Fiestas Patronales

In Peru, every city, town, community, sometimes even neighborhood, has a patron saint. When it’s that saint’s feast day, they town celebrates for a week, called Fiestas Patronales. We’ve discovered Peruvians love to party and will take advantage of any reason to do so. My Aunt Karey also noted that their celebrations are hardly one family celbrating in the house; it always involves the whole community and is often out in the town plaza. I feel like that’s mostly true. If they’re going to celebrate something, they’re going to do it big! So this past week Cohechan (a neighboring town on the way down to Luya) and Luya had their fiestas because they have the same patron saint. They had sports, food festivals, battles of the bands, etc. for a week. Wednesday was the “central day of party” for both towns but Luya is bigger so I planned to go to Luya for that day. A lot of people in Chocta were planning on spending Tuesday night in Cohechan for a celebration of fireworks so I decided I’d do that too and call it good for my first experience of Fiestas Patronales.

Tuesday night was super fun. I walked 45 minutes down to Cohechan because by the time my host brother and I were ready to go there weren’t any cars. But we met up with a lady and her daughter and walked down together. When we got there we just saw the plaza full of people but no music or dancing. There was, however, a huge frame of a 10 story tower which they called “el Castillo” or “the castle,” which would be later lit on fire. So I found a friend, as did Elder (my host bro), and we split up agreeing to meet up again after the fireworks. Around 9:30pm a band came walking into the plaza and played while some people dance. A friend from Luya was there and we danced a couple times. Meanwhile, 5 or 6 huge hot air lanterns were lit and let go into the sky. They were each probably 7 ft tall and pretty wide. Then at 10:30ish someone came over to light the castle and I sat up close with some kids from Chocta to get a good view. BAM! sparklers come flying dangerously close to us and we all scream, stand up, and run to a safer spot. It was so cool! Each layer of the castle had spinning sparklers that lit one by one up until the top layer where the words “Municipalidad de Cohechan” lit up. Afterwards came fireworks in the sky that appeared way closer than any firework I’d ever seen. It literally felt like the sparks from the fireworks were going to fall on you and I definitely flinched and ducked a few times. As the show ended, a huge crowd of Chocta people start heading for the road. I join them as the crowd thins out from people hoping in cars or walking different speeds. A couple minutes in, an old lady offers me some hard liquor to  “warm my body for the walk” and just as I take the shot, a big livestock truck pulls up full of people. But there’s lots of room so all of us on the street pile in and stand like cattle in this truck as it makes it’s way back to Chocta.

The next morning, I shower and head down to Luya. The plaza is decorated and full of people at 10 in the morning. But first I head to Austin’s house to meet his mom, Cris, who was visiting from the US. She’s such a cool lady, older but really fit, grew up in the Bay Area, loves wine. Kinda reminded me a bit of my Aunt Katrine! The three of us head out to meet up with TJ who is already in the plaza preparing to go into the assembly in the Municipalidad. We meet up and find a place in the assembly hall. There are tons of speeches, music, and food is served complete with a typical way to sweet Peruvian wine. But then we get served Chica which is nice and tasty.

After lunch, we’re told to go home and change into typical Peruvian outfits and come back in an hour for the parade. I was unprepared but luckily Austin’s host mom had clothes for me and her brother was there and very enthusiastic about dressing me up! All the details we covered, from the sandal to the hat and braids. I felt (and looked ) like an old Peruvian lady. The boys got ready too and the three of us (with our photographer, Austin’s host uncle) headed to the plaza. While we stood around waiting for the parade to start, people were staring at us hard core. Multiple people came up and asked for a picture with us. A man even gave me his baby to hold as he took my picture. It was crazy! They loved us! Or thought we looked ridiculous, either way it was hilarious. We realize we should have a sign so we run to the elementary school and borrow a poster and some markers and whip up an ugly sign but does the job saying Cuerpo de Paz (Peace Corps)- Peru. We finally find the municipality people who are standing in the front of the mass of people we assume to be the parade. They have their Municipality sign and are facing a street lined on either side with people. We go up to them and they push us in front of them. We try to protest without luck and we find ourselves to be leading the parade, all eyes on us. An announcer announces us and calls for music. I guess we walk now? We start walking down the street lined with people but no one follows us. So we continue walking and as the crowds cheer, we really start to feel it. We start dancing and waving and the crowd gets louder. I look back- still no ones following. We are alone strutting down this never-ending catwalk. We do a spin- more cheers. Finally we get to the end of the street and the crowd. We wonder if we keep going but then the Municipality people start walking and we decide to wait for them. They tell us that’s it. That’s the end. We hang out and watch as groups of people take their turns walking. Story of our lives: We never seem to know what’s going on at first but we’ve become experts at going with the flow.

I go back to Austin’s house to change and by that time Sabrina, the volunteer in Molinopampa and my best girlfriend here, shows up. We have some coffee (with a splash of Irish Whiskey thanks to Cris) and chat. Then we walk to Austin’s host family’s garden to pick some veggies. Sabrina and I decide to go visit TJ so she can see his house. We of course get invited to a delicious meal and hang out for a bit. Around 8 we head back to Austin’s house where they’re all getting ready to go to someone’s house to dance. We go to this house to find a band playing and tons of people dancing. We join in for a few songs and are served more than a few glasses of Chica. All of a sudden everyone, including the band, leaves and a drunk guy with a huge belly grabs Sabrina’s and my arm and we start to skip down the street with the group. All the people from the party are following the band, arms linked, dancing, skipping, spinning, laughing. It was super fun! We arrive at the plaza and enter the assembly room where we continue to skip around in a huge circle with our arms linked. Finally the band stops playing and we take a second to strip our sweatshirts and scarves. Then the dancing starts right back up, but this time in the normal way with a partner.

After a few hours, we go outside to watch a castle of fireworks just like in Cohechan. Then we head back to Austin’s house to regroup a bit and drop of the older people we were with who couldn’t hang. Then the four volunteers, Austin’s host uncle, and TJ’s host sister head over to the big in-door sports arena where the bands “Fiestas Norteñas” and Robert Pacheco were performing. There we continued to dance till our feet bled.

The next morning I hung out with Austin and Cris for a bit and then headed back to Chocta where I took a much needed nap. Not bad for my first Fiestas Patronales. I can’t wait for August when we have ours in Chocta!