Replacing hockey with bull fights

Unfortunately I’m not able to go to hockey games in Peru since the sport doesn’t exist down here. The good news, though, is that they have a possible replacement. Bull fights!

I should use the word “fights” with caution, though, since there isn’t always a lot of fighting going on. I’ve had the luck, or maybe opportunity would be a more appropriate word, to see a couple varieties of these events. If you read my first couple blog posts you might remember me talking about toros locos (crazy bulls), bull costumes covered in fireworks (and incidentally still pending approval from the fire marshal) that are often part of Peruvian parties. Well, my understanding is that all of this is part of the Spanish culture that came over from Europe. The difference with my latest experience is that the toros were real live bulls (fortunately not covered in fireworks) although the human participants remained the same: drunk, partying Peruvians.

Huallanca's very own bull fighting stadium (that's really all its used for).

In Huallanca I went to a corrido (I think it would be easier if you just read the story I’m writing here instead of me trying to define the word) with my brother Mauricio.

Me and Mauri with clowns and crazy people in the background.

They let a series of different bulls into the ring. At first it was just the clowns out there with the bulls, but eventually some spectators got drunk enough to participate as well.

The clowns set up a teeter tooter and went up and down as the bull chased them around (and underneath).

They also “accidentally” let some bulls into the corridor that runs around the outside of the ring so everyone freaked out and jumped around, but after a little while we got bored and all went home.

Before leaving we ran into Kendra with some of her family.

A few weeks later, there was a real bull fight for the anniversary in a neighboring town, Chiquian, where another volunteer lives. I went over with some of Kendra’s family for the afternoon.

Chiquian’s stadium is a more makeshift than Huallanca’s, but it still has a nice view of the mountains.

We were packed in like sardines.

I say “real” because in addition to everything that Huallanca had in Chiquian there was also a bull fighter, fully equipped with his sword to kill the bull. Yup, that’s right. He “won” the bull fight and killed the bull at the end, although I feel like the bull probably didn’t have much of a chance.

Run, bull! He’s actually hiding a sword behind that inviting red cloth!

In a way it was a little disturbing watching him repeatedly jab the bull with his sword until it successively couldn’t run, couldn’t walk, couldn’t stand and eventually couldn’t stay alive. Then they dragged it off.  (Sorry, not trying to be a downer, but, heck, that’s life, right? Or death…I guess. Maybe I should stop before I offend any more people).

The crowd stormed the court, tore down the goalposts and then dragged the dead bull out.

Unfortunately as soon as I got addicted to seeing drunks get rammed by bulls I found out that they only have these a couple times a year. So now I spend all my time not just missing hockey but also missing corridos!

Feliz Navidad (that means “Merry Christmas” in Peruvian)

Well, another first I can add to what would probably be a very long list from Peru (that sounds like a good blog post), was my first Christmas outside of Michigan. As would be expected its celebrated a little bit different down here. As opposed to Christmas morning the festivities all take place Christmas Eve night, although I guess technically it is Christmas morning since it all starts at midnight.

So Christmas Eve was spent getting ready for the night's festivities. The most important part was getting the bird in the oven! I got to help in the butchering process.

Daniela was too scared to touch the turkey.

The butchering process involved force feeding the Turkey wine, because if its drunk it doesn't fight when you kill it.

I'm the one with the red beard who isn't drunk. The turkey is the one with the red beard who is drunk.

I'll save you guys the pain of seeing all the pictures my 13 year-old host brother took of the actual throat sliting of the turkey (I'm not sure why he took so many pictures of that after crying when his dad tried to get him to help).

I hope no one is offended by pictures of naked birds.

While the bird was cooking I watched a bit of the Danza de Los Negritos, the odd traditional dance in Huallanca that would probably be considered horribly racist anywhere in the US (for more on that please read my last blog post). I had my fill of the dance watching hours of it during the town anniversary celebrations in November, though, so I didn't hang around too long.

Yup, those are my townspeople wearing black leather masks that they use shoe polish on to make sure they're black enough.

Even though I didn't watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, it felt more like Christmas when the abominiable snowman showed up for the dance of the Negritos. “Bumbles bounce!”

Anyway, eventually midnight did roll around. The nativity scenes are all minus baby Jesus until the clock strikes midnight and at exactly the same time that Santa Claus is coming down the chimney down all over the US, everyone in Peru is putting the baby Jesus in the manger. When I had asked people why Jesus wasn't in the manger yet they told me it was because he wasn't born yet. While I thought about telling them that I think he was born about two thousand years ago I believe they were referring to the fact that he wasn't born until Christmas day.

