Let me start by saying that this New Years Eve was probably the most tranqulio New Years Eve that I have had since I was in 6th grade. Also it took me a mere three days before I almost caught myself on fire and burned down my house with a flaming ball of fire from a fatly gas stove. But what else is new.
For New Years Eve I went over to my fellow volunteer Ty’s house for a “fiesta.” Which was really just a dinner with the family and Titanic. Early in the day I was putsing around, chatting with my health post and generally doddling. I was planning on walking down to Ty’s site around 2, but suddenly at about noon my obstritic shouted “Your friend is on the combi! Your friend from Huayacundo (Ty).” Severly confused as to why Ty was on a combi I went to inspect. And was told to run. So I had to slop through mudd to reach the combi, then I was hastily told I should board. Suddenly I was headed up to Ciswarapama with no real idea of why or what I was going to do there. Ty said that his parents told him that he was coming up to Ciswar in order to help sell. He seemed about as confused as I did about the reason we were on this combi headed into a cloud forest.
When we finally arrived to Ciswar, which also happens to be our compatriot Allie’s site we quickly realized that there was no real reason for us to be up there. Ty had somewhat of a reason his family was there. I on the other hand was just there to be arm candy and entertainment. We then went on a mission to find Allie, who was in her assemblea general, the major town meeting, and we were told she wasn’t going to get out until 4, roughly 4 hours from the time we went hunting for her. We were not off to a promising start. Accepting defeat for the time being we decided to eat lunch from a street cart. I must admit I was a bit scared because this was the first non-ramen meal I had had in a week. Fun fact I accidently made myself sick for a week by washing a tomato in crude water and then proceeding to eat it. Epic fail. After eating Ty and I paseared, chatted. Ciswar is about 50 families so you see all the sites pretty quickly, especially when it is your 6th time being to the town.
Fortunately Allie was able to sneak out of the town meeting around 2 rather than at 4. Just when the weather turned from sunny to misty with a chance of abysmal. Like always I had been freezing my ass off so I was in far too many layers, which served me well as the weather went south. Ty on the other hand was in a t-shirt and hoodie. Clearly prepared for the beach. When it came to the point that I couldn’t feel my feet and I’m assuming Ty couldn’t feel his entire body we decided to go over to Allie’s for some coffee. Anything to warm us up because standing outside in the mist and mud was quickly loosing its charm. When we entered Allie’s kitchen we met her new best friend, a baby lamb. I clearly wanted to steal it. figuring this would probably not go over so well I decide to cuddle it instead. Letting it come into my oversized wool sweater. It became a meshed up heap of lambs wool. Also four-day-old lambs are about the most darling things in the world. I kept asking if there are dwarf lambs, or if I could genetically modify a lamb to make it stay tiny and cuddly forever. They have been able to clone sheep, shouldn’t they have the technology to keep it baby sized?
Our brief respite with the lamb and mochas (Allie had hot coca mix. It was magical) we all headed back to the plaza, not wanting Ty’s family to find a combi and leave without us. Not saying that they would leave without us but there is no saying what happens when a combi comes. Its every man, woman, child and baby sheep for itself. Fun fact on an entirely unrelated note, if any of you watch South Park and have seen the Pandemic episode about the Peruvian pan flute, they are oh so real. One day on the combi in Lima a man asked me my name etc. then got bored and whipped out his pan flute. Which he played for the rest of the trip. Probably to protect from the giant gerbils. But back to my story in our effort to not be left by the combi Ty, his family and I ended up standing outside for about and hour and a half waiting for the combi. It always seems to go that way. Get there on time and wait forever. Get there early almost get left. Get there late well then you are just fucked. Allie decided to stay in her site for the night with the women of her puesto rather than coming down with us for the evening. Finally at 5:30 a combi showed up to take us down. Actually two showed up. Of course.
