Dance Till You Fall

I am going to tell you the story about the Town Fiesta in Jangas. Like any good story, it begins with me helping haul two 10 meter wooden poles. I had volunteered to help my host-brothers prepare for the fiesta. Naturally any good fiesta needs two gigantic poles. My job was to first carry the poles and then to hold the ropes attached to the pole while we positioned the two poles in the Plaza after digging two massive holes to place the poles. After a while my tiredness of a Saturday morning wore off and I asked what the hell the poles were for. I was told they were for fire-works. While I tried to apply my foreigner mind to why the hell we needed gigantic poles to launch fire-works, I came up with some explanation about fire-works being shot off straight that suited me well enough so I stopped wondering and went to play soccer after the morning's “chamba” (work).

The following day (Sunday) we had a meeting with the regular group and a few people I hadn't met. Mostly my host brothers, cousins, and their friends who are all a lot of fun. The conversation focused on food, when we were going to buy the food, when we were going to peal/kill the food and when we were going to serve and eat the food. I was in. The plan was to make bread at 6 a.m Wednesday—this didn't happen-I'm getting used to this (fortunately for I would be needing my sleep for later in the week). Throughout the week the group worked and planned—it was also the anniversario of the colegio this past week and I got to see a lot of my students play sports, make “atorches” (big objects that are lit up at night with transparent paper—my favorite was the bear and the dragon—sometimes you get the Bear).

Thursday was the big day of work for the fiesta. After a day at the colegio of an un-durably long ceremony (I at least got to give a few of the sports prizes) I went to help peal potatoes, peal more potatoes, and then helped the Priest haul more pieces of firewood than potatoes I had pealed. We then went to our respective houses to prepare for the Fiesta...

Here I've learned that regardless of the expectations you set for an event, the event itself will be nowhere near what you are expecting. This can happen in a Math Class, a soccer game, a dinner (for example I recently ate Guinea-pig—surprised me in that it mostly tastes like chicken—only slightly odd when you grab it's paw like a chicken wing...hehe). I don't know what I was expecting for this party, but my expectations were smashed.

I am going to start by saying that if you have never been to the Jangas town Fiesta, you have not been to a Fiesta. I always loved Middlebury parties—but I never attended anything at LoFo (Lower Forest for non-Middlebury readers) that had 2 competing 20+ member brass bands, an “orquesta” with various singers on a stage, several Catholic Masses, a procession with the Virgin of Las Mercedes (yes she actually did inspire Mercedes-Benz—I learned this at one of the masses), a two course lunch prepared, fireworks and bulls.

At 11 p.m on Thursday the band with singers started to play, and people started to dance. After shaking off my shyness I started to dance. Forgive me for my cultural insensitivity, but I still can't tell the difference between huayno and cumbia, but I'm working on it. Mostly I just smile and bend my knees and try to duck low enough when I get twisted—I think I'm actually getting the hang of it.

The main event came at 1 a.m. Finally I learned what the damn poles were for. Throughout the night, what appeared to be a scaffolding like structure kept getting built higher and higher. At one, they lit it from the bottom up. The thing was like a Rule-Goldberg (did I get this name right?) machine. One level would light another and would spin, and then shoot off sparks, and light another. It was probably the coolest display of fireworks I've ever seen (until the next night's—all in all there were 4 Castillos! Over three nights, not to mention more Roman Candles lit by cigarettes than I've seen in my life).

For the next two nights the fiesta continued, and went onto include a corrida de toros (one of the toros may or may not have escaped—I didn't attend perhaps fortunately) and lots more. I guess the lesson of this story is, the next time a group of guys ask you to haul two pieces of wood to your town plaza, go for it—you never know, it just might far exceed your expectations. Dance till you fall.