Well, I was all set to write a blog post about all the quirky little idiosyncracies of life in Perú, poking fun at various aspects I've noticed over my four (!!!) months here. But then Saturday night happened and made me want to focus instead on one of the biggest reasons I'm extremely happy to be here. No it's not fútbol, although that's a close second. It's the people.
So, as I've mentioned in previous posts, living in a different country where my grasp of the language is tenuous at best can be difficult at times. Sometimes, it can feel like I'm not making much progress or that I don't fit in. Luckily, through experiences I've had in my life, I've learned that moments like these are always transient and serve to make me a stronger person in the long run. I bring this up because I had been feeling somewhat disconnected of late and was looking for a means of connecting with people in my community.
That's when Saturday night happened.
What started as a seemingly innocuous invitation to one of my 100+ cousins' Quinceañera (I have an ongoing joke with my host family that they're related to every single person in our pueblo 'cus their family's so big) ended up being one of the singular events in my time so far in Pueblo Nuevo. A Quinceañera is a Latin American celebration of a teenage girl's transition from childhood to womanhood when she turns 15. It's also apparently a reason for all of your family and friends to get together, get crunk as hell and dance until all hours of the madrugada (early morning).
The night started with everyone sitting in the living room eating arroz con pollo (mine sin pollo thanks to my attentive sister, Karina) and drinking chicha morada (a purple sweet non-alcoholic beverage made from purple corn and super freaking popular here... for some reason). The typical rite of passage events happened. The father gave a speech about his daughter, various male members of her family slow-danced with the birthday girl and presents were brought up and stacked next to the gigantic cake. It was also during this process that my host family got up to take their picture with the birthday girl and they all stopped and turned around, calling my name and motioning for me to join them because, naturally, I am a part of their family. These kinds of things happen often with them, and it's something that continues to blow my mind and fill me with gratitude for having such an amazing host family. After this, the DJ started his party mix of loud music and everyone settled into their seats along the wall, awkwardly waiting for someone brave (or drunk) enough to start dancing.
Around this point, the first caja of cervezas showed up and I was invited into the back room where the men apparently go to have dude time and drink beer. The social way to drink in Perú is totally different than in the States. In the US, we sort of have an everyone for themselves mentality about our alcoholic beverages, understandable in part because we have such a wide selection of options and also, we kind of think it's gross to drink out of the same cup as all of our friends (and strangers). Not the case in Perú.
For one, there's about four beers to choose from and only one of them is not a lager, it's a dark lager, and which for anyone who appreciates good beer such as myself, means that the taste options are limited to say the least. When drinking, there's a sort of ritual to the process that I find endearing. The person drinking fills a little plastic cup anywhere from 1/4 full to all-the-way full and hands the large bottle of beer to the person standing to the right of them. The person drinking then proceeds to chug what's in their cup, turn it upside down and shake out the excess foam and backwash onto the ground (or in this case, the floor of our host's house), effectively "cleaning" it and hand the cup to the person holding the beer bottle who then repeats the process and on and on around the circle. Now, this may seem like a somewhat inefficient way to drink a bottle of beer, but you'd be surprised how quickly that bottle makes its way back to you and how quickly and efficiently the members of said circle replace the empties with a fresh new cold bottle, especially impressive when in a drinking circle of two, which seemed to keep happening to me (more of a drinking line, I guess). One guy in particular seemed to take particular joy in my cringing everytime he would open a (not twist-off) bottle of beer with his teeth.
After passing the requisite amount of time with the dude contingent, I was feeling a little antsy and went to check out the party scene in the other room. The dance floor had picked up a good bit and I went to sit and watch the festivities from the (seemingly, but never) safe sidelines. Of course, I immediately got snatched up by one of my 100+ tias and did my best attempt at copying the other guys on the dancefloor. Then, of course I was thrust into the center of the dance circle to dance with the birthday girl. This dance ended and quickly transitioned to an hora loca in which goofy costumes are handed out with balloons and roughly an hour of lunacy (as the name implies) ensued. My costume consisted of a giant rainbow-colored bowtie and a neon green whistle that I blew incessantly while dancing in a conga line with my host siblings and other party members. Luckily (I think), one of my community partners was in attendance with her daughter who captured a ton of photos of this event, so hopefully I can get copies and post them here for your later amusement.
After a decent amount of congaing, I was ready for a break and sat down to watch my host brother, Lizardo and host sister, Karina, show up the whole party on the dance floor. One of the highlights of the night came when Lizardo, who was congaing behind Karina, started to fall and grabbed Karina on his way down, pulling her backwards on top of him and causing her skirt to go flying up. As Lizardo lay on the ground laughing his ass off with Karina on top of him, half of the party quickly jumped up to help Karina right herself. Lizardo was still on the floor laughing even after Karina had been helped back up. Eventually, Lizardo righted himself a well and they both proceeded to start the conga line again without missing a beat.
Later in the night, with Lizardo sitting next to me taking a breather from showing everyone up on the dance floor, I let out an extremely loud and poorly timed belch exactly as one song ended. Lizardo immediately burst out laughing, causing me to in turn double over in uncontrollable laughter, which in turn caused him to run out the front door laughing and leaving me all by myself with several partygoers staring at me wiping tears from my eyes unable to stop laughing. I eventually got myself together and apologized for my momentary lapse of etiquette.
At one point in the night, the man sitting next to me (the previously mentioned teeth-opener guy) asked me for my appraisal of the party scene unfolding in front of me. I responded Me gusta porque no hay verguenza. Es solamente sobre diversión. "I like it because there's no sense of embarassment. It's all about fun." And that's the case. With every event I've gone to, when I've been asked to step out of my comfort zone and do something that feels funny or awkward, everyone around me is simply happy to see me joining in or not paying attention at all, more focused on enjoying themselves then judging or poking fun at the gringo. It's the most uncynical place I've ever lived. I love it.
As I was preparing to leave around 2AM, the birthday girl's father thanked me repeatedly for coming and I attempted to explain to him how honored I was to have been included in such an important event. As the night wrapped up, I found myself feeling more connected to the people in my community, and especially to my hermanos.
The next morning, just after having eaten a late breakfast and still feeling the glow from the night before, the folks from the Youth Commission randomly paid me a visit and invited me to join them for what I've come to understand as a Peruvian hangover ritual: ceviche and beer on a Sunday morning. They walked me to some nondescript house near the chacras where there was a pleasant little restaurant tucked away in the back. Over a giant plate of ceviche, another of chicharron de pescado (fried fish chunks and delicious!) and a couple big bottles of beer, I found myself very easily interacting with this group of people who I am incerasingly coming to see as more than just community partners. We made plans to have another Sunday morning like this one in about a month to celebrate our work in Pueblo Nuevo's upcoming anniversary. And of course, before I knew it, the bill had been paid and we were leaving without them so much as giving a sideways glance in my direction to chip in. One of these days I'm gonna get the edge up on a Peruvian and pay the damn bill!
