The Social Scene.

I know you have all been wondering what the social scene is like in Cusicancha. Well let me tell you this it’s small. And chisme (gossip) is excessively real. At the promocion (graduation) at my school I danced. Then the next Allie, a volunteer who lives a village away from me, got a play by play and had to sit through who I danced with and a 15 minute discussion of which of us danced better. The conclusion was we danced equally as well.

I have attended three large social events here, and I’m sure that everyone within a 10-mile radius knows what happened. The first party I attended was an anniversary celebration in a village near me called Mutanga. I went up to the night celebration by a random fluke actually. I was sitting in the health post when suddenly a man came in beckoning the doctors to come up to attend to a man with a fever that wouldn’t break, Naturally I accompanied them up. After about 2 hours of sitting in a room with the health professionals, a sick man and his family we had dinner. During dinner I ate about 18 portions because at this point I was still on the brink of starvation. Now the women of my health post think that I can eat like a champion.

After dinner my health post told me I should go over to see the party rather than attending a sick man. I decided this was an excellent idea because I was really doing nothing besides being in the way in his room. I casually meandered over to the party by myself, which was probably not the wisest idea so I decided to just sit on the sidelines and watch rather than dance. As I was walking away from the dance stage to look for my puesto or potentially my host sister I ran into the director of my primaria, and all the single male teachers in my primaria and segundaria. This was my first party and all the male teachers and just me as the sole woman had the word CHISME written alllllll over it. My friend Jade’s voice just kept ringing in my ears shouting “this is how chisme starts.” I figured I should play it safe rather than sorry.

For about the next 20 minutes the director of my primaria tried to convince me to dance. At first I said I don’t know how, he replied its easy left foot right foot. Foiled. Then I said I needed to watch to learn what to do. A dance passed (a Peruvian dance is about 10 minutes long) I watched. It ended. He said let’s dance. Foiled again. Then I said ok I’ll dance but are we dancing with that big group right there. He said “No, Aqui juntos” pointing to an empty spot on the dance floor. Now its not that I have anything against dancing, I actually quite like partaking in this activity. It’s that I did not want to dance all night with my single male director in front of all of his male collogues. That’s chisme in the states. Let alone in a land where if I sneeze everyone knows if I used a tissue.

The next day I found myself wandering back to Mutanga in the morning, partially because there was no school that day and EVERYBODY in Cusicancha headed up to the fiesta. Of course in the morning I had no idea that there was no school so I stayed in Cusicancha under the false notation that I had a charla at the school. Of course in the morning when I talked to my sister about my charla at the primaria she casually forgot to mention that there was no school in the entirety of Cusicancha not just the colegio. So I stayed. My family left, completely without my knowledge. Approximately 30 minutes later I had to pay for a ride up to Mutanga. When I arrived I was able to find my family pretty quickly. My host mother was posted up in her father’s house selling cookies, chocolates and pop. My brother and sister where sitting upstairs in the house eating breakfast. I wandered into the store and said hello to my host mother. And was greeted with beer and grain alcohol. At 9 in the morning. Exactly what a girl needs first thing in the morning. And when I say greated I mean that a glass of liquor was shoved in my face. My mom mouthed from across the room “it’s alcohol,” I could figure out that much. What I could not figure out was how to get out of drinking it. I decided asking for the bathroom might be a good idea.

The age old trick of a girl using the bathroom ass a way to escape a precarious social situation works like a charm in America, not so much in Peru. The first time I asked for the bathroom my host grandfather told me to go to the chacra. I was a little taken off guard that the bushes were legitimately presented to me as an option. Thankfully then another man excitedly announced that he had a latrine at his house. I took this opportunity to escape the grain alcohol and beer. Unfortunately, on my way to and from the latrine I was bombarded with beer. And far too drunk man began to discuss our friendship and asking me to take a picture with him. After about a 5-minute struggle I managed to make a break for it and return to my host grandparent’s house. Since I had already been up to the upstairs once I thought that I could return upstairs to find some asylum from the bombardment of alcohol and proposals first thing in the morning. While in the middle of a conversation with my host brother and older stern looking man appeared in the doorway. He glared at me like I killed his first-born child, and I had no idea who he was. Suddenly I became petrified that the boy I was talking to was not in fact my host brother, I had only met him that day, and the house I was in was just some random man’s house who may or may not own a gun.

