The Holidays

So what do cray paper flowers, crates of beer, two hour speeches, 80 year old women dancing, and marching bands have in common? You guessed it! A Peruvian Christmas and New Year’s fiesta! Along with those interesting sights and sensations there was also the burning of lots of stuff, eating lots of alpaca and panneton (Peruvian fruit cake), and men in Negrito costumes dancing to the same song for days on end. The New Year’s celebration is actually 3 days long in my pueblo and was actually going on as I typed this out. I think what was most interesting for me was to see all the family members that have left this pueblo to work in Lima or other bigger cities returning to celebrate in a much cherished tradition. You can see fathers teaching their sons the traditional dances and wearing the traditional costumes for the Negritos. You get to see family reunions after one or more years apart. You also get to see the just how different Americans and Peruvians experience life; simply put time just moves slower here.
As another year passes I, like so many other people, did a double take as the clock struck 12 and looked back at how this last year has been a combination of almost every emotion available. From the intense satisfaction of getting my Peace Corps acceptance letter, the anxiety of skinning my way out of the military’s grasp, and even the relaxation spending a summer at home provided me. And now as I begin another march towards next December I wonder how my service in Peru will pan out. I want to teach classes, create clubs, reforest entire mountains, and have a trash free community by the time I leave; but these are my goals and not the goals of my community. I’m seeing more and more that sustainable projects start with seeds planted months before the final product and that’s kind of where I see myself right now, little by little planning and planting seeds of motivation for projects in the future. One of the biggest problems we have in Miraflores is the high turn over rate of people. Most committees and social groups only last about a year, sadly, and most projects end when the person that started them leaves (doesn’t look good for my projects in two years!) But there are ways around this problem, and with the help of the NGO’s here and some of the wiser, more traveled folks in my community, I’m beginning to understand (through broken Spanish) just exactly how to work successfully with this tiny town of 300…And yes I’ve made the movie connection and totally consider myself a Spartan of Miraflores!