One the Eve of New Year's Eve in Lima

There are pretty much only two days when Lima --yes, pretty much  the entire city-- comes almost to a standstill: Christmas Day and New Year's Day. I mean, not even on Sundays does the place get as quiet and still as it does on those two days.

In between them, however, are a few days of frenzied activity for vendors who have a short window of time in which to get sell their New Year's themed merchandise in preparation for the big night.

 There are a number of traditions associated with New Year's Eve.  For example, some people eat twelve grapes or olives at the stroke of midnight.   Others walk around the block with an empty suitcase in hopes of traveling in the coming year.  Others, taking note that the word for a square block - manzana- is the same as that for apple, take things a bit tongue-in-cheek and stay indoors and just walk their suitcase around an apple.

Yellow, or more accurately, gold, is the color associated with New Year's Eve.  That means that, overnight after Christmas the street stalls and small shops, put away the multicolored swag and lights of Christmas, and everything turns yellow: yellow streamers, yellow table cloths and napkins, flowers, decorations, etc.

One of the things that most stands out is the astonishing amount of yellow underwear that appears as if by magic, as it is fortuitous to greet the New Year wearing new yellow underwear that has been received as a gift.

Where have all those yellow undies been during the rest of the year?  I don't know, but given the sheer amount of it, it seems impossible that it could all be sold in the course of the one week between the two holidays.

New Year's Eve in Lima

Merry Christmas!

Birthday party

We had a birthday get-together for me the other night on Willy's terrace.  Willy and I went shopping that morning in the Jesus Maria market for meats and other items.  We supplemented those with some cheeses that I had brought from the US for the occasion.

Most of the cousins and aunts and uncles were able to attend, and we had a really nice time.

I tried to take pictures, but mostly the lighting was poor so only a few turned out, and those were of things that happened to be essentially immobile at the that instant!

Birthday Luncheon: My turn to cook!

Today, it was my turn to treat myself by cooking a big meal for the family - and, yeah, to show off a bit.

Usually we have at least one gathering at the apartment when we are here, and this time I used my birthday as an excuse to gather everyone here, even if it was two days after the date.

I decided for a Chinese buffet, and started cooking last night so I could get ahead on some things and lighten the load this morning.   That gave Diego and I time to to  the market in Jesus Maria for a few last-minute items -mainly a fresh halibut that I steamed in the oven with some vegetables and scallops.

I accompanied that with some steamed rice, fried rice with Chinese sausage, sauteed vegetables, red-cooked pork, soy sauce chicken, explosive pepper chicken wings,  steamed broccoli with mushrooms and oyster sauce, and beef slices cooked in a spicy broth.

As additional treats, Willy ventured back to the tea house in Chinatown this morning and arrived here with an armload of sweet shrimp buns, and black-bean and white-bean paste-filled buns.  For dessert, Marina brought her yummy rice pudding (arroz con leche), with an extra can of condensed milk for those who like it extra sweet!

Explosive pepper chicken wings

Red-cooked pork

Sauteed vegetables

Fried rice

Broccoli and mushrooms with oyster sauce

They must've liked it all, as every bit got eaten. 

Birthday dinner

Last night we finished off the birthday with a family dinner at a Chinese restaurant, the Wa Lok chifa in Miraflores, were we enjoyed some good food, fun company, and a delicious rainbow cake made for me by my niece, Rafaela.

Here, the waiters are singing "Happy Birthday" to me in Chinese.  (Boy, I look like crap! It had been a busy day, and I rode to the restaurant with the car window open, so my hair is a mess.)

Video: Takanakuy

Another one. This time it's about the custom of takanakuy.

In the province of Chumbivilcas, in the Cuzco region, Christmas is celebrated with partying, drinking, fireworks -like in the rest of Peru.  What makes chumbivilcano Christmas different is the takanakuy, which is a festival of ritualized hand-to-hand combat. 

Fights are one-on-one bareknuckled fistfights accompanied by huaylia music, and all strata in the community take part -men, women, young, and old.  Even kids.  Through  the takanakuy grudges are settles, stress is released, community harmony is retained, and the Earth is repaid for her bounty through  the fighters' sacrifice.

In this video, the host, Thomas, travels to Chumbivilcas to witness and participate in the takanakuy.


PART ONE:





PART TWO:

Video: Scissor dance in Andamarca

Just browsing the web today I came across this cool little video on danza de tijeras, or scissor dancing, in Peru.  The danza de tijeras is an age-old custom, as one of the musicians in the video explains, and is intimately tied to Andean veneration of the earth and the apus and wamanis (mountain spirits).

