So carnivales is a celebration in February that celebrates…well I’m not quite so sure. Maybe it’s the celebration before Lent, maybe its something else, maybe I’ll just never know. Anyways so carnivales in Huancavelica is a celebration. Of course. It is a time of pride and dance competitions. So anyways the first I heard about carnivales was January 26th, when I got a call from my site mate Allie. We had been planning on going down to Ica the first weekend in February but she called to inform me that there was a carnivales celebration and we should probably go down the weekend of the 28th instead. I was quite skeptical so when she came down I made her get off what turned out to be the only combi of the day and inevitably made us walk most of the way down to the nearest city, Huayatara, but that’s a whole other story. Needless to say I now believe when people tell stories about walking uphill both ways. Because I have now officially done it. In sperry’s. Logically. Anyways Allie had heard all about carnivales where I had still heard nil as of the 2nd of February. I was becoming more skeptical. The 3rd of February there was suddenly a community meeting held to discuss carnivales.
In my ever so humble opinion the 3rd of February is a little bit late to have a meeting about a dance competition on the 5th of February. Really taking it down to the wire. The first meeting that we had was to decide whether or not we were even going to participate. Since we are the district capital it was a matter of pride to participate. People kept talking about how bad it would look if we didn’t participate. Anyway there was a general consensus we should participate, even though some of the speed bumps like participants and music had not been addressed. Throughout the entire discussion when someone would point out a flaw in our plan to participate, or mention things like who was going to sing, someone would chime in Allie is going to be the chanto therefore Katie has to be it and we have to win. I was sitting there playing with my phone only moderately paying attention, not quite sure why I had become an argument point. Inevitably whenever I was completely not paying attention was when someone would point in my direction. I decided it was best to put the phone away and at least I could pretend I knew what was going on. When it was my turn to vote I just said “si” and hoped for the best.
The next day we were supposed to have a meeting to practice the dance at 4pm. At around 4 I headed out to see if anyone was in the community building, but it was raining, hard. There was no one in the community building. And anyone who saw me from their house simply shouted “it’s raining! You are going to get wet!” Thank you captain obvious. That is why rain coats were invented. After taking a lap and checking twice I decided to take refuge in my host mom’s house because in reality I was getting wet and now I was getting wet for no reason whatsoever. At 5 my mom sent me back down to check. Still no one. At around 6 the rain stopped so we checked again at 6:30. Nada. We decided to eat dinner and check after dinner. When we headed back down around 7:30 there was just a huddle of people. No one was dancing or really making plans, there were just people there.
Whenever it seemed like people were going to give up on the whole concept of dancing in carnivales my mom would whip out a drum and start banging on it to raise spirits. For the next two hours we sat there not making any movement forward or backwards. There were only women which was a problem because the choreography calls for men and women, but people were not ready to give up. At 10 I threw in the towel and went to bed. I was sad that we wouldn’t be dancing but I didn’t was to sit around for about 6 more hours to see what was going to happen.
Low and behold the next morning when I woke up we were dancing. I went to eat breakfast and was asked if I was going over to the local after breakfast to dance. Maybe something had come together in the 8 hours I was asleep. Turns out things did not actually come together when I was in bed; somehow people just got some fire under their belly the day of. Naturally. Maybe it was the carnivales music that started to play at 5 am. In case anyone was thinking of sleeping in. people were running around in a flurry starting to get dressed and ready. Originally I was put in a blue skirt and a white blouse to be a dancer. That was until my mother came over and pulled the skirt down past my natural waist…
I have an oddly high natural waist it can be confusing. Anyways as she pulled it down she deduced that I was too fat for the skirt and it just wouldn’t do. Also on a side bar there is no such thing as political correctness in Peru. If you are fat you are called fat, if you look Chinese you are called china, if you have acne they ask you why. Anyways I had to change outfits at that moment. I went from being a dancer to a chanto, which is kind of like a clown that dances on the outside. I was given a long red skirt, a brown hat, told to wear my hair down, and was in rain boots. Keep in mind my hair was kind of tangled and I was also in my transition glasses, it was a cloudy day and so they were an awkward shade of grey. I have actually never looked spiffier in my entire life.
At promptly 8am we began our first dance rehearsal for a competition at 9. At first my host mom told me to dance around the middle. Just hop and skip. Then there was a general consensus that I should actually dance around the outside. Right before we went to present ourselves to the mayor some members of the dance group decided that I should put a balloon in my ass. After getting a balloon stuffed in my pants I was then treated to the best motivational speech ever. “Even if we loose it doesn’t matter because we still have to participate.” I felt very very motivated. In case I didn’t already look cool enough. After dancing in front of the mayor and my entire community and several of my annexos my host mom decided that the ass balloon was in fact ugly and it should be moved to my belly. Because that is so much better. Anyways we presented ourselves in the parade and then we ran back to the community building to a brief practice before the actual dance. Thankfully my host mom also decided that the belly balloon was ugly and it got popped.
