alex in peru: Cochán Fiestas

Cochán just recently finished celebrating their annual fiesta. Unfortunately their fiesta coincides with the national independence day of Peru. This is unfortunate because all Peace Corps Volunteers get 4 days of vacation for these holidays. So naturally I was torn between going on vacation and staying in site. Ultimately I decided to stay in site because I had just been on vacation forever, and I had to travel again for med checks the following week. Plus, I was curious as to what the fiesta would entail. I mean, AGUAMARINA, a somewhat heard of Peruvian cumbia band was coming! How could I resist?

So when I got back to my site everyone was in full preparation for fiesta season. I was only able to teach 2 of my classes before everything was suspended in order to give the kids time to practice marching. Everyone was repainting their houses, killing pigs and stuffing the intestines, and my host family was frantically constructing 6 more rooms in their two houses. The week leading up the main fiesta featured a different mass or gathering in the chapel every night. Then from Saturday-Tuesday there was sports and other entertainment. The only reason that I was excited for the fiesta was the possibility to eat real food. I think that the animal population in Cochán decreased significantly for the fiesta. I've never heard so many pigs squealing, or seen so many butchered cows, sheep, pigs, trout, chicken, cuy, and ducks! Everyday my family and several other houses on the street would offer these dishes. This was exciting because they had grilled chicken, that was farm chicken, none of this old tough hen business. So needless to say, I was able to eat a whole chicken breast everyday! This was the life.

The problem with the fiesta was that everyone in town was working their asses off to cater to all the visitors. This meant that everyone was super busy and I was bored. I decided to drag along my now 5 year-old host sister on multiple trips to the plaza. I was able to do this by promising to buy her cotton candy, aka algodon, from the vendor in the plaza. Looking back, I'm not sure that I should have been promoting sugary sweets because all of her teeth are decaying. When I wasn't eating cotton candy I was on a mission for empanadas. They usually have empanadas, fried cheese and onion filled dough things, for all the fiestas. Unfortunately I only found one vendor...everyone else was selling ceviche.

The population of Cochán quadrupled for the fiesta and many family members who live in Cajamarca, San Miguel, and Lima were here for the party. It was weird to see so many cars on the street, but even weird to be harassed by drunk men on the street. Everyone in Cochan leaves me alone normally because they all know me, but since there were so many people from out of town, I was subjected to the English speaking, and Gringa calling. Two of the nights they had castillos out in the plaza. I've mentioned this before but to refresh your memory, castillos are large structures they construct out of fireworks. They are extremely elaborate and once you light them, different parts go off one at a time. The only problem with this was that it was soooooo cold at night and they didn't start lighting them until 12pm.

This castillo was donated by my host family to honor my host mom's mother who died a year ago. One part of it burned to reveal the message.

On the first day of the fiesta, which coincides with the national independence day, there was a march/parade in the plaza. It was this huge deal and the kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, municipalidad, health post, vaso de leche, and all of programa juntos marched one group at a time. They only marched half a block so I thought that was kind of funny, especially since they had been practicing for a few days in the school. Of course I went down there and took pictures because while it wasn't actually that exciting, it was exciting for Cochán and there was nothing else going on.

Marching.

My host sister dressed as Jesus. Complete with a beard, wig, and crown of thorns.

On the last day of the fiesta they had a bull fight. We don't have an actual bullfighting rink so they had to construct a portable one. I'd been to two bullfights before, one in Llapa and the other in San Miguel. However, this one was different because it was a lot smaller and they only killed two bulls. In addition, they had some clowns come and play with the smaller bulls. That was very entertaining, much more entertaining than when they kill the bulls. After the bullfight AguaMarina's bus came into town and everyone was so excited. However, they were charging 15 soles for the dance, and it was freezing outside so I decided not to go. It didn't really matter because I could hear the music across the town from my bed!