dogs can be dangerous! I promise I am not a bad person. Anyway, Esmit is the biggest dog in Vice, and is still convinced he’s just a puppy, which would be cute except that he never leaves us alone. He follows us every time we go anywhere which gets to be annoying. One particular night during San Jacinto Esmit was following Senora Rosa, Ogdulia (a visiting aunt), Milagros, Vicky (two visiting cousins), and I up to the church and we did not feel like dealing with it. There was a wedding reception going on in one of the open clubhouses and Esmit walked inside obviously realizing there was food in there (whenever there is food at a party, you can bet that the dogs will be there in less than 5 minutes) and thinking that we were going there too. However, Senora Rosa, thinking quickly, shut the doors of the reception to lock Esmit in and we quickly dodged around the corner so he wouldn’t realize where we’d gone when he finally got out. Success! We laughed the rest of the night about the people in the reception who would suddenly find this HUGE dog among them.

2) Another part of San Jacinto are the clown acts that take place throughout the week. The clowns have acts in front of the church, but also walk around town during the day. A lot of people are nervous around them (all the kids run away from them) because they single people out and make fun of them. Well, we all knew that I was going to be an easy target for the clowns. My host mom kept telling me to hide from them (women in this culture get really embarrassed) but I just thought it would be really funny, which it was. One of the clowns wore a messy blond wig and decided that we were twins one night at the church and didn’t leave me alone all week. When they were walking around town and stopped in front of the municipality with the band playing outside, he came up and stood with me on the balcony while the other clowns got the mayor and regidores to do a little dance in the street. Completely normal.

3) I mentioned the fireworks that take place the night before the dia central. I want to emphasize that safety is DEFINITELY not a concern here. We were standing about 10 feet from these gigantic structures that were shooting off flames and there were no ropes or borders set to warm people to watch out. At one point, when a waterfall of fireworks began to shoot down from a wire stretched across the field, an entire crowd of people had to run for it as the sparks shot down from directly above them.

I wish you could see the people running from underneath the flames!

The first castillo!

Of course, the last image is the host and chalace... they loved it.

The week was definitely a lot of fun, although exhausting, and I was introduced to many new traditions and gained a greater understanding for some of the ones I had already heard of. More than anything I started to truly appreciate the Peruvian ability to put play before work (something that we hardly ever do in the States) to celebrate something very important to them.

Everyone was a little tired afterwards.