Super Sweet Quinceañera

Recently I experienced my first quinceanera and I must say that it was the definition of my super sweet quinceanera Huayatara, Huancavelica style. For starters it was in a stadium basically, a giant concrete structure with a roof. I would go so far as to call that a stadium, but than again my standards of just about everything have fallen dramatically. I recently went on a clothing-shopping trip in a grocery store. Pure class I know. Anyways so it was in a giant concrete structure decorated with white and purple chiffon with an area up above for a 12-person band. The chairs were all covered in white silky cloths and there were puff pastries, tiny lucuma and maracuya flavored cocktails and cookies for days. Also there were about half a dozen white and purple cakes arranged neatly in a tower. Now on a complete tangent let me tell you something about Peruvian cakes. They are a complete cock tease. At every Peruvian party there are about a dozen cakes because they are given to the birthday boy or girl, newlyweds or graduate by their madrinos and padrinos but they are pure decoration. All you get to do is stare at and take photos of the pretty cakes you will never get to eat. And the real thing I wonder is if it is a birthday what the hell does the birthday kid do with all that birthday cake. Do they give it away later? Or just attempt to eat 11 cakes? If they are giving it away later or eating a massive amount why not share with the people who came to their events? In case you can’t guess I really like cake and I think it is cruel and usual punishment to use it as merely decoration. Also I highly doubt that there would be alcohol served at any 15 year olds birthday in the states. Anyways the party was an interesting event. For starters I was simply not wearing enough clothing to stay warm in the slightest. I had spent so much time trying to convince my new doctor to come and telling him that it was not in fact cold in Huayatara that I had convinced myself that it was warm. 50* in a concrete structure. Not so warm. The most interesting part of the quinseanera was when the youg girl was presented. She came out in a white and purple dress with a hoop. And by hoop I do not mean hoop skirt. I mean it looked like someone straight up sewed a hula-hoop inside her skirt. It made for a very interesting moment when she had to sit in a chair. There was a long moment of her trying to figure out how she could sit down without having to lift her skirt up to an inappropriately high length or sit and have the hoop expose just about everything. It was finally resolved. And then her father changed her shoes. I asked if it was a tradition, if silver shoes meant something. My obstetrician told me that it meant nothing just apparently something the girl wanted to do. Interesting choice. Anyways I felt like I was watching Cinderella Peru version. I didn’t quite know what to do with all of that. After watching her father get down on one knee to change her shoes there was a series of brief speeches, which was adorned by a drunken man peeing on the stage. He later tried to give a speech, got kicked out, fell on his face and generally struggled. But at least he was in a cowboy hat. Promptly after her presentation the birthday girl changed into a red tight short dress, one of those homecoming dresses that looks like the girl might get pregnant after the dance. Pretty standard Peruvian dancing, which I am getting better at, but still kind of suck at. Apparently I was dancing too fast at one point. I contest it was my effort to stay warm while wearing a cardigan roughly as thick as a piece of tissue paper. I haven’t danced around that many 15 year olds since I was a senior in high school. The only time I felt like I was just far too much was at the end of the Hora Loca. For those of you who don’t know the Hora Loca is an hour around the middle/end of the party where suddenly there is a DJ mix, shockingly similar every time, glitter, clowns, silly streams, occasionally fire and dancing in a circle. Everyone dances around in a circle while the clowns run around pulling people in to dance together or just make general asses of themselves. I got pulled in twice. The first time I danced with the clown and a very scared looking Peruvian boy. the second time was when the circle was looking more like a clusterfuck that a circle and the clown tried to get me to drop down low. I looked around and realized I was dangerously close to dancing in a Shaker high school dance and ran for my life. 15 year olds grinding is a scary site once you are 22.