Fiestas Patronales-Day 1

First, a shoutout to all the students in Senorita Biesterfeld´s class at Glencoe Central Middle School now following my blog.! Hola to you all and the guinea pig wasn´t too delcious. Greasy and tough to eat. When I explain to Peruvians that guinea pigs are pets in the US they just look at me like i´m crazy!

Second, this past week was the big town fiesta for San Mateo. I wrote about each day  but ill put them up a day or two at a time.
Day 1

Sunday started the week’s festivities with a 5am mass (I swear I tried to get up to go), no water, no electricity and a day of sports. Alright I’ve been through this before with the school anniversary. Hours of soccer but this one offered hours of soccer, basketball, and volleyball. Teams were brought from Cajamarca, Trujillo and other smaller towns to play. I was excited to see the basketball, mainly because it wasn’t soccer, and I have to say it was pretty pitiful especially because the teams were from the Universities in Cajamarca and Trujillo. Yup, it became pretty apparent how popular basketball is here. The volleyball game probably had the biggest crowd. I kept thinking of my friend Jaclyn who played volleyball for Knox and always complained that the team didn’t get enough respect. Jaclyn, you were playing in the wrong country. Women’s Volleyball is huge all over Peru and is only second in popularity to soccer.

While I do enjoy the occasional sporting event a whole day is a bit much for me so I used the opportunity to people watch, especially since a lot of people from out of town were in for the fiesta. It’s a strange mix of extremely modern looking people, the out of towners and some of the young people, mixed with traditionally dressed people from the campo and everything in between. It can be easy not to see poverty here at first glance. Yeah that kid in the knock off Holister shirt is playing Justin Bieber from his cell phone (yes, somebody should inform Bieber that he’s made it to the rural mountains of Peru) but the kid has also worn that same shirt 4 other days this week and everyone has a cell phone here because there are no telephone lines. It’s also hard to ignore the 7 year old in tattered clothes selling candies to the woman next to me wearing knock off Ralph Lauren glasses.

We had lunch there and I tried one of the traditional plates of Contumazá, Cau Cau. From what I could discern this is a soup of potatoes, carrots, peas, and animal innards. American sports may have burgers, hotdogs, and pizza but Peru has stuffed fried potatoes, cebiche and cau cau. Well after hour 5 or 6 we decided to haul it in and headed home.

That night was also a folk dance show. We of course headed there an hour after it was scheduled to start and still had to wait an hour and a half for it to actually begin. They had some local dance numbers but the majority of the dances were performed by a dance troop from Cajamarca City. Following the dances was the “Hora Loca” or the crazy hour. They brought out guys on stilts and in costumes, handed out balloons, and tried to get everyone up to dance. Most people left though because it was almost one and the whole show was outside so it was freeeeezing.