Carnaval - This is it.

The past week has been one of the best and most cultural weeks I’ve spent in Peru so far. I had to stop several times to ask myself if I could actually believe what I was doing. Let me explain.
I’m assuming that like Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras in the States and in other parts of the world, Carnaval in Latin American and in Peru has evolved from religious origins. However, no one I talked to mentioned this at all, and we completely avoided Ash Wednesday (in a Catholic country! Can you believe it?) and continued the fiesta so I’m not really sure what to think. Different regions in Peru have different cultural events and traditions and this year I was lucky enough to experience Carnaval in the sierra and on the coast.

The weekend before Fat Tuesday I traveled to Cajamarca (as did many other Peace Corps volunteers) to experience what is said to be the best exhibition of Carnaval in the country. After my two and a half days there, I couldn’t agree more. I had been to Cajamarca before – we went during Field Based Training – but had spent most of my time outside of the city in the regional capitals where volunteers were living, so this was a great opportunity to get to know the city itself a little better. We arrived at 5am on Friday morning after an overnight bus ride that had to be a slightly dimmed down version of hell. It was only 6 hours from Chiclayo to Cajamarca and we had the VIP seats, but I have never been hotter or felt more claustrophobic in my entire life. Needless to say, we were exhausted and immediately met up with our lovely hostess Kimberly at the hostel and took naps. When we finally woke up, we went to breakfast and, having to dodge some acutely aimed water balloons on the way, managed to arrive back to the hostel relatively unscathed with some essential provisions – namely fresh maracuya juice, champagne, squirt guns, and water balloons.

On the Friday before Fat Tuesday in Cajamarca, the name of the game is water. The means of playing are whatever you can find – water balloons, squirt guns, hoses, super soakers, and, most effective, buckets. The rules: generally you’re not supposed to hit old ladies or people talking on cell phones. Our main target: the 12 year old boys. We luckily had a balcony to our hostel room which came in seriously handy. We spent the afternoon launching water balloons at unsuspecting Peruvian passerby and laughing hysterically. You wouldn’t expect it, but it’s such a rush! We then started to engage with a group of people staying at the hostel next to ours – throwing water at each other and then coordinating to soak the unfortunate people walking below. Nothing is off-limits. The best was when you chucked a balloon into an open combi window or nailed a guy on a motorcycle with a bucket-full. Then it got serious when the other volunteers went up to the top of the roof for a sneak attack ON US! We thought we were invincible up on our dry balcony, we thought we were all on the same team. We learned a very important lesson of Carnaval: everyone gets soaked.

Toasting to our safe journey from the hostel, to the market, and back. Little did we know…

The rooftop fortress.

We had a very serious assembly line in order to efficiently prepare our weapons.

Under intense fire, but still fighting aggressively.

This poor little boy was carefully observing the battle from the corner. Don’t worry we didn’t try to hit him! Even though he later brought out his squirt gun to try to get us… as if it would reach. You can see the water where our balloons had broken on the ground. The place was full of warning signs but people STILL walked under us.

Vann awaiting his next target in Kim’s traditional Cajamarcan hat.

Later that night (when it was again safe to leave the hotel – you won’t get attacked at night) we went to the city plaza. It was PACKED with people. Everyone had formed into groups and was singing while someone played a drum. The songs that they were singing are called coplas and there are hundreds of them that the people learn from when they are little. All they need is someone to start the beat and they all jump right in, singing their hearts out. The only one I kind of got the hang of was:
Loco, loco, loco por mis carnavales
Loco, loco, loco por mis carnavales
Yo loco loco ella loquita
Yo loco loco ella loquita
I forget the rest, but you get the point. In the center of many of the groups, people were dancing the carnaval dance or huayno, a traditional dance of the sierra. Being from the coast, I have never danced huayno in my life, but being a gringa, of course they immediately pulled me into the center of circle after circle, passed me a cup of beer (filled up to the one inch mark), and sang while I attempted (unsuccessfully) to dance. It was really cool because the people on this night we were really relaxed and just up for a good time. There were NOT a lot of tourists in the city, let alone foreign tourists, so it was a really intimate encounter with the culture. We eventually went home exhausted, and, in my case, embarrassed at my horrible dancing skills, but content.

Us before heading to the plaza… I didn’t dare bring my camera with me.