So after putting baby Jesus in the manger gifts are exchanged, which doesn't seem to be as big of a deal here (I had not problem with a little less commercialism on Christmas even if it was a Christmas minus Charlie Brown as well). Only the kids in my host family got gifts, although talking to some of the other volunteers around Peru it sounded like in some families the adults exchange gifts as well. After the gift exchange everyone eats their Christmas turkey.

The turkey made it out of the oven (on the left) in time.

When my host mom dished out the turkey she gave me a serving that would have probably fed most of Grand Rapids on Christmas day. Of course I pretty much finished it off. When we were clearing the table my aunt asked me if I had some left that I wanted to save for lunch the next day. My host dad looked at my plate and, giving me an approving nod, said, “Nope, he finished it off.” Oh, the proud moments in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer.

That's not the end of the Christmas fun though. After their Christmas dinners most of the town (except my family, who went to bed) spends the next few hours getting drunk until 4 AM when they go back out to dance again. For some reason I thought it was supposed to be at 3 AM so I did my best to stay awake until 3 so that I could watch the fun, but the town was dead. Not until the next day did I find out that I showed up an hour too early. Oh well. There's always next year (On second thought, I might just go ahead and skip it again).

The following day was definitely the strangest Christmas of my life. It seemed like just about any other day. I spent most of the day feeling down because I was spending Christmas alone in my room in Peru, but eventually I kicked myself and went out and played with my host brother Mauricio and his new race car track.

So, if you were wondering, yes they do celebrate Christmas in Peru.

Town Anniversary

I got my first taste of a party huallanquino style when the town anniversary rolled around in November (yes, I know this blog post is way over due, please stop judging me). It was a few days long and involved a variety of performances. Here is a sampling:

The most important by far, though, was the Danza de Los Negritos.

My brother Mauricio (in the middle) getting psyched for his big performance.

In this video you can see the primary school students (including Mauricio). You can also see me host-mom, Liz, one row in front of me proudly watching her son.

In this video are the secondary students from my school. This group of my students also included my other brother, Antony. They got to wear a different costume than the younger kids as you might have noticed.

“So, what is this 'Danza de Los Negritos' thing?” you ask. Sorry, I don't know. Right now I'm learning what its like to be the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf, but honestly I'm not being sarcastic (this time). I know its my job to know this kind of stuff, but I don't. Here's as much as I can tell you: Huallanca used to be part of Huánuco, the neighboring department (Peru's version of a state). About 20 years ago, though, they switched to become part of Ancash because there are more mines in this department and consequently more mining money that gets divided up. Mining companies in Peru are legally required to invest some of their profits in projects that benefit the community, an example being that all the chairs and desks in the night school where I work have “Antamina”, the name of the largest mine in Ancash, stamped on them since they were donated by said mine. Anyway, getting extra desks for their schools didn't mean that they were just going to ditch their culture and La Danza de Los Negritos is part of the culture of Huánuco that survived the switch to Ancash. I believe someone told me that it's history has something to do with the end of slavery in Peru (La Danza de Los Negritos would roughly be translated as “The Dance of the Blacks”). So while it might look like its horribly racist (and for all I know it could be), I'm guessing it has more to do with celebrating the end of slavery than perpetuating stereotypes. A different history of race leads to different understandings of it and different standards for what is acceptable, I assume. I'll have to withhold judgment until I know better whats going on (not that my judgment on this means diddly-squat), but I'll update you guys when I find out the whole (hi)story behind the dance.

Climbing the hill in our backyard

So a few weeks ago Kendra, my host brothers (Antony and Mauricio) and I climbed the hill in our back yard. That's pretty much the entire story; we didn't run into any ghosts; nobody fell off; Bob Vila didn't show filming an episode of This Old House; so I'll just post some pictures and be done with it.

Mauricio, Antony, and I. Huallanca in the background.

My home: Huallanca

Heading back down the hill.

Mauricio being a ham as usual.

I'll (hopefully) be posting again before long. So have a Merry Christmas and I should be back on here in a few days!

Guess who I dressed up as for Halloween

Nevado Chaupijanca

A few weeks ago I got my first real taste of the Andes. Some parents organized a caminata (trek) for one of the classes at my school out to a nevado (snow-capped mountain) about an hour from Huallanca called Nevado Chaupijanca. It was 5 hours to climb the mountain and about 3 more to come back down. Needless to say, for a rookie trekker like myself, it was a bit of a workout. Plus I had to get up at 6 am to catch the bus up there (which is disgustingly early by my standards). And finally I'd had diarrhea for the previous few days. So I had mixed emotions going into the trek.

We started off from the little lake above and weaved our way over and around countless hills...

 And countless other hills...

And all the way up this valley...

The problem with going “over” hills is that after you climb one side you have to go down the other...