After what I can only say was the briefest dance rehearsal in the history of dance competitions we headed up to the basketball court where the competition would be held. On the way up I was handed a 1.5L bottle of coke alcohol, just to add to my décor. The dance competition is broken into two parts, one 10-minute presentation and one 30-minute presentation. Luckily we were the last to go so we had time to get our shit together. During the other 10-minute presentation a wool square cloth was put on my shoulder to create a satchel. And a baby was added to it. And the embarrassment grows. During my main competitor Allie’s dance performance she was invitiring all the judges to liquor. Basically she was just running around serving everyone drinks. I on the other hand was explicitly told not to do such a thing. Apparently you loose a point by doing such a thing.
Several people sternly told me at that I should not do what Allie was doing. I should dance around the outside and generally nothing more. The 10-minute presentation went along swimmingly. I was dancing around on the outside, holding on to my bottle of alcohol hoping that my baby didn’t fall out of my back. I felt kind of pathetic when my arm started to hurt from holding a 1.5L bottle.
After the 10-minute performance we were sitting on the side waiting to do our 30-minute performance. Somewhere in between the first and second performance one of the dancers came up to me and told me that I was going to urinate. I was standing right next to blaring speakers so I was not sure that I heard the man correctly. Urinate really? How was that going to go down? I needed more information. I walked around to several more people in an attempt to get a full story. I had put my bottle down because of my aching arm and as I was running around trying to find out more information on the urinating information everyone seemed more focused on the fact I put the bottle down than the fake urinating I was supposed to do. I walked around to several people and I figured out that I was supposed to put a chamber pot underneath my dress and pull up my skirt a little and pretend to urinate. I felt that I was getting a handle on things so I walked away in order to pick up my bottle everyone had been making a hullabaloo about.
Just when I felt that I understood what was going on I was hit with another curve ball. My host mother came running up to me and told me that plans had changed. I was not going to urinate. I was in fact going to give fake birth. And then cry over my fake dead baby. Loudly and dramatically. And just for added measure when I found out this little fun fact about the birth it started to rain. Just for dramatic measure. Luckily I had a white tank to under my white t-shirt or else it really would have been a show. Anyways I then had a smaller baby stuffed into my belly tied to a string that was going to come out of my skirt at an unspecified time. Of course as we went to dance it started to rain even harder. Exactly what would happen in my life. Everyone just reiterated that I should be very loud and dramatic when I gave birth. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to tip over before I gave birth and super melodramatic when I was crying over my dead baby. And naturally to make me pregnant another balloon was stuffed into my stomach and I was told to dance slowly as if I was pregnant.
And so we started to dance. I was waddling along except this time I had two babies to focus on not letting fall out. I thought it would be bad form for my baby to fall out of my stomach before I was supposed to give birth but maybe that’s just me. about half way through the dance I was pulled over by the other chanto dancer who had the chamber pot. I thought I was being pulled over to give birth. No such luck. There was a pair struggle scene. Basically where the boys whisk off the girls. Entirely unprepared for this moment I toppled over when he went in for the sideways hug. And hten we were fighting on the ground in what I can only imagine was a fake sex scene. I had so many props attached to my body at the moment I became seriously concerned one of them would be wasked away in the rain. And that my white shirts would be ruined in the mud I was currently sloshing around in.
About 2 minutes after being knocked over onto the concrete I was beckoned over again to give birth. I was moderately tipped over and then told that I should have the baby come out of my skirt. Suuupppppeeerr classy. I was shouting labor pains. And by that I mean making a semi loud noise and trying to control my laughter. Almost immediately after my baby was born it was whisked away from me. I was not sure whether or not it was dead at this point or not so I didn’t start to cry yet. I was kind of just standing in the middle not sure what to do. Looking entirely clueless but what else is new. I danced around a little bit. My baby had been put in a box so I was not sure if it was dead or not. I kept an eye on what they were doing with the baby. Then they pulled me over for the “funeral.” I stood there with my dead baby in a box and cried loudly in front of my mayor, my health post, my host family and basically anyone I had ever met in Cuisucancha. I basically just fake cried for about 2 seconds and then burst out into uncontrollable laughter. I had no idea how long I was supposed to dance or how much longer the dance was going to go on.
Luckily the dance ended pretty quickly after the funeral and the dead baby but of course I was thrown another curveball. The short little man who was the other chanto and had served as my birth attendant came up to me and whisked me away on his back. All of the other girls that had been whisked away were in an even height proportion but I was about 5 inches taller and 50 pounds heavier than him. He could only get me about 4 yards before he had to put me down. It was a shining moment in my life. at this point I realized that I should just give up on the concept of shame because it would be a useless emotion to hold on to during these two years.