Saturday. Oh Saturday. We woke up late. Not a good idea. I looked out the balcony and it was already starting, slowly but surely.

The dancing groups from last night had taken the streets marching, singing their coplas, beating their drums, and painting everyone and everything they encountered.

Nothing was off limits. You brought a car to Cajamarca and parked it on the street while you went inside the restaurant to get a coffee? Splattered in bubblegum pink paint by the time you get back. This was not a place for the faint of heart. We talked a big game, we dressed in clothes we didn’t care about and covered our hair. We filled up our water guns. We were ready.

The “Before” pics… squeaky clean.

We were so not ready.

The second we left the hostel we ran into one of the parading, copla singing groups. They cornered us against buildings and went straight for the face and neck with paint. We ended up running down the streets checking around corners, and dodging flying water balloons all the way to the market. We tried to stop for a picture in the plaza and got nailed with buckets of water and paint. We finally found a store where we could buy paint and buckets. We loaded up. The Peruvians had shown us no mercy on the way here and they were going to get it. We felt much more secure with our new ammunition. We started our own parade with our own coplas. We walked through the city of Cajamarca singing the National Anthem of the United States of America, God Bless America, I’m Proud to be an American, American Pie, and a million other songs that we all knew. I’m pretty sure the Peruvians in the city took more pictures of us than we did of them. They couldn’t get enough. Moms were asking us to get in pictures with their kids. They wanted to dance with us and they even wanted to get painted by us. Kim danced with an old man selling t-shirts in the street while Jess came up behind him and dumped out half of her paint onto his back. We formed an army and marched across the plaza, splattering paint and water. No mercy. The second you felt bad about getting paint on someone was the second they reached into YOUR bucket and spread YOUR paint all over YOUR face. Ruthless. There is no better way to explain this day than to say it was a paint war that the entire city took part in. From 70 year old men to 3 year old girls. Everyone knew it was all in good fun, and boy did we have fun.

Cajamarca is part of the sierra, so right now it’s rainy season and rains pretty much every day. We were lucky to get so many hours of sun each day we were there, but it inevitably started to rain. Did that stop us? Nope. We just danced and drank in the rain with Peruvians. When we decided to go back to the hostel in the afternoon, we stopped at every group we passed on the route to have a drink and put some paint on them. We stayed with one group for about an hour dancing and singing. Everyone was just amazingly happy! Our friend Evan, wearing a child’s soccer jersey and shorts, soaked to the bone from the rain, can be quoted as saying about a million times, “This is why I joined Peace Corps! This is it!”

The “After” photos:

In the war “Cajamarca City vs. Peace Corps Volunteers” we got SPLATTERED.

That night we passed through the plaza again and went to a party held by a friend of the Cajamarca volunteers. We had a great time but could tell that the crowd was a little more rowdy and the fun not as innocent as the night before. The next day, Sunday, since the mad paint fest had ended, we thought it would be safe to walk the streets. We got nailed with water balloons and chased by little boys with hoses. It never ends! They are probably still celebrating today as I write this…

To sum it up, I’ve been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans twice, and I’ve been to Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain… I enjoyed this weekend in Cajamarca even more. It was a mixture between the absolute crazy things we were doing and the fact that the Peruvian people were so inviting. I didn’t feel like I was a tourist. I got to party and have a cool cultural experience. It really was the best of both worlds. Next year we are bringing a drum.

So after such an exhausting weekend did I come back to site and rest? Think again. Carnaval is also celebrated in Bajo Piura. Differently, but just as seriously. The biggest days in Vice are Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. Unfortunately, I did not get to spend a whole lot of time in my site for Carnavales. I went with my host family to Bella Vista, another town close to ours, where the whole family (including those from Lima) was celebrating.

This is a parade that happened in Vice on Tuesday. In Bajo Piura (the part of Piura not in the mountains, where my site is) the majority of towns celebrate Carnaval with colored teams. In Vice and in Bella Vista there are two teams – red and green. You are on a team based on what your family is or what part of the town you live in. Some people are die hard about their color, some don’t really care that much. In my family, my host dad and brother are red (because all of my host dad’s family is red because they live on the other side of the street in Vice) and my host mom and her daughter are green (because all of her family is green). You are one color for your whole life, you don’t change. So I became green to take the place of my host sister who lives in Lima and couldn’t come to Vice. Viva el Verde!

Senora Rosa and my cousin Johana from Lima in front of the green house in Bella Vista.

