The Llama Chronicles: Carnaval

"Every year the skirts get shorter and the crowds get bigger." - My carnaval buddy Lorenzo on the state of affairs for Oruro´s Carnaval.

So it´s been a long time. I´m sorry. I´m even late reporting on the biggest event of the Bolivian year, Carnaval. Sorry. Before I get into the carnaval stuff, in a nutshell, the family got too crazy for me (my abuela actually tried to forbid me to do things, I mean, really?) and I moved. I am now living in a lovely house in the neighborhood of Cala Cala with a very nice guy who is working on his PhD at Cornell in soil sciences. He needed someone in the house because his wife and two babies just went back to the US and he´s always out in the campo doing research. Someone´s gotta be in the house. I really enjoy my new neighborhood. The streets are paved, there are no cows, and my stomach trouble has ended. Imagine that. I have a very nice neighbor, Doña Betty, who drags me into her house for coffee and cookies whenever she sees me in the street and the shop owners two houses down take good care of me, keep an eye out when they know I´m alone, that sort of thing.

I still see the old family. I went for back to school open house a few weeks ago and for a parade that little Ciria was dancing in (it was very awkward for me though, there was blackface...) and after Carnaval went to ch´alla the new house so I´ve sort of got the best of all worlds going. It´s been really good for me though to be able to have some control over my life again, I was pretty miserable in the old situation.

At work, I finally have a project and I won´t bore you all but I´m excited about it and have been working hard trying to make it come together.

The latest big event was Carnaval. A weekend in February iin Oruro was what is considered the biggest event in Bolivia and in terms of carnavals, the second largest in South America (Rio´s being first). This year, more than 600,000 people were expecte to turn up and more than 50,000 to dance in this incredible parade which was declared one of Mankind's Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Hertitage of Humanity by the UNESCO in 2001.

I went with a huge group on Friday night, soon as we arived we went out to see the bands playing morenadas and to see the parade route. The route is 3 kilometers long and culminates in a plaza where the dancing is the best. We rented seats in bleachers along a plaza and the next mroning were there early to start the event. We all had to get our ponchos along the way, a central feature of carnaval and the weeks surrounding it all over Bolivia are the water balloon fights which get a little out of hand at Carnaval itself. 25 cents gets you 20 balloons and on top of this, they sell this awful espuma-foam stuff which is I suppose air and soap for the most part but it gets in your eyes and burns like crazy. When we arrived at 9, the parade was already in full swing. It ran that Saturday from 7 am to...well, I stayed until 4 am and I´m not sure when it actually finished.

The dance groups are enormous, the outfits are outrageous and the music is LOUD. The whole day was just spent dancing and singing and watching this incredible spectacle go by. I discovered a quick love for the caporales in particular. They wear these bells on their boots and make such a racket, it´s unbelievable. These women, too, I don´t know how they do it, dancing 3k in huge platform heels, but somehow they manage. At night, I suppose the crowds somewhere along the route must have gotten out of hand because waves of tear gas would float by and everyone would be paused in their partying to cough and cough. Seemed strange and extreme to me, to use tear gas but I suppose...I´ve learned not to worry too much about those things. The postal system doesn´t make any sense either.

I won, I will have it known, for most hours spent at the parade. I just couldn´t get enough and frankly, I don´t really understand what everyone else´s problem was. I mean, go big or go home.

Sunday, back again to do it all over, just in case you missed something...Saturday, the parade runs all the way through so that the diabladas in the middle, which depict all sorts of devils and things as well as the Archangel Gabriel leading humanity, feature the angel being chased down by the demons. Sunday, the whole thing happens again, but in reverse so that this time the Archangel is coming after hell. It was all fabulous. Both times.

So more than enough on Carnaval...otherwise I´m back in Cochabamba, working away, seeing a lot of movies, and trying to put off braving the market for a new pair fo jeans. I came with 4 pairs of pants and through simple wear and tear I´m down to 2. My house is covered with baggies of dirt and roots because Steve is in harvest time, but I like it. It´s quirky. It´s beginning to get cold at night and it is exciting to sense a season change! I baked a purple sweet potato pie a while ago. The potatoes are different which made for a strange color but it tasted fine. And...yeah, I´m pretty content and getting along just fine. Everyone else who was here with FSD left last week and I am now alone with the coordinators, which is ok but strange. Their leaving in March used to seem so far away.

I hope everyone on the receiving end of this epic is doing well. I miss you and home and I would love updates on how everyone is doing, where you are, how´s life and the weather and stuff. I live for your emails and I send you all lots of love!

LOVE!

Mollie