The Virgin of Cocharca....and Tres de Octubre

To begin, today was vaccination day, which was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I received only 4 lovely injections, including Hepatitis A and B, typhoid, and to my enjoyment RABIES! I think I can successfully say that I was the first and only Peace Corps volunteer to enter the doctor´s tent and express happiness to receive a rabies shot. Yup, that´s just me. For clarification (and to convince people that I am not crazy), this means I can work with bats one day, which is great! And! Rabies vaccinations are really expensive, but not when the government deems them necessary for your survival in Peru. Generally rabies vaccinations include a series of ten painful shots in your stomach, but luckily they werent cheap on us and they gave us the first in a sequence of three injections in the arm. Enough about rabies! For the first ten weeks of my time as a Peace Corps volunteer, I am still technically a trainee, and will not be placed permanently until November 27. For the next ten weeks, I have language, cultural and technical training everyday, from 8-5 in a central training center in Chaclacayo. Until the 27th, I live in a small community called Tres de Octubre, which is a small community that was built 21 years ago. Luckily, I am here for their 21st birthday which is surprisingly on the 3rd of October! So far, my community has been extremely supportive, patient, and informative about anything and everything that I can think to ask. This community has housed many volunteers in the past, so they are accustomed to teaching vocabulary to those of us who have less than desirable Spanish skills in a Spanish speaking community. Most of my experience within my community thus far has been in my language class, which is generally 4-6 hours throughout my day. One of our primary tasks during this class is to learn vocabulary words, and then go directly out into the community and begin using them. For example, last week we learned saludos, or greetings and introductions. After learning proper introductions, which I did know already, we were sent into the community to interview people and introduce ourselves as Peace Corps volunteers. It is difficult to go up to anyone on the street at home, so it was slightly nerve wracking to walk up to someone and do my best to introduce myself and hold a conversation in a language that I am less than proficient in speaking. Needless to say, I survived my interview days and made some friends within the community which will be completely helpful to accomodating myself to living in Tres de Octubre for the next three months. Other than that, I have made great friends with most of the children in the neighborhood just by doing what I do best, playing! On our first Friday night in Tres de Octubre, myself and 4 other volunteers decided to play a game of frisbee in the park just down the hill from my house. Since it was dark out and just before cena, there were very few little kids and the court was completely open. As soon as we started tossing around the frisbee, all of the kids from the surrounding houses came out to see what the Gringos were up to in the park, and they were delighted to play around with us. What started out as a simple game of frisbee turned into a melee of futbol, futbol americano, and frisbee. Although I am not much of a runner, I had a great time attempting my hand at soccer against 20 Peruvian little boys. Needless to say (and not at all surprising) the team of four gringos was destroyed by the gang of Peruano niños. Although we were beaten terribly, I had a really great time becoming aquainted with the local kids and look forward to getting out there again a few times this week to get by butt kicked once more. I also had the pleasure of monitoring the most adorable game of frisbee in my life......2 5 year old girls standing about 10 feet away from each other and tossing the frisbee to each other over a ile of sand. I have found myself quite a few fans in fact with the gaggle of little girls of Tres de Octubre. Whenever I go out into the park or into the cabina, I find at least one or two little girls on my hip, introducing me to their friends and showering me with compliments, like bonita gringa. Everyone here calls me Jessie by the way...its much much easier for native Spanish speakers to pronounce something that ends in a vowel (and Jess sounds like Yes).
The most exciting experience I have had in Tres de Octubre was this weekend at the fiesta de la Virgin de Cocharca. Peru is dominantly Catholic, and apparently they have alot of virgins to celebrate their own respective festivals on their own respective weekends. For the Virgin of Cocharca, the virgin statue is paraded around the community in a shrine of flowers, candles and offerings. Following behind the shrine is a parade of followers, all dressed in traditional Peruvian clothing. From about 8 am until 10 pm the paraders dance through different communities and up and down every street. Once the paraders finish their dances and parading of the virgin, the entire community congregates in the park just below my house, for a grand fiesta. Over mucha cerveza, patrons from multiple communities in Chaclacayo gather together to watch Cumbia performers dazzle their way aross the stage and entertain everyone with their grandeur!!! From some of my volunteer counterparts, I learned how to handle the cumbia walk, and even managed to throw in a little salsa along the way. I am not certain that I was at all successful in my attempts at dancing, but its better than nothing. As the evening progressed, large bamboo edifices were built directly in the center of the court. In closer examination, it was evident that these 30-40 ft high structures were covered with wheels and explosives. Being the trooper that I try to be, I stayed up past my current 9:00pm bedtime and waited until 2am when the grand exposition began. Once the strucutre was lit, wheels started turning and spitting sparks, explosives jumped out into the air in every direction, and giant golden chrysamthemum fireworks ignited high in the sky above the fiesta. To top everything off, the cumbia bands played a really fast paced, light hearted tune, and every single patron in the fiesta was dancing around the ignitions. To make matters more chaotic, there is a human loaded firework that is placed on one of the drunkest patrons of the fiesta...... el toro loco. El toro loco is a fantastic but completely terrifying contraption built of a paper mache looking material, in the shape of a bull, with huge wheels to either side. Similar to the bamboo explosion buildings, el toro loco is a moving firework, with light spurring wheels and 15 foot reaching sprays of sparks. The job of el toro loco is to run through the crowd and chase people. After hours and hours of cumbia walks, cerveza circles and running for my life, I decided to call it a night. Getting into my house was easy, but there is a second door which blocks off the half of the house that I live in. This door was locked. Luckily, there was a 1 foot high space above the door, so instead of sleeping on the floor, I scaled the door, slipped through the hole, and climbed down into my side of the house. After all this excitement I attempted to sleep, but was unable to get any rest due to the house vibrating from the bass of the cumbia. Eventually I was able to get some rest, but not until 6am, when the music finally stopped playing and the fiesta patrons decided to go home. I love Peru.