Holiday Highs and Lows

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

If somebody told me a year ago that I’d be ringing in 2012 thousands of miles away from my home by burning a life size doll filled with weapons grade explosives in the street, I’d have said, “...awesome.”

—but more about that later.

We’re in the dead of summer now, which means I spend my waking life in a constant pool of my own sweat. On the bright side, I get two of my favorite holidays rolled into one: Christmas and summer vacation. While Christmas in the Rio Grande Valley isn’t exactly known for being cold (except that one year it snowed on Christmas Eve) I definitely couldn’t have ever spent it in my bathing suit and flip-flops. Here, it’s the only way to beat the heat. Even the dogs ditched their clothes. 

I had a good holiday. I missed home more than ever, but we all knew that was going to happen, so at least it wasn’t a surprise.

There were some highs, definitely some lows, but overall my first Christmas and New Year in Peru was great.

I’ll give you the run-down.

One of the first things you need to know about Christmas in Peru is that they eat something called paneton. It’s a type of bread that can only be compared to fruit cake, but even that doesn’t describe it well. It’s a giant round loaf of soft chewy bread with candied fruit. 

Paneton

Chocolatadas are really popular events around the holidays which, at the very least, include paneton, hot-chocolate (in the summer, as if it wasn’t hot enough already) some Christmas carols and a small gift. Organizations normally hold chocolatadas in thanksgiving of their staff and their families, or for less fortunate people throughout the area. I’ve also heard that during election years it’s common for candidates to hold giant chocolatadas to gain some extra attention. Some are fancier than others but if you go to one, you’re at least assured of a piece of panetone and some chocolate. 
I started losing track of the number of chocolatadas I was invited to or a part of after about the fifth or sixth. 

Katie and I carrying pots of chocolate at the Hospice chocolatada.

As for all the panetone I ate…all I have to say is that I’m glad it’s only an annual tradition. 

High
            The posta that I work with decided to hold a chocolatada for the children of a rural community up in the mountains about two hours from Chimbote. That experience has definitely been one of the coolest I’ve had so far. For starters, my co-worker Diana and I got to ride in the back of the small pick-up truck as we ascended up the mountain. 

View from the back of the truck.

The mist.

Whereas Lima smells like the big city, Chimbote smells like fish, and Cambio Puente smells like campfire, Huashcayan smells like eucalyptus, which grows everywhere at that altitude, and fresh mountain air. Once we got high enough, the mist began to roll in and we had to ride in the cab.

Some of the kids in their classroom.

We picked up some honey that is a big product in the area, which tasted like no honey I’ve ever had before, raw with the flavor of eucalyptus since that’s one of the primary plants the bees feed on. 

            Once we arrived, the children from the school ran out to great us. 

Finishing lunch.

 Even though it was midday, the cold mist made it seem more like early morning. 

The Sembrando Infancia team was happy with their meal: anchovies, beans and rice.

The children live in homes scattered across the mountain side and most of them spoke Qechua, one of the native languages here. We gathered them into their mud-bricked meeting hall and after some carols and a couple of games, we gave them their panetone, chocolate, and each one got a Christmas present.

The kids were really humble and thankful and seemed to enjoy spending time celebrating even more than the gifts they received.

Here, I called it cuy.

            Afterwards the teachers and aides had prepared lunch for us, a sierra classic: Cuy. You may actually be familiar with this popular Peruvian meat source, but you’ve probably only ever seen it at your local Petsmart. Stateside we call it Guinea pig. Is it Cuy or Guinea pig, a cute pet or a tasty lunch? I guess it’s all just a matter of where you live…and how hungry you are. As for me, I’m pretty adventurous when it comes to food—and I skipped breakfast that morning. 

Low

Sometimes, I’m too adventurous when it comes to food. I was at the post office waiting on a package for Katie (our mom’s had the genius idea to send me Katie’s Christmas gifts and Katie mine since they have to open up everything in front of you) when their system crashed. They told the impatiently queuing crowd that it’d probably be another hour, at the least. While everyone groaned and complained to each other, I decided I’d kill some time at get something to eat since my place in line was already locked in.

I ran over to a market called Nuevo Progreso, which we only normally go to for building materials but it was close by. I planned on getting some ceviche, but decided that it wouldn’t be safe to eat it there. Instead I saw a small booth selling a combo of seafood soup and a piece of cooked fish, and the price was cheap. I figured, “It’s soup…it’s been cooking all morning, right?” For the main course I had the option between stingray and eel and for a person like me, that’s a win-win.

At three in the morning, the eel was still swimming.

By four in the morning my body decided that it belonged back in the wild and went about trying to do that in two different ways. 