There are many traditions in Bajo Piura as well. The water throwing is a constant wherever you are. I got absolutely drenched while walking in a parade on Wednesday. But here they also throw what they call “polvo” which means dust, but is mainly just baby powder.

Me and Johana, covered in polvo on Tuesday.

There are tons of parades led by the marching bands through the street (both red and green parades) and free lunches. The patrons of the fiesta (there are 4 for the green team in Bella Vista) are in charge of buying the lunches and dinners for the whole green time, which is like half the town. They also provide everyone with a t-shirt to wear and pay for the bands and entertainment. My cousin Jinn was one of them and was running around like a crazy person all week!

The red team parade. The Red Day was Tuesday so they were all out and about celebrating, while the Green Day was Wednesday.

Me with my cousin Carlos from Lima on Tuesday. He was an escort to one of the Queens of Carnaval. There were 4 queens for each team of different ages. If you can’t tell, in this pic I am dying of heat.

Green Team Band – Wednesday

Green Team Lunch – Wednesday

Green Team Beauty Queens on their float – Wednesday

The Yunce

So yunces are kind of a big deal and a huge part of Carnavales and summer in general. They’ve been going on for weeks now. I will walk you through what exactly a “yunce” is. Sit back and enjoy the picture documentary.

Step one: Put the tree in the hole.

Eventually they are going to cut the tree down and if they have already had a yunce earlier in the week, they use the same tree in order to conserve the environment (I’m assuming). So, they put the tree in the hole. However, I don’t think this is the case with all towns because on my running route around Vice I have seen about 5 chopped down trees.

Step two: Dance around the tree

The beauty queens and whoever else want to dance around the tree.

Step three: Parade around town with the goods.

We put all the presents for the yunce on sticks and parade around the town. There are a TONS of gifts like pots and pans, Tupperware, toy horses, sports balls, etc, all paid for by the patrons and color coded (green or red).

Step four: Put the gifts in the tree.

The kids or very nimble adults climb the tree and the presents are handed up to them to tie amongst the branches. Why they don’t do this while the tree is still on the ground, I don’t know.

A tree full of gifts and ripe for the cutting for the red team in Vice.

Step five: Dance around the tree.

Yet again, more dancing around the tree.

Step 6: Chop down the tree.

This is not a great pic, but basically people from the community take turns chopping at the tree with an ax. The person who makes the tree fall, is the person in charge of the yunce for the next year.

Step 7: Run to grab a gift from the tree. (Warning, fighting may ensue)

WATCH OUT! Everyone goes nuts trying to grab things! Who can blame them? When there’s free stuff involved everyone gets a little crazy.

The whole process that I experienced spanned two days and was the center of the celebration on Wednesday.

Entertainment

Of course there is a lot of free entertainment during Carnavales. On Tuesday night in Vice there were two Cumbia bands playing, one for the green team and one for the red (you could go freely in between). I had already seen both (Corazon Serrano and Agua Marina) but it was still fun to go anyway! The whole town was hoppin!

There are cultural dances…

A “danza” in the plaza of Bella Vista on Tuesday.

Lots of drinking and socializing…

After this picture the guy to my right said he wasn't ever going to wash his face again.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the entertainment…

“Jinn, get the gringa to pose for a picture with all the men. Here, give her this flag!”

“Jinn, get the gringa to take a picture with us and the motorcycle! Chevere! Bien lindos tus ojos.”

To pass the time I often entertain myself by teaching my cousins about American culture…

Here they are after dinner Wednesday. “Whatever, Major, Loser, What’s your point?” I couldn’t help myself.

And of course, the exciting concert of Wednesday night. Grupo 5! The most famous Cumbia band in Peru. I have now seen four of the bands and they are tied for the best. They may even be the best but I missed half the concert. My host cousin didn’t have anyone to sell beer at the concert so my family helped her out. Have you ever tried selling beer to hundreds of Peruvian men at a cumbia concert? I don’t recommend it.

But still a great time, good cumbia music, lots of crazy dancing with crazy tias and an attempt to walk back to Vice from Bella Vista at 3:30 in the morning which ended in hitch hiking and riding in the back of a pick up truck. You just never know what you’ll get yourself into in the country.
And now that Carnaval has ended? What does Vice have in store for us?

Lots of rest!

Miss you all, but loving it here! Chao for now!