Your Peruvian (or at least Contumacino) Promocion Guide

¨What is a Promocion?¨ you may ask, well it’s a Peruvian school graduation and December is Promocion season. While in the US people spend the few days right before Christmas buying last minute gifts, attending holiday parties or baking Christmas cookies (or cutting them from aPilsbury premade cookie dough tube) in Peru it’s a blitzkrieg of Promociones. These fiestas are celebrated for kindergarten, 6th grade and high school graduation and I have just gotten back from my second 6th grade promocion in 2 days. So what’s a promocion like?

First, everyone attends a mass at 9am. I am using the term “everyone” very liberally at the moment. While generally the kids show up on time (shwattttt??!!) parents tend to filter in throughout the mass. The girls and boys are dressed to the 9s in their Prom fashion best and color coordinated. In this case the two 6th grade classes were from the same elementary school and ended up in pink. Boys dressed in very classy suit, pink shirt, and matching tie and girls in awesome pink prom dresses with hair done in the formal updo. All are required to have a madrino/padrino (godparent) opposite their own sex for the event. Often this is a sibling, cousin or friend.

Then on to the ceremony! The whole promocion crew heads to the school auditorium post-mass which has been decorated full on in peptobismol pink. All the guests awkwardly sit in chairs along all the walls. This is usually when more guests arrive including teachers and other random guests (both of which are really only there for the free lunch and baile). Each class has a Madrino and Padrino which are honored guests (mainly cause they foot the bill for everything) and then each promocion class is named after a person, usually a notable grad. If you’re lucky (like me) you get seated at the front with the honored guests. The ceremony usually consists of poetry recitation (a Contumaza favorite), songs and dances all dedicated to their school, teacher, or padrinos. Then on to the gifts! Each grad is awarded with a plaque with their picture on it commemorating the event and some sort of gift from the padrinos and the person for whom the class was named. This year they consisted of religious medallions, backpacks, and jackets.

The ceremony ends with the traditional brindis or toast to the grads to be followed by lunch. Polladas and Parilladas are the typical large group get together meal and you’ll get your fill of these attending promociones all week. Polladas consist of grilled chicken, potatoes, and a beet and carrot salad topped off with 3 kinds of cremas or condiments. Parilladas are similar but you substitute the chicken for grilled skirt steak. All of this you are expected to eat with a very small plastic fork while balancing the plate on your lap and you only get one small tissue paper quality napkin. Eating lunch requires some extraordinary skill.

Now comes the part that most of the guests came for….the baile (dance)! Following lunch the proud parents begin buying the cajas of beer for everyone. Cajas are literally boxes of 12 large beers. The dancing is kicked off a waltz between the kids and their padrinos then with their parents. It’s absolutley adorable. Then everyone commences dancing and drinking for the next 7 or so hours. In the middle of all this there is usually an “HoraLoca” for the kids. This is usually led by some sort of clown and everyone literally jumps around and dancing in a frezy for an hour. Everyone is given ballons, whistles, silly string, ect… Then around midnight people gradually filter home after a late night tamale snack.