We went all the way down to where you can see trees in that picture.

But eventually the end was in site...

Unfortunately we were still hours away, haha. But I still needed to take pictures of me with snow in the background, since I haven't had enough opportunities in my life to get pictures with snow.

We found some cool lakes up towards the top of the mountain as well.

And in the end I had a phenomenal time. It was fun. I got a chance to hang out with the students that I work with, getting to know them a lot better (dare I use the word “friends”?). Once we had climbed to the higher elevation it snowed a little bit. And even better I didn't poop my pants the entire time. I'd have to say after a couple more months in Huallanca, that was still my best day since moving here. The organizers treating us to dinner afterward topped off the day nicely. Especially since any good day for me, as you all probably know, must involve eating ;-)

FAQs 2

Why do you have a blog post called “FAQs 2”?

Because I already had one called “FAQs” so I wanted to differentiate between the two.

Well I kind of assumed that. Let me rephrase my question: Why do you think you need a second blog post with FAQs?

Because there're that many frequently asked questions, duh? Ok, I'll stop being a jerk (for now).

My first blog post was FAQs, because I had just arrived in Peru and a lot of people had similar questions about what life was like down here. I'm doing another one because I've now moved from Lima (where my training was) to Huallanca (where I'll be working for the next two years). A lot in my life has changed because of this. So, ask away!

So what's this new town, Hu-...Hu-...Hual-...Gahhh! I can't even pronounce that!

Well I can't really blame you for having a difficult time pronouncing it. Its a Quechua word with Spanish spelling. Anyway, Huallanca (why-YAHNK-uh) is a town of about 4000 in the middle of the mountains of Peru with an elevation of about 2 miles. There are two colegios (High Schools) where Kendra and I will be doing a lot of work. But we'll also be working with just about anyone who wants to help the youth in Huallanca.

Mauricio and Daniela with Huallanca in the background.

Who's Kenrda? Your sister? Your wife? Your...

Hahaha, no, no, no! But its funny you ask that, because everyone in Huallanca asks the exact same things. Kendra is another Peace Corps - Youth Development volunteer from my training group who will be living and working in Huallanca for the next two years. I usually tell them that she's my daughter.

Kenrda and I on swear-in day.

So are you finally working now?

Well my first three months at site (in Huallanca) I am doing a “community diagnostic”, research on the resources, capacities, needs, problems, etc. in the community. After I'm done with this, the community and I will be able to identify projects that are needed, useful, practical, and doable for the community. But I already have two successful projects under my belt since I got here! (1) I downloaded anti-virus on a few computers at the Health Center. (2) I helped pick dead leaves off of plants in the garden at the Alternative High School in preparation for festivities for “The Week of the Adult Student”.

The staff of the CEBA (Alternative High School) and I on Literacy Day.

When I was listening to Peruvian radio the other day I heard someone talking about the Peace Corps. Was that you?

Well, it might have been! Kendra and I had a radio interview on one of the two local Huallanca radio stations. I know at least two households listened to it, because when I got home my host family was all excited about having heard me on the radio and the next day in the plaza a lady approached us with a youth development idea because she'd heard us on the radio. One of the advantages of being the only two gringos (Spanish word for foreigner or white person) in town is that even if someone has only heard you on the radio they'll still recognize you when they see you for the first time!

Radio celebrities

So you live with a host family in Huallanca?

Yes, I live with a local family. I think I've mentioned them some in other blog posts, but I'll go over it again real quick. My host-mom, Lizzy, is huallanquina (means she from Huallanca), but my host-dad, Marco, is originally from Tujillo (a coastal city). Lizzy is a primary school teacher and Marco is a policeman. I also have three host-siblings. Antony, 13, Mauricio, 8, and Daniela, 2. Our tia (aunt) also lives with us.

My host dad, sister, and I. I'll add more pics of family in the future.

What's the climate like?

The weather is an interesting combination of being near the equator and being at an altitude of about 2 miles. There's 12 hours of daylight because we're near the equator, but the weather is far from tropical. The sun is pretty hot and burns really fast (especially a gringo like me, haha), but in the shade it's actually pretty cold (I haven't actually checked temperatures but in the shade I'm guessing it can get down into the 40's). I'm getting used to the air being thinner at the higher altitude, but trying to keep up with my little brothers playing soccer is still difficult. There's also a rainy season which starts in full force decemberish, but its already starting to rain more now (almost every day). There's also been hail a few times since I got here (which incidentally is extremely loud on a tin roof).

Why don't you have any FAQs about food in this post?

I plan on having a blog post exclusively about food in the future. (Notice what I did there? Increased the anticipation about future blog posts. Increasing the likelihood that people will keep watching it. Yeah, I know...pretty slick.)