The video shows two travellers -Krishna and Anthony- who drive  from Nazca to the community of Andamarca, in Apurimac, to witness a tijeras competition.      It reminded me of stories my mom told when I was little, of danzaqs she had seen in her travels, who -she said- seemed as if they had no bones in their bodies.

I've got to tell you that what the show's hosts witness the danzaqs do in Andamarca is a far cry from the tijeras dances you'd see on stage at folkloric shows in Lima.

Birthday Dinner

Last night, it being the eve of my birthday, Liz and I invited a number of the aunts, uncles, and cousins to dinner at the Restaurante Royal, a large Chinese restaurant near San Felipe.

We had a great enjoying the good company and some delicious food.   We've got some leftovers, and were planning on enjoying those at lunch today and tonight as Peru plays Uruguay in the semifinals of the Copa America, but Liz and I have both gotten a cold.  So, we'll have to see what we're feeling up to later on...

Cusco: Celebrations

While we were in Cusco there was celebrated the 100th anniversary of Hiram Bingham's announcement of the existence of Machupiqchu.   As part of the celebrations -aside from a ceremony and concert in Machupiqchu itself- there were musical acts and a concert in Cusco's main square.

Some of the acts were folkloric dance groups, called comparsas.   The first of the below is from Cusco's Paucartambo province, and the sencond, from Puno.

San Felipe turns 45

Forty-five years ago today the first phases of the Residencial San Felipe were innaugurated, and to mark the occasion, there was a small ceremony this afternoon in the plaza of the complex's commercial sector attended by the mayor of the burrough of Jesus Maria, Enrique Ocrospoma, and the students from San Felipe's three pre-schools.

San Felipe is a large residential complex comprised of some 40 buildings amidst walkways and gardens.  It was the brainchild of then President Fernando Belaunde, and is a unique space in this city.  When it was built it comprised the largest collection of tall buildings in the country -"Little Manhattan" it was called- and was visible from almost any point the city.

Here's what I wrote about it a few years ago:

Today San Felipe has a birthday.

Started as project by President Fernando Belaúnde Terry, who was an archictect in regular life, the Residencial San Felipe was inaugurated forty-two years ago, on July 2, 1966. At the time, with almost 50 buildings in five distinct styles holding apartments for over 10,000 people, it was one of the largest -if not the largest- housing project in all of Peru.

The complex was planned and built, on the grounds of a former hippodrome, as a single huge block with no cross-traffic and interlaced with sidewalks and gardens, and including three preschools and a shopping center. Over time a cooperative school and a chapel were established on the grounds and a clinic was built across the street, meaning that residents could have almost all their needs met within the Residencial itself.

Into the 1980s the Resi was a dominant feature on the Lima skyline, its 15-storey buildings topped only by the former Ministry of Education on Avenida Abancay and the Banco de Credito tower in Miraflores.

its four decades San Felipe has remained a distintict neighborhood, with many of the original families still occupying their apartments. Its mix of buildings and large green areas are unmatched anywhere else in the city, leading to lower levels of noise and atmospheric pollution within its boundaries than is the average in this sprawling city. Its gardens abound with birds and butterflies, and it is even said that they harbor an endemic type of blind snake.

The neighbors recently won an important victory when they defeated a move by the mayor of Jesús María and a grocery store chain to take over part of the parking areas and build a larger supermarket and movie theatre. The neighbors insisted that the project was unecessary and would harm their quality of life by increasing foot and vehicle traffic while reducing parking, arguing that the parking areas -like the gardens- are held in condominium by the neighbors and are not for the municipality to dispose of at will.

Confronted by the organized neighbors, who staged rallies, and weekly cacerolazos in which pots and pans would be banged together from apartments all over the resi at 8:00 pm sharp every Saturday, and a media and internet campaign, the Plaza Vea chain backed out and the mayor backed down.

Such is the hold that San Felipe has on those who live and have lived here, that there is a Facebook group dedicated to it that draws current and former residents from all over the world -as far away from  Lima as Europe and New Zealand.

Tonight the celebration of the anniversary will continue with further ceremony and a dance in the plaza and some of us participants in the group who happen to be in Lima will use the opportunity for a face-to-face meeting and, in some cases, reacquaintance.  Should be fun!

Lima Greets the New Year

This is how Lima greeted the New Year, filmed from some family's rooftop in the district of Comas:

Sunday Family Lunch

On Sunday, as a sort of despedida to those who were leaving the following morning (i.e. today), and mostly, for simple pleasure of hosting everyone, we fixed a big family lunch at our apartment.

The main dish was a 12-lb piglet that we baked with oranges and rosemary.

We served it with corn, glazed carrots, and a trio of native potatoes, boiled and then baked with olive oil, rosemary, and garlic.