This old man who by the second I was becoming more and more terrified of asked who I was. I replied I’m Catherine, la voluntaria, I live with Laura (my host sister) and Senora Oneranta. None of my replies seemed to be working. His brow only furrowed further. He asked why I entered his house if I didn’t know him. To this I had absolutely no response. What was I going to say- to avoid drinking more alcohol at 9:30, to sit here and escape drunk men. I felt like none of these were a valid response. Finally my host brother stepped in saying that I was his friend and it was ok that I was up there. This turned out to be the key to the man’s heart. He suddenly unfurrowed his brow and walked downstairs. I wont go so far as to say he warmed to me. I will say that he no longer looked like he was going to kill me. this morning was turning out to be far more eventful than I planned. I actually went so far as to send a text message saying “save me, I have been forced to drunk, proposed to and thought I would be killed by an angry grandpa. I need another white person here to ease the pressure.” I probably sent sed text message because I was a minor bit buzzed bright and early in the morning. Also I had cell service for he first time in a week and a half.

Thankfully about 2 hours later Ty and Christine, two of my fellow volunteers, showed up to ease my pain. Sadly they did not show up before I was pet and proposed to and my host brother had to ask him to give me respect. After my startling morning the party became far less eventful. The kids of the colegio and the primaria participated in a parade, that included high kicks and high arms. A very traditional type of parade that reminded me of a military parade you saw on the history channel. This was followed by a series of soccer games, some free lunch and of course the lluvia.

Fortunately my interesting experience at the party in Mutanga did not dissuade me from attending other social events. About a week later I attended the promocion in one of my annexos, Tambo. I was invited to the promocion when I was catching the 3:30am combi up from Huayatara (the closest city) to Cusicancha. Somehow I found the motivation to head up to Tambo at 11am after getting about 3 hours of sleep the night before. I hitched a ride with the alcalde (mayor) because I had not been to Tambo since my site visit and I wanted to head up, even if I couldn’t stay for the entire promocion at night. When I made it up to Tambo I was greeted with a hug and a very warm welcome. I then helped the teachers decorate for the promocion. Some how during my decorating time I was left. Then next time I looked out the door the alcalde’s car was gone. And the fog had arrived. I was stuck. With no way home until 5 in the morning. Naturally.

The profesoras seemed quite unconcerned that I had little to no way to get home. They said that I should spend the night. As I sat there departing my options, walking home in the increasing darkness and foreboding sky, or staying until 5 in the morning I realized that even if I did make a break for it I would probably be offending something in the process. So I decided to stay. Unfortunately I was not fed until 6 pm. And between the house of 6 and 11 I was fed 4 dinners. That equals out to about 7 hours of painful hunger and 7 hours of painful fullness. Besides my eratic eating schedule I helped to prepared for the party, organizing food and pinning sparkly decorations to the walls. While helping one of the profesoras with the food, she randomly threw into the conversation that she heard I had a drink in Mutanga. I wanted to correct her by saying I did not have a drink, I had one forced in my face, but I felt that this would be a fruitless fight. In reality somehow the fact that I had had a sip of alcohol had speead down one road and up another in a matter of a week. And for some reason it was noteworthy enough to mention to me.

The promocion was an event unlike one I had seen before. All of the 6^th graders were gathered to celebrate their graduation, wearing dresses that looked circa 1980. Each of the graduates had an escort and a cake put on display on its own tiny pedestal. After their graduation as announced they danced to the song “do do do do do dadadada” on repeat for about 30 minutes as a shot of wine was sent around to celebrate. After the public dance, something that if I had to do at the ripe ate of 12 I would have probably never shown my face anywhere again, there was a dinner and hours of dancing.

