Happy Birthday Tres de Octubre!

I take my time at posting information, but it seems that my general trend will be updating shortly after a festival has taken place, which is bi-weekly. This weekend was the birthday of my community, Tres de Octubre!!! I have been waiting for this day since I first arrived, and was extremely satisfied and delighted with the outcome. Tres de Octubre, as it is so aptly named, was founded 37 years ago by some of the same people who still live here today. Exactly 37 years ago yesterday, Tres de Octubre was a shanty town full of workers and caretakers of the wealthy mansions that surround my community. Without structured homes, water or electricity, the inhabitants lived here for an extensive period of time, and worked in the homes behind our community, called Los Condores. After long overdue time, my community claimed squatter´s rights, and laid claim to the land that they had lived on for years. After claiming their community, construction began, and Tres de Octubre is the wonderful tight knit community that I am blessed to live in today. On Friday night, the 2nd of October, there was a small parade of all the community children in a procession that translates to Passing of the Torch. During this procession, all of the youngest children, generally under the age of six, were all dressed up in animal costumes and given paper lanterns to parade through and around the community. I became aware of this wonderful procession from hearing horns blaring outside of my house at 8:30, and more than readily ran outside to watch an elephant,
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5432513096133847122" />
zebra, bear, lizard with a bow tie, lion, tiger and other tail toting animal children carry around candle filled boats, angels, lizards, ocean monsters, butterflies and stars through the streets of Tres de Octubre. The parade finished up in the Conchita (the basketball court?), where we all relaxed, listened to the community president speak, and then enjoyed hot chocolate and cardamom bread. Last night the fiesta of Tres de Octubre kicked off, which was a series of dances and performances by the local children of the community.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5432513089810463698" />
Many of the dances I was pretty familiar with, because I have been hanging out with the local kids at the local communal, where they practice their dance routines. Performances ranged from the general booty shaking dance routines to traditional Peruvian dances. Apparently Michael Jackson is extremely famous in Peru, because there were about 4 performances by some of the local boys to their favorite Michael Jackson songs. One of my favourite little people here is Mario, a 10 year old demon that loves to attack me everyday. Mario is my friend Krista´s (another volunteer) little brother.

Anywho, Mario danced a solo performance to Beat It, and rocked the Conchita. Because a few volunteers live here in Tres de Octubre, we are expected to put on a performance. Because the 7 of us in this community have little talent, we enlisted the help of a few other volunteers to help us perform any random act we could think of for the fiesta. 6 of us were courageous enough to perform two Creedence Clearwater songs with two guitars and a ukelele. I was a singer and dancer........it went well. We were laughed at thoroughly, but I am pretty sure that my community likes me so far. Happy Birthday Tres de Octubre!