            As I shivered under my covers Katie checked my temperature which held steady at 102.5.

            After an emergency visit to the posta I received a regimen of pills, some pharmaceutical strength Gatorade and was advised to never, ever eat on the street again. And after a near death experience and five days of sleeping with a bucket beside my bed, I learned my lesson.

           

High

            I was back on solid foods by the time Christmas Eve rolled around, just in time, I thought, to be really homesick. 

Making Christmas cookies one Community Night

           Instead, I had a really simple and nice night with my community. We went to the Christmas Eve mass at nine in our parish which was nice because we got to see all of our friends afterwards and Katie and Emily were angels in the Christmas play.

 

            We got back to the house at 10:30 to find that our power had gone out and shuffled around until we found some candles. 
Katie had gotten some Velveeta macaroni for Christmas and we decided to have that for our Christmas dinner.

Emily, Kelli, Katie, Sister Sofia and Sister Katty after Christmas Mass. 

Emily still had a charge on her laptop so Kelli put on a DVD we have with snowy nature scenes and Christmas music. As we sat in the dark eating mac n’ cheese and ketchup with scenes of somewhere cold playing on loop in the background, I realized that I really love it here. We joked and laughed and shared stories about our past Christmases. At midnight we scraped out the last of the cheese and then, in Peruvian tradition, went to put baby Jesus in our miniature manger. If there is one thing I think makes every holiday better, its fireworks, and luckily for me, Peruvians think so too. We essentially spent the next thirty minutes running around our street cheering, greeting our neighbors and playing with fire. As I sat in bed that night, the sulfur smell of firework smoke seeping in through the hole in my wall, I thought about how much I missed home, but also how I’d never forget my first Peruvian Christmas.

High

            I was invited by one of the students in our English class to listen to his university’s English class sing Christmas carols and I agreed. 

Once I got there I realized I was in for a big surprise.

What qualifies me to be a judge? I speak English?

           I had been made one of the judges of the entire English program’s Christmas carol contest. 

"Runeoff a Renose Raineer"

Emily just happened to be on campus working with the ministry center there, so she was able to help me out. I got Katie to come a little later. 

The tree didn't sing but no points were deducted.

At first I thought that I was going to go crazy after the tenth (I’m not exaggerating) version of “Jingle Bell Rock” also known as “jingo bey rocks” but it actually got me into the Christmas spirit, and after four months of looking like a fool trying to speak Spanish, I’d say I earned it. It’s about time the shoe was on the other foot. Seriously though, their English was pretty good.

Katie smiling as she delivers a dream crushing score of 2.

Low

            A school in Chimbote with good intentions decided that they wanted to have a chocolatada for some of the children in Cambio Puente. They asked Sembrando Infancia, the project I volunteer with, for their help since they are well known in the community.

            At ten o’clock I stood in the garden of the local Catholic church, bracing the giant metal gates closed against a crowd of mothers and their children. Apparently the word had gotten out.

            The sun was blazing in the sky and a couple of ice cream men circled their carts around the sweaty crowd, loudly blowing on their ice-cream bugles. Three giant tour buses loudly hissed to a stop in front of the church and the group from Cambio Puente turned and looked hungrily at the packages being unloaded. 

            One of the teachers forced a path through the crowd to let the mothers and children from Chimbote file into the garden. The economic gap between the two populations couldn’t have been more obvious.

            A tall, chubby boy wearing glasses and a shiny red track suit (his school’s uniform) talked and laughed loudly as he shoved his way through the crowd of children, some of them barefoot, none of them chubby or wearing uniforms. It also hit me that none of them wore glasses, even though I’m sure some of the kids probably need them.

            Their mothers shuffled in behind them with bags of chocolate milk and gifts, most wearing giant sunglasses, nice clothes and jewelry. It was as if they’d actually gone out of their way to dress up.

            The crowd began pushing against the gate, some children slipped in, encouraged by their mothers, the sharp sound of a crying baby split the air, only to quickly be covered over by the ice-cream bugle.

The tension began to escalate.

An old man, who, looking back probably had Alzheimer’s symptoms, demanded that he be let in. One of Sembrando’s community agents explained to him that it was only for children but he shook his head and tried to shove past a woman holding her daughter up to the gate for a better view. I blocked his path and he just smiled sheepishly and faded back into the jostling crowd. The school had provided a list of children who could come in and people began to yell that it wasn’t fair, especially the women who participated in Sembrando Infancia. Diana yelled an explanation that it wasn’t Sebrando’s event.

            After they’d given away all the gifts the children from Chimbote left skipping to their buses while the mothers from Cambio Puente staggered from the church, children in tow, looking shell-shocked.

