Saturday morning we all got up
and went into Huaraz for the Fiesta of San Miguel. My host sister Paula was the
Mayor Domo of the fiesta; which means my host family was responsible for
providing the food for the party. We went to Mass at noon….having never been to
mass before I was TOTALLY lost, but it was interesting to see. After Mass we
went back to an Aunt’s house to celebrate. This house by the way is one of the
nicest I’ve seen since I got to Peru. It has hot water. I may or may not have
stood in the bathroom with my hands in the sink for a while just because there
was hot water coming out of the tap :-P There was also an electric stove and
wooden cabinets. It was pretty.
Anyway, lunch
was rabbit and papas. The rabbit was actually really good; I was surprised,
once again, by a new food. I also surprised my entire host family with my
ability to carry a tray of drinks and wrap napkins around silverware….who knew
my time as a server would come in handy in the Peace Corps, Not kidding, once I
started carrying around trays of drinks without spilling them, my host mom
started bragging to EVERYONE that I used to be a waitress :-P (speaking of…..
shout out to Harry’s, hope y’all are doing well).
This brings me
to a cultural….I’ll call it quirk….I’ve noticed. So at these fiestas there is
always food, tons of it. There are never tables though and sometimes not even
chairs; everyone just lines the walls holding their plate in one hand and
eating with the other. This is where it gets tricky. There is SO much food and
it generally includes some sort of meat that is still on the bone and covered
with sauce. Each person gets one little plastic fork and about half a napkin.
Perfect recipe to end up wearing everything you’re eating, right? No. Saturday
afternoon (and at every other fiesta I’ve been to) I watched a room full of people
turn a plate piled with papas, tamales and hunks of rabbit back into a clean
piece of Styrofoam with a bone lying in the middle of it……all with one hand.
Meanwhile I’m gnawing on a rabbit leg and thigh that’s about as big as my face;
sauce on both hands (which means it’s probably on my forehead at this point
too); and my host dad is just cracking up. How do they do this?! I am
mystified. Peace Corps needs to add “eating at large fiestas” to its PST classes
:-P
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