Granted, as with every holiday, there are people who start early and don't stop until they're blue in the face and even then you have to wonder sometimes... As for me, the festival began with Comadres on Thursday; a day originally intended to encourage a mother to celebrate godmother-ship with their child's or children's godmother. Now, it's encouraged for every woman to take a night out with her best girls. Without a doubt, this should be adopted into the American holiday calendar. (There is a Copadres, for father-godfather relationships, too. It falls on the Thursday before Comadres, but as it is, Commadres is a bigger event.)
A bit out of order, my workplace celebrates the Challa (a day of blessings) on the Friday after Comadres, but it's normally celebrated on the Tuesday after Carnival weekend (known as Fat Tuesday back home), so I'll go into more detail on this event soon, but at work, we "blessed" our good fortunes with food, streamers, confetti, and a firecracker or two.
After the fiesta, Mike and I made last-minute plans to go see the big Carnival parade in Oruro, Bolivia. Now, Mike had told me that Oruro has two seasons, where the rest of Bolivia more or less has four: Carnival season and not-Carnival season. Therefore, I was expecting this enormous party, and... I wasn't disappointed.
Our tour bus left La Paz right after breakfast at 4am on Friday morning. When we arrived in Oruro around 8am, we rubbed excitement back into our eyes, received a care pack with a poncho (perfect for tourists, since gringos are favourite targets for the young-and-armed), a decorated eye-mask, a cd of the songs from the parade, a mini-squirt gun, and a whistle (for participating in the parade). We would stay as a herd-- I mean, group for the entire day, which was honestly fine by me since this season is known for pick-pockets and other mischief.
Once we got to our tiny seats (perhaps about a foot across, if that... without any extra room and EVERY seat was filled in our area) and all of the tour groups had sorted out where their people would go, Mike and I got to enjoy our front-row seats to all of the chaos. Traditional dances that told folk stories, hand-made, extravagant costumes, manufactured, vibrant headpieces and accompaniments, venders selling sweets, booze, and food--believe it or not, not ONE vender was selling water...-- and of course the hundred of musicians that marched and danced by in their marching bands. From the time we arrived at 8am until the time we left, around 8pm, the dancers and musicians never stopped, even for the downpour that lasted for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. We took so many pictures. Photo credit goes to Mike for most of these pictures.
Each group is a "fraternity". As the families and individuals in each fraternity grow and dance together, the sizes of their groups increased with them. Children danced and paraded beside of elders, young adults blended with the mixture of ages that surrounded them, twirling their costumes together in unison until you forget that the different ages mean anything at all.
The crowd participated in the party, too. Spray foam wars broke out every so often among the spectators, making everyone more lively and more willing to participate in the day. --You just had to watch out for your eyes! That was always the first target... I looked like a red, puffy, drenched mess when I left the parade-- even with my poncho.
Of the dances, I have two favourites: Caporales (bottom left) and Tinku (bottom right). Both are traditional Andean dances and have strong ties to the history of Bolivia and the culture of its people.
The Caporales is important because the women can dance as the men do and wear traditional men's clothing. It's an engaging dance that relates back to a character "Caporal" who was an overseer of black slaves, but it also is tied to religion (somehow). The idea, as I understand it is to dance for the saint that protects the miners, as mining is a significant industry in Bolivia. I'm honestly not sure how the two ideas were eventually tied together, but the dance is progressive, aggressive, and an utterly memorising experience.
The Tinku, on the other hand, has a darker story behind it-- and it's my absolute favorite. As it's said, once a year in the springtime, everyone in the town would get together to drink, celebrate, and fight. I've been told that the fights always resulted in at least one death and much blood was shed; however, these were positive results for a couple of reasons:
1) The people fighting had had an argument sometime that year, and so they were allowed to fight on this day until there was a winner. Once the fight was over, it was over and done. There would no longer be any bad blood between the contestants.
2) Any blood that was spilled on this day was considered a blood sacrifice to Pachamama, or Mother Earth, as we would say. If a person sacrificed his or her life, the gift to Pachamama was honored because it was all the greater gift.
If it's not obvious, no one dies in this parade because they are fighting each other in a dance. The modern rendition of this ritual is an artistic representation of the history behind the dance. Thus, the movements are swift and slow. They beat on the ground with their bare hands (which looks great in the rain!), jump, walk backward, and lean forward while swaying their arms behind them like wind-up toys. The dance caught my eye because it's magnificently animated and is nothing like the hip-shaking dances that many of the other performers have mastered. When I first saw it during a practice performance earlier this year, I liked it because they reminded me of storybook characters. As it turns out, I wasn't too far off the mark.
By the way, there are also "osos" (bears) and "ositos" (little bears). On two specific occasions, the crowd would chant requests to the performers. My favourite chant was "O-so! O-so! O-so!" when the bears came around and they would shake and dance for us. The other was "Be-so! Be-so!" ("Kiss! Kiss!") when a mini-skirt performer passed by. Sometimes, they would oblige the crowd by dramatically blowing a kiss toward that section.
The entire day was exhausting, but fantastic. The colors, the costumes, the symbols, the history... everything shuffled and stepped its way into my memory. We returned to La Paz a little around midnight and, with my puffy-red eyes, and slicked-back hair, I felt a lot like this guy:
.
AS IF THE FESTIVITIES WERE OVER! Nope. So, on Sunday we definitely rested. Shopped, cooked, had chocolates for breakfast to pay respects to the Valentine's Day that passed, and had a water-gun fight in honor of Carnival weekend. While I didn't get pictures of the water dripping from the ceiling and streaming along the walls and windows of the apartment, I do have this for you:
.
Monday was also a relaxing day. This prepared us for Tuesday, the true Challa day, where we were invited to lunch with our landlord (which also means his family and friends and sometimes another tenant or two.) However, before the meal, Mike and I met Antonio (our landlord) outside of the apartments to bless the homes--with fire, water, alcohol, and flowers. That's what you can see happening in the photos below.
The sound of firecrackers chorused around the city for the entire day as people blessed their home. Rubbing alcohol and wine were poured on the ground at the corners of every entrance and flower petals were sprinkled in front of the doorways and at the corner of the doors as well. There were also streamers wrapped around the top of every doorway (I had to sit on Mike's shoulders to get ours to wrap around the spikes on top of our door.) All of this in honor of Pachamama (Mother Earth), for what she had given everyone for the past year and what she will bless everyone with this year.
The meal itself was a joyful affair that lasted the entire afternoon and into the evening. The courses of the meal came in stages: a salad while we waited for the sausages to cook, then sausage sandwiches with rice with cheese. The main meat was a steak cut into strips and served in stages, so eventually, everyone was well-content with the experience. Every five minutes, someone would break the constant flow of chatter to raise their glasses for the fine meal, people, or day. Each cheer was readily accepted and honored. I have no doubt that Pachamama was smiling on the festivities for that day and the festival as a whole, because it seems that the people here readily take part in every aspect of honoring her.
