Christmas in Peru

Well, I’ll remember a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day like no other I’ve ever had! Christmas season started about a week ago when all the children in the area were given toys by the municipality, plastic cars, Barbie type dolls and other plastic toys. Then the major oil company that wants to drill offshore did a toy give away. And throughout the week, there were chocolatatas. At a chocolatata, sometimes small gifts are exchanged but always there’s hot chocolate and panetone.
Christmas Eve day, two of the men in my family were painting the outside of the house with music at high volume. Their choice of music was a station that played old rock songs and since it was impossible to do anything with the music volume so high, I sat outside watching and translating lyrics into Spanish as best I could. You can picture me under a big tree scrambling to keep up with “Hey Jude” and other Beetles songs! My host mother is Jehovah’s Witness so holiday celebrations are not part of her belief system but she does some of the tradition for the family. She sent a family member to get rotisserie chicken for dinner around 10:30 at night which we ate with hot chocolate and panetone. After dinner she and I went walking to find a tienda with red soda to mix with sangria at midnight. This was really an opportunity to see the town late night on Christmas Eve. The streets were packed with kids setting off firecrackers, games set up in the town center and many groups of teens drinking beer. We shared toasts of sangria at midnight and went to bed but the night was punctuated by the incredibly loud sound system of the family across the street drinking hard until after 7AM. Breakfast was more panetone and then I took off to spend Christmas Day with my other Peru family, Peace Corps volunteers. I was breathing a sigh of relief especially since Christmas dinner was going to be pork and I’m determined not to eat pork while in Peru no matter how many assurances I get that this piggie was raised clean and free of cystocytosis.
Sarah, Robyn and I went to Zorritos, about 15 minutes south, checked into a hostel and ate a divine lunch of cerbiche and chicharones (fried mixed seafood). We called Frieda in the province of Ica and sang “Silent Night” on the speaker phone! Then we were joined by another Tumbes volunteer, Michelle who stayed the night as well. We swam in the ocean, called our friends around Peru (we have free calling to anyone in Peace Corps Peru) and compared notes on our experience here. We stayed in a room with a shower, flush toilet and soft, clean bed with the only sound in the night, the surf. I was in heaven my first night from my site for a night in a month. We all had some weepy moments along the way missing our families and our traditions but the ocean and companionship wiped away the blues.