One of the profesoras danced so hard that she literally broke her shoe. Around 3 in the morning my Spanish skills and ability to stay awake were rapidly dwindling and the men were rapidly becoming more drunk. I was one of he only women in the room so naturally was pulled to dance with two different men all night. At one point they were literally arguing over who was going to dance with me in front of my face. I on the other hand was trying to avoid dancing with either of them and trying to find my escape route to the nearest bedroom. Unfortunately that bedroom was in the profesoras house and she insisted that I stayed out until 4 am. By this point I had surrendered any ability to speak Spanish and was sleeping sitting up.

When I returned home the next morning I swiftly went to bed for the next 4 hours to catch up on some much needed sleep. When I emerged from my rock hard bed I went downstairs to greet my host mother. She interrogated me about my previous evening. At first she asked me simply where were you all night, and I explained that I was at the promocion in Tambo and got stuck for the evening. After I announced where I was she replied I heard you were dancing all night and had some beer. Clearly the woman knew where I was if she heard that I was drinking and dancing. I really don’t know why she even bothered asking where I was. She then got to her true question that was where I spent the evening. I think to her disappointment I said that I stayed at profesora Susana’s house. Quietly behind her my host mother’s friend murmered “how quickly news traveled.” I was quickly learning that news sometimes traveled faster than I did.

The third major social event that I attended was the promocion in Cusicancha. Thank heavens this promocion was only about a 2-minute walk from my house so I did not get stuck until 5 am with 1 hour of sleep. The promocion for Cusicancha was the promocion for the segundaria. The only real way to describe it was a mix between senior prom, graduation, and a community dinner. Just like the kids in Tambo the graduates of Tambo arrived in suits and prom dresses. This time the dresses were all white and purple to match the school colors. My sister was asked to be a last minute escort so she was not prepared dress wise. She had to be the only girl standing up on the stage in fleece pink pants and a purple sweater. The mild embarrassment in her outfit was visible in her face.

After the graduation announcement and celebratory dance with the godmothers and godfathers the festivities and public dancing began. Suddenly cajas of cervesa appeared and large groups of people stepped on to the dance floor. The students of colegio were drinking side by side with the rest of the community and their professors. If only the drinking of prom had been public instead of cooped up in a room, maybe I would have had a few less problems with the end of the evening... or maybe I could have eaten more food and drank less. But that’s water under the bridge. It was so strange to see high school graduates drinking with their professors but I reckon that’s what happens where the drinking age is anything less than 21.

The dancing at this event was much more successful, partly because I was not the only woman I the room, partly because I was able to leave by 2:30, before things got too drunk. Dancing was also a little more difficult because I was so bundled up that I could barely move. That day the only clean and dry bottoms that I had were spandex and a skirt. My skirt caused quite the hullabaloo. That combined with me wearing my hair down for the first time since arriving to site caused roughly every person to comment on how dressed up I was. They also asked if I was freezing. I was in fact cold but I was also wearing 3 pairs of spandex, 2 pairs of socks, uggs, one tank top, one long sleeve, one sweater, two jackets, gloves and earmuffs. I felt like the kid in a Christmas story that couldn’t put his arms down. In all these clothes I could barely move my limbs, let alone dance. My director finally got me to dance with him and during my first dance he said just move smoothly. I wanted to say mister I cant move my pinky let alone move smoothly, but instead I decided to just try my hardest to move smoothly with all my clunky clothing.

For the most part my dancing was simple, except for one man who wanted me to dance a full wino dance. Wino is quite a complicated dance with many footsteps that are not the easiest with Uggs. After a few failed attempts at trying to follow his steps he simply started pointing at which direction I should be moving. After the dance was finished I received my first applaud for dancing. 2 of my socios from my health post, 3 of my teachers, the director of my colegio and primaria were all sitting watching the entertaining show that was KCM dancing steps she doesn’t know in far too much clothing. Then the next day Allie, the volunteer a village away, received a play by play of my dance moves the evening before. She was even shown a photo where my Ugg boot was in the corner of the photo. According to allie the construction workers were quite excited that the ricidulous Uggs manages to make it into one of the photos. Also on a side note, the Uggs are not mine. A volunteer who is now in Tumbes brought them with her. Since she is currently serving in the hottest department in Peru lent them to me for the next two years.

The long and short of what I have learned from my ventures out in Cusicancha is that whatever I do within the Huancavelica region will be reported to someone, probably within the next 8 hours.