CUY FOR ME: March 2010

Okay, I believe I left you all hanging a bit with my last blog entry. I just really wanted to let the suspense build before revealing how I finally got revenge against 12 year-old boys across the land. Well, that and I was a little tired of writing at the time. So let me continue on where I left off before I forget all the sordid details… when you last saw Kim, she was soaking wet, running from water balloons and more than a little annoyed with the state of affairs in Cajamarca. All of this changed, however, on the final weekend of celebrations.

Step one was the arrival of my favorite volunteer ladies from the coast… they left their hot and sunny homes to brave Cajamarca’s rainy season and witness the grand finale of Carnival with the rest of us mountain folk. We don’t have much going for us here in the northern highlands of Peru, just beautiful views, delicious cheese and one hell of a Carnival celebration. Through a lucky turn of events, we ended up on the one top-floor room of our hostel, which just happens to open up to a huge porch rising levels above the street and its unsuspecting victims below. Perfect pent-house location for this particular weekend… especially considering it allowed us to launch water balloons and buckets of water while remaining almost completely unseen. It was quite a rush to hit someone, whether it be an individual pedestrian, a pack of kids, or the occasional motorist. The best part of it is: people cannot get mad at you… because it’s part of the fun! There are only two rules to this ingenious game: you cannot hit little old women or people talking on cell phones. Although neither rule is strictly enforced or adhered to. We ended up playing this little game for hours, getting into wars with kids below, other roof-top dwellers and even some fellow Peace Corps Volunteers. The only problems arose when we had to leave for food and beverage runs. Two people would sacrifice themselves to the streets and try to dodge blood-thirsty seekers of revenge and their retaliation balloons. Needless to say, we all got our turn of being soaked. But in the end, I now fully love and appreciate the art of water-balloon-throwing. I suppose I have crossed over to the dark side. But at least I won’t feel quite so disgruntled when those 12 year-old Peruvian boys come at me again next year.

That night we made our way down to the main Plaza in town, which was absolutely brimming with people and music. People were divided up into big groups of varying size, forming hundreds of large circles. Within each circle, the people were playing instruments, dancing and singing coplas. Coplas are short songs of about four or five lines that are sung only in Cajamarca and only during Carnival time. There are hundreds of them, and everybody here seems to know them all. Some of my friends from site taught me the more essential coplas, but I could only remember two. They are mostly silly songs, discussing such subjects as one’s heritage or one’s mother-in-law. So basically they are the equivalent of country music back in the States. A couple of examples of coplas and my rough translations:

“Si quieres bailar, si quieres gozar,

A Cajamarca hay que visitar...

Cuy con papa vas a comer,

la rica chica vas a tomar”

“If you want to dance, if you want to have fun,
To Cajamarca, you must come…
Guinea pig with potatoes you’re going to eat,
A beautiful girl you’re going to take*.
*this is a play on words; “tomar” means both to take and to drink.

“Cuando se muera mi suegra

que lo entierren boca abajo

por si se quiere salir

que se meta más abajo”

When my mother-in-law dies
Make sure they bury her upside-down,
For if she wants to come out
She’ll go further in.

The accompanying dance to these coplas is called, naturally, “Carnival.” It is a lot like the traditional Sierra dance, huaino, but adds some swinging about with your partner. Think a mix between the Shag and two roosters hopping about. Not to toot my own horn, but I have mastered both dances. To be fair, I have had my share of practice here in San Miguel. My friends living in coastal communities had never seen this before and were not too happy when I pulled them into the middle of the circles to dance. Of course, as a large group of gringas, we were quite popular and heavily recruited by just about every circle. It was exhausting, but quite memorable.

As if the balloons and the dancing circles were not enough, the main event for Carnival started up bright and early on that Saturday morning. We awoke to the sounds of drum beats and loud, daunting chants. We all went to the porch to see what the ruckus was about, and saw that it was coming from large gangs of people, donning crazy costumes and painted faces. These gangs were not limiting themselves to water this time… they were also attacking with paint, of all different colors. Just trying to walk the six blocks to breakfast was like racing through a war zone. Passing these tribes of people involved getting pummeled with gobs of paint and buckets of water. Clearly, we were not yet prepared to do battle. But after donning our oldest clothes, sunglasses and hats/head wraps (the paint stings like crazy when it gets in your eyes and getting it out of your hair is a battle in itself), we were ready to enter the streets anew. This time, we would be ready for them. We bought our paint and buckets, filled our squirt guns with the fun-colored dyes, and marched through the streets to our own drum. We sang our verions of the patriotic coplas, including “Proud to Be an American,” and “The National Anthem.” Trust me, reader, the gringo tribe struck fear into the hearts of all we encountered that day. We stopped only long enough to taunt the more aggressive tribes, or dance and sing with the friendlier ones. Even when the rain came pouring down late in the afternoon, an inevitable occurrence this time of year, the streets remained teeming with the mob of multi-colored maniacs. We danced in the streets, soaking wet and looking like loons, but having the time of our lives. So now the fun is packed away. No more water balloons, no more throwing paint. But I have some great memories, a lovely tie-dyed ensemble and the realization that I get to experience it all again next year.