party time!

A story I almost forgot to tell.

Last week in the nearby town of Vera Paz (about five minutes away in bus), there was a fiesta, and a carnival of sorts, in celebration of San José (I asked who this was….the reply I got was… “Saint Joseph…you know…la papa de Jesús?”). My host mom told me about it a couple of times, and asked if I wanted to go, and I always said yes, but she sort of kept himming and hawing around. Finally, along came a Sunday evening around 9 o’clock, when I went with my down to the neighbors (who are all family in some way), and the women chatted for about a half hour before deciding that yes, we should indeed all trek to the party.

Now…Salvadorans who don’t live in a big city (ie: San Salvador) don’t really leave the house after about 6 o’clock, when it gets dark. I pretty much have to stay home after then, unless I’m going next door to talk to Jeremy (neighboring volunteer) or something. It’s not considered safe, and people just don’t do it.

So you might be able to imagine my surprise as I find myself walking down a street with about 12 other people (mostly women). We stop at a corner to see if we can get a car to pick us up, but after several unsuccessful attempts, someone announces that we will get to Vera Paz by walking…so we walk for a while. No one had a flashlight…so we are sort of just walking along on the road under the brightest stars I’ve ever seen, and bustling over to the side every once in a while as a car passes. Finally, we get a large truck to stop, and we all pile in the back.

As if that wasn’t adventure enough…We get to Vera Paz, and all the people that I assumed should be sleeping were partying it up, full-out carnival style. The party consisted of: a bunch of venders selling sweets and toys, and 2 carnival rides: a small squeaky train ride for toddlers….which was plugged in to an electrical outlet in the center of the tiny train track. A boy of about 10 was running it, making sure the cord didn’t get tangled as the train circled around. He also had to occasionally give the train a pull, as it would get stuck on the corners.

The other ride was “El Gusano”- The Worm. It was a roller coaster…I suppose. The ladies I was with (my host mom, her sister in law, some kids, some other ladies) stood around for about ten minutes discussing whether or not we should all ride this contraption. I said I didn’t want to….which of course meant that I ended up doing it anyway. Now, I’m sot of leery of carnival rides stateside….so you can imagine how I felt about this big rickety set-up…but I got on anyway.

Before the ride, I realized that Latin parties are like middle school dances. The girls stand around in clusters giggling and reapplying their lip gloss while the boys line the fences trying to look cool and checking out any female form in their vicinity. So, already feeling that I stood out as not only one of the tallest people there, but certainly as the only gringo there, I wasn’t so keen about getting on the ride, which was in the center of all this hubbub. But I did. It went around the track two times, none of us fell off, and it was the conversation piece of the next hour.

After sitting around some more (and me wondering exactly what this big “celebration” was all about), we went down the road to a little outdoor eatery where my host mom’s sister works. Being that I probably still had amoebas, I wasn’t too excited about eating anything. They kept offering me licuados (blended fruit and milk drinks), but I wasn’t in the mood, so I was like, no, no, I’m fine, thanks…but six woman are tough to combat. They looked at me, looked at each other, and then ordered me a beer. Being that it’s really not accepted for women to drink in public here, I’m not sure what that was all about…but another woman had one with me, so I figured I was safe.

After beer and tamales (so good), we wandered down the street to see a LOT of fireworks shot off (and I’m thinking, these people definitely do not have pyrotechnical licenses!) After about a half hour of fireworks, the grand finale came: A huge monument of sorts of San José was more or less set on fire. Sets of lights and firecrackers shot off his arms, and out of his halo while the people ooed and awed. Ash filled the air, and sparks and ashes fell amongst the crowd. I have no idea why trees were not set ablaze during some part of this. (there was also a goofy sideshow of a comedian who had a lot of pretty funny sexual/gender-related jokes. At one point he asked all the men in the audience who liked women to raise their hands….and only one man did…so he says, “really? What would we do if there were no women here?” and the guy behind me was like “we’d all go to Guatemala!!”)

After some more time, around 1am, we finally head back to the house…in the back of a packed truck (larger than a pickup, used for transporting sugar cane or people), that smelled of boys who’d been drinking beer and smoking cigarettes (sooo taboo!), again under the brightest, most beautiful sky I’ve ever seen.

And so I had my first little party adventure. Well done.
Sorry this is rambly- It’s 11:15 pm. I watched Devil’s Rejects (or Hell’s Rejects?) tonight with Jeremy, the neighbor and my host mom…it’s sort of a horror/thriller. The pirated movie business is thriving here. You can usually get like 3 movies (of decent quality) on a dvd for $1.25…so when we get bored, that’s where we turn! Then, after everyone went home, my host mom told me she needed to go work in the molienda with the cane sugar, wrapping sweets, and that the kids decided to camp out over there, and she’d probably work all night…and was it ok if I stayed home alone? It took me a good five minutes to convince her that I’m not scared of being here alone. She almost didn’t go. But really…I’m inside a locked gate and a locked door. I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine.

Enough rambling for now. I keep promising these are going to get more interesting or organized, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. Perhaps in the future.