Since I had not planned on going to Ciswarapama in the morning I had left my overnight bag in my room. So when we passed through Cusicancha I had to dash into my room to grab my bag. Keep in mind it had been heavily raining for the past two days so the roads were pure mud. The entire time I was running down the hill to my house Ty was patiently sitting in the combi waiting for me to fall on my ass. In truth I was jumping and leaping and praying to god I didn’t eat shit. I happened to be wearing my only pair of clean jeans. Thank god nothing happened. Ty had also not been planning on going up to Ciswarapampa and the perpetual land of no service so early so he left Christine hanging. He had not confirmed when she should walk over from Quito Arma. When we finally turned the corner of service he was able to call her and tell her to come over. Sadly about 10 minutes after that it started to pour down rain. And as it always goes, once she arrived it stopped raining almost entirely. Just enough to make her look like a wet dog and for Ty and me to think she was dead on the hike over.
New Years Eve in Huayacundo was quiet, expect for the exorbitant amount of firecrackers and bottle rockets that went off. Coupled with the blaring Cumbia music coming from the municipality speakers until 2 in the morning. At Ty’s we had dinner at around 9, I cant remember the name of the dish we had but it tasted a lot like stir fried noodles, so lets just say it was that. The rest of the night was spent lounging around on the living room sofas, watching Titanic and chatting with Ty’s younger and older brother. I know the wildest New Year’s Eve imaginable. It did include a cuddly kitten though, I feel like we should get some points for that one. Anyways around midnight we all realized we wanted a glass of champagne. It isn’t the New Year without champagne, or at least sparkling cider, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t exist here. Since Ty lives in a tienda we figured that the easiest thing to do was to just ask his mom if we could buy a bottle. This turned out to be false. She initially turned us down and told us she didn’t want us to have it a bad night, we should drink it in the morning. Obviously. But with the help of his older brother and some explaining that it is customary in America to have a glass of champagne at midnight to celebrate the New Year we eventually won our argument. That was the moment I really felt like I had reverted to 14. I felt like I was begging my parents to have a glass of alcohol and trying to rationally explain the merits behind why they should give it to me.
Asking for a bottle of champagne turned out to be more of a hullabaloo than any of us had bargained for. Not only did it take us about 20 minutes to get it, Ty’s mom then decided to not go to be and stay up with us. I felt a tad guilty for pulling a woman out of bed. We then had to explain when you drink the champagne and basically make up a custom behind champagne. In Spanish. We all felt kinda like assholes but there was no turning back. Around 12:15 we all turned in for the night. On the way up to Ty’s room we saw burning piles. Several of them. It is customary in Peru to burn a doll, basically an effigy, made of random scraps on New Year’s Eve. From Ty’s window we could see about 8 piles of burning dolls, which really looked more like burning piles of trash but since I didn’t make them I cannot say what was in it. Then Ty, Christine and I had a good old-fashioned sleep over. 6th grade.
The next morning we awoke to have patasca, the same lamb soup that I had on Christmas morning, paneton and chocolatada. Patasca is customary for all special days, birthdays, holidays, etc. I felt like I was in a Christmas repeat when I was eating. Expect there was one major difference. Ty’s mom had planned on getting some fresh lamb from Ciswarapampa, but the man who was supposed to bring it didn’t come because of the lluvia. My stomach was just recovering to solid food when I found something looking precariously close to a maggot in my soup. Part of me wanted to die, or vomit, but that would be rude, so I ate as much as I could. His mom spent time making it and to be fair she did warn us that the meet wasn’t the freshest. But the paneton was delicious, as always.
When I returned home it was a rather slow day. Everyone was taking it easy, much like New Years Day in the states, with less football. The only really noteworthy moment was when my sister asked me what I do when I do exercise in my room. I tried to explain and failed so instead in invited her to workout with me. Not wanting to expose her to the overly enthuastic host of P90X, I decided to show her some of the exercises instead. We were also accompanied by her 2-year-old sister, Gimena, who pet my legs the entire time. Every time I would drop into a lunge she would begin to pet my bare legs. It’s probably because she has never been exposed to someone in shorts. When she was not petting me she was having a private dance party to Rihanna’s “We Found Love.” Ah the days when you could have a private dance party and no one would look at you funny. Not that I don’t still do it. I did today in fact. And quite honestly people look at me the same way they look at Gimena, with a mix of confusion and entertainment. While muffling laughing in my face. But who doesn’t love their own solo dance party….in public.
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