Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas in Rinconada was lovely and New Year in Piura was a dance, dance revolution. (I love kinesthetic video game references.) Here are some photos, sadly I don't really have any photos of New Year's Eve because we went dancing and I didn't want to take my camera to the club, but it was great fun. And Christmas photos didn't turn out too well. I mostly asked other to take photos with me in them but my camera wasn't focusing that well. Oh well.



Christmas in Rinconada was so nice. People stay up all night. They wish one another Merry Christmas at the stroke of midnight then there are toasts, dinner, hot chocolate and panetonne which is sort of like fruitcake. Finally, everyone walks around the town visiting friends and relatives. There are kids carrying paper lanterns with candles inside AND this is odd there are two guys who dress up and tell each other jokes. They're kind of like wandering minstrel joke tellers, very, very not politically correct. One dresses up like ¨The old black guy¨and the other is ¨The transvestite¨a big crowd of people follows as they walk though the streets. They make fun of one another and of people in the crowd. I didn't hang around very long, because I really stick out and didn't want to become the butt of jokes that I don't understand!




This is the Chocoletada that took place on Dec. 22. A Chocoletada is a gathering where a group makes hot chocolate and buys panetonne (fruitcake-like bread) then they give it away. This is one that the town government put on. Sometimes these come with toy give aways ans this one had bags of groceries for moms and toys for kids. It was totally insane. I did a presentation of a story called Anita Cochinita (Piggy Little Anita) about a little girl who doesn't wash her hands and goes to the bathroom in the fields. This makes her sick, but then the doctor cures her parasites and she lives happily ever after. Fun times.





This is the mayor giving away the first bag of groceries to a greatful mom.






Then on Christmas Day there are more wandering minstrels. Only this is a band that plays marinera music. I don't actually know how to dance the marinera, but this guys really wanted me to learn.




For New Years a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers met up in Piura and we hung out for a couple of days. I considered staying in Rinconada for New Year but there is currently a bit of rivalry between differing political groups and that gets pretty ugly when all the men get really wasted on chicha and beer. So,I decided to high tail it to the city where drunken debauchery does not include fist fights. (Don't worry mom. It's fine.)