            Later as we were leaving I saw a black SUV driving through the town being chased by crowds of kids as a man hanging out the back tossed treat bags into the dirt—because nothing says Christmas like seeing children scavenging for candy.

            It was hard learn anything positive from that experience, except for the understanding that it’s what Christmas should not be like. I now have a new appreciation for the Incarnate Word when they make it a priority to protect the dignity of the poor. Giving should not be about making yourself feel better. We should give in order to empower.

            The only highlight was being able to visit Jesus to take him a toy ball my aunt Debbie sent. He smiled brightly as he ripped of the blue wrapping paper and saw the new ball. His aunt thanked me warmly and Jesus gave me a big hug. “This is more like it,” I thought.

High?

            Our kittens are all alive and healthy so we must have done something right.

Kittens both alive and healthy.

 They’re eating solid food now, which came just in time for Fidea because their teeth are coming in. We´ve found homes for the four of them already, so now we´re just waiting for them to ween.

Someone threw two kittens into the garden at the sisters’ house, but the sisters aren’t allowed to have any animals because their home is connected to the posta and it’s against health code. So, long story short, we’ve just started the newest Chimbote branch of the ASPCA. The two new kittens are Wobbly Cats (it’s a real name for a real feline disorder--the actual name for it is cerebellar hypoplasia) which means they walk around like they’ve had one-too-many. We’re still trying to get them in good shape, and since they’re disabled cats it’s going to be a little harder to find them homes, but we’ll see. 

The wobblers. (I want to keep one)

For me, coming from a home with five dogs, something like ten chickens and three cats, the more animals the better, so I’m happy. Fidea’s babies like to crawl up onto my whenever I'm asleep which means I have make sure I don’t roll over and wake up to a bunch of kitten pancakes. 

It's the situation going on near my arm-pit that worries me.

Low

            One of the students from my English class called me one evening and asked to talk with me. She’s a really kind middle-aged woman who lives at home with her parents and studies English for fun. I agreed and the next night I met her outside the sisters’ house to talk. On the verge of tears, she explained to me that a few days prior she’d been robbed at gun point while walking downtown. She showed me the bruises where she’d been pushed to the ground. As she talked about it she began to shake and her voice cracked. I was at a loss for words…Spanish and English. I prayed for the right thing to say….

            “Have you visited the posta?”

            “Yes, they looked at my bruises.”

            “Oh. But have you thought about seeing the psychologist. That was a traumatic experience. You need to talk to somebody about this.”

            “I know, that’s why I called you. You are a missionary, I thought you…I don’t know…”

            I prayed even harder, willing for some kind of help.

            Just then Sister Sofia rounded the corner coming home from mass.

I sighed with relief. After some convincing, I convinced her to come with me to talk to Sister Sofia.

            Luckily for me Sister Sofia understood the seriousness of the situation immediately and took us to the sisters’ small chapel. We talked for about an hour and a half, Sister Sofia knowing exactly what to say. I felt really blessed that she came when she did, I don’t know what I would have done without her. I was reminded that bad things happen to good people, even around the holidays. I really do feel like that was the first time I was called up to bat as a missionary while being here. I feel like I work everyday as a volunteer, but in terms of spiritual matters, that’s the first time I really felt needed. And I can’t say I’m ashamed that I needed a little help from a pinch hitter.

High

          

The New Year, Peruvian style. 

We spent it at a late night mass with all of our friends, like on Christmas. We got home to find that our power was out, like on Christmas. It’s Peruvian tradition to wear yellow clothes so I put on the yellow Peru shirt I got earlier that day when we bought fireworks downtown…because it just wouldn’t be a Peruvian holiday without them.
It’s a Peruvian custom to make a giant life size doll filled with fireworks to represent all the things that happened over the previous year you’d like to move past, take it out to the street at midnight, pour flammable liquids all over it, and light it on fire, making New Years my new favorite holiday. 

The final pre-torch touches.

The aftermath.

All our neighbors were also in the street burning their dolls and popping fireworks and greeting each other. Later we visited our friend Giancarlo’s house and hung out with his family. 

Us at G.C.´s house.

Fidea's real happy.

We spent New Years day hanging out at beach called Vesique, which reminded me a little of South Padre Island.

Us with some of our friends on the beach.

By the time we got home that evening I was exhausted, in a good way, and really happy.

            Everything was new and different which may be why I didn’t get as homesick as I thought I would. I had the highs, and the lows, but overall, it was a good holiday season. Thinking about my 2011 and all the awesome stuff that happened to me, all I can say is, “bring on 2012.” 

Dinner after the beach with Emily's brother Scott.