Afterward, everyone hung out, and the boys -not unexpetedly- broke out the cards and chips.

Wedding and Pachamanca

(Photo by Daniel)

On Saturday afternoon, the entire family and guests were driven about 78 kms north of Lima along the PanAmerican Highway in two buses and several personal cars, to Chacra y Mar, near the town of Chancay.  The purpose for the trip was to celebrate Sara and Ted's marriage.

The site selected for the festivities was the Casa Darenas, some family's rambling country home, surrounded by mandarine orchards, which is now sometimes rented out for events. The house sits on a bluff within sight and sound of the sea, and has room for thirty guests to sleep in beds, and several more on the numerous couches and armchairs.  The place itself was beautiful, and an inspired choice for the event, despite the added difficulties due to the distance from Lima.   

I was so focused on greeting relatives whom I had not seen in years that I didn't take many pictures on the first day there, other than of the wedding itself - which I won't post here (I'll let Sara take care of that via her Facebook or elsewhere).

Nonetheless, here are some details:

The chapel

Sara selected an Andean theme for the wedding

Detail of the house's decor

The party afterward was a lot of fun.   Lots of good food, open bar, music, and dancing.  It was great to catch up with relatives I hadn't seen in forever -some since I left Peru when I was but a kid, and some I only knew via internet.

Sometime after midnight Ted's groomsmen stripped down to their shorts and jumped into the pool.  It was cold so they didn't stay in long!    

For the second day of celebrations, Sunday, Sara had organized a pachamanca for the immediate family and selected guests -still close to 100 people.   Pachamanca is ancient cooking method from Peru's central Andes -including Ayacucho, where our family is from- in which meat and tubers are cooked in a stone and earth "oven" in the ground.  The word pacha is Quechua for the "earth", and manca is "pot" or "cooking vessel".  Thus pachamanca literally means "earth pot".

Pachamancas come in several "flavors" -e.g. "three-flavored"or "five-flavored"- according to the number of meats being cooked.  The particular combination of meats, and adjuncts, can vary according to regional tastes and customs, as do the seasonings and herbs used in the cooking.  For this event a friend from Ayacucho was hired to do the pachamanca.

(I paid close attention to the process as Liz and I hope to some day host one of these in our backyard.)

To create the proper festive mood, a band had been hired, and fireworks purchased, including a vaca loca or "crazy cow".

The "crazy cow"

First, the crew dug shallow pits in the ground and stacked bricks around them.  Fires were built inside the towers and stoked for several hours. 

Normally stones are used, but those must be carefully selected to not contain any sulphur or other compounds which could impart off-flavors, and must be such that they will retain heat adequately and not burst in the fire.   Such are not always easy to find in a given location, so these days -specially in the cities- bricks are often used instead.

As cooking time approached, the bricks were "cleaned" by whisking them sprigs of herbs.

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When it was time to start cooking, the upper brick were removed, leaving a shallow ring inside the hole.  The embers were removed, and the floor of the oven lined with cool bricks.   The meats were placed in the hole, with layers of fresh alfalfa in between each layer-first, lamb, then pork, and lastly, chicken.   The alfalfa used in this instance was there because it helps keep up the humidity inside the oven, but does not contribute any flavor.

As the layers built up, heated bricks were added to build up the oven.  "Gato", the pachamanquero, explained that because bricks were being used the meats were wrapped in banana leaves.  When the proper stones are used, the meats can be deposited directly on a bottom layer of heated rocks with herb sprigs.

After the meats, a layer of potatoes was added.

Next, a net bag of fava beans, and on top of that a layer of sweet tamal-like humitas, followed by a final thick layer of alfalfa.

After the foodstuffs had been all added, the whole thing was covered with wet cloths and the dirt removed in digging the hole.  Finally, as custom requires, each of the two mounds was topped with a flower-decorated cross.

When the time comes for the pachamanca to be opened -after 1.5 to 2 hours- there is a specific ritual to be followed, if the thing is to be done right according to Ayacuchano custom.

First, the padrinos each take hold of the cross and lift it out of the ground.   Padrino is generally translated as "godparent" (literally it is "godfather"; the female form is madrina), but in festivities it is taken to mean something closer to "sponsor" and is sometimes given to honored guests, even though they may not literally be the sponsors of the feast.   Ted's parents acted as padrinos for one of the pachamancas, and my dad and my mom's friend, Margaret, did so for the second.

Next, the padrinos offer chicha or beer to the Pachamama, mother earth.  Then, together, they remove the first shovelfuls of dirt from the pachamanca.

The oven is then dismantled and the foods, now cooked, are removed and readied for serving to the guests, who greet the occasion with dancing...

... and more fireworks...

... including the "crazy cow"...