Democracy and chicha --2/15/07

Today is the Día de las Comadres, which, sensibly, comes one week after the Día de los Compadres. It sounded like there were festivities going on in the Plaza de Armas while we were in class this morning, so when we got out of class my friend Raquel and I went to check out the scene. The music had stopped and there weren’t many people in the plaza, but there was a big “comadre” doll displayed in front of the cathedral, and surrounding it on the ground were pieces of paper on which various people had written messages criticizing politicians that don’t listen and calling for the people of Cuzco to remember and stand up for their Incan heritage. A very hippy-looking Peruvian man came up to us and asked us if we wanted to write something. “We don’t know what to write,” we both said. He apologized, asking us where we were from and adding that he had thought for a minute we were Peruvian. “Thank you,” I said, and when he asked me why I was thanking him, we got into a conversation about how Peruvians are friendly, and Americans are always in a hurry and never want to talk to anyone, which of course inevitably led to a political conversation (you all can probably imagine what I said when asked what I thought of our current president). This hippy man, whose name was Shanty, was a traveler who spoke English, Spanish, and Quechua among other languages. His 8-year-old daughter was with him and whining about wanting to buy some kind of candy or something. He invited Raquel and I to come with him to have some “chicha,” and we figured we might as well. When we warned him that we had to be back in our houses by 2:00 so that our host parents wouldn’t be worried about us, he scoffed at us, saying we were typical Americans and should live more in the moment. We walked with him to a “picantería” (that’s what all the traditional Peruvian restaurants are called) and he ordered chicha with strawberry for Raquel and I and his daughter, and straight chichi (maiz alcohol) for himself. Raquel and I were amazed and somewhat horrified when the waitress set down in front of us two of the biggest glasses I have ever seen, which each contained what looked like about a liter of strawberry chicha. Our shock was compounded when the waitress then set the same size glass in front of the Shanty’s young daughter. Raquel and I both protested that if we drank all of it we would never get home—but fortunately, it turned out to be not that alcoholic. The man told us that there would be festivities taking place in the Plaza de Armas at 4:00, but when we came back later, there was nothing going on. We walked around for awhile and at around 5:00 were harassed by a couple of high-school aged boys trying to sell us postcards in the street (this is not at all uncommon in Cuzco—apparently there’s even a name for these people, “jaladeros”). They asked us where we were from and how old we were, and only after we told them we were 20 did they both claim that they were about to turn 21 (this is also not uncommon). They followed us back to the Plaza de Armas, where there was now a protest going on—the university professors were striking, the two boys explained. The Día de Comadres is often used as a day of protest. So instead of seeing another festival, we got to see Peruvian democracy in action. Not a bad adventure for one afternoon.