The Amazing Race

Sometimes in life, I pretend I'm on the reality TV show, "The Amazing Race." In the latest episode, our tasks were to: participate in an Andean ritual, ask for directions on the street to a burger joint, break a wine glass in a hippie hangout, find your professor in a wild street fiesta and join her for a drink, and dance with the locals and have you picture taken on the dance floor. Mission accomplished. On Friday after classes, everyone from the Institute was invited to participate in an Andean ritual, meant to bring harmony to the cosmos. In Andean culture, more specifically according to the Aymarans, there are three "worlds" - humanity, nature, and spirits. We are all connected, and no group is better or has superiority over another. What affects humanity affects nature and vice versa. The ceremony consisted of a number of sacrifical offerings, including candy, llama wool, small objects representing health, relationships, education, the Institute, etc., flowers, and a real llama fetus. Calixto, the Andean priest that conducted the ritual, used elements of Catholicism and at one point invited us to pray in whatever language we wanted. I found it interesting that Calixto is both an Andean priest and a Deacon in the Catholic church, and that he is able to reconcile what seems to me to be contradicting beliefs. When asked if Andeans are monotheists or polytheists, he said he could not answer that because it's a different worldview. Andeans are neither mono or polytheists; God is one, but God is also many, in everything. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. The most difficult part of the ceremony was watching the burning of the llama fetus, and I don't think I need to explain why. I think the main idea of the ritual- to recognize and reconcile the relationship between humanity and nature- is pretty awesome, and I admire how much respect the indigenous culture has for naturaleza. Afterward, I was "interviewed" for a Maryknoll promotional video, which I think you'll be able to find on Facebook eventually.
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After wandering around and asking some locals for directions (my New York style approach scared the poor girl to death), we found the popular burger restaurant we had been craving all day. Having to ask for directions on the street was one of those little victories....I was happily surprised that the women we asked actually understood what I said, and I rejoiced even more over the fact that I could understand what they said. It was defintitely a GCD. On top of that, I had my exit interview on Friday afternoon in Spanish. The Institute will use my recorded session to determine what level of Spanish I am in, and compare it to my entrance interview from five weeks ago. After the interview, the professor, whom I had never met before, asked me how long I had been studying Spanish, and that surely I was practicing regularly in my job before coming to the Institute. This is not the case, so I took that as a compliment to my speaking ability. I should get my final results next week.
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After a good burger, we stumbled upon a small pub full of hippies, to my delight. I'm pretty sure we got charged for breaking a wine glass (it was accidental, and only because the conversation was so exciting), and I finally learned the word for "napkin." There's something about napkins and toilet paper in this country. They treat them like gold and seem to ration them in restaurants and other public places. Beatriz does this at home, too; there are never any extra rolls of tp around, and I always have to ask for a napkin. I wish I knew what this was about. I've learned to always keep a few spare squares in my pocket, just in case.
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After the hippie hangout, we discovered a crowded street festival, full of street food, carnival rides, cookie vendors, and a live band. It was right outside of the Carmelite convent, and the Carmelite church was open for the faithful to pray. I'm led to believe that the church is not open to the public very often, and when Jonathan saw that the doors were open, he lit up like a kid seeing a candy shop for the first time in his life. As well he should have; the church was absolutely beautiful on the inside, and adorned with archway after archway of flowers, welcoming waves of the faithful. It's unclear whether the fiesta was celebrating Saint Carmen, or the founding of La Paz, or both. Making our way through the crowds, one of the professors from the Institute spotted us and bought us a hot, milky alocoholic drink topped with cinnamon called pancha. It was delicious. And with the number of cookie vendors at the festival, we had to buy some, even though it's never advisiable to buy food off the street. Meh, I'm building immunities.
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Here's why I love dancing (Part II!). While munching on our cookies, a band struck up in the middle of the fiesta, and about a dozen people started dancing, with scores of on-lookers around. It took me a few minutes to work up the courage to get out on the dance floor, but we eventually did. We were dancing sort of on outskirts of the dance area, until a woman sort of waved us over to where she was and motioned that we needed to join the line. I hadn't noticed that everyone was dancing in pairs in a straight line. (Jonathan later joked that it was about the only thing in which we have seen Bolivians be organized.) The woman kept talking to us about how to dance and she was acting a little loca. We were just happy to be joining in the fiesta. I can only imagine what on-lookers were thinking about the two comparitively tall rubias dancing among all of the locals. After the song was over, the loca woman came over to us, poured us each a cup of beer, and wanted to take her picture with us. Two other men came over and wanted their picture taken with Jonathan. We're probably floating all over the interenet by now, or at least a topic of conversation at someone's dinner table. The two gentleman chatted with us for a while; it was so great to strike up a conversation with some Cochabambinos, even if the situation was a little weird. So we got a free drink, met a loca mujer, chatted with some cool dudes, and felt famous for half a second when we posed for photos. All because we started dancing.
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Dancing moves people, figuratively and literally. It's an outward expression of emotions that can't be spoken in words. Little kids that can't yet speak spontaneously bop about all the time when music starts playing. Dancing brings friends together. It brings strangers together. It brings communities together in joyful and sorrowful occasions. It makes people smile. Our bodies have a natural rhythm; I'm convinced we are meant to dance. And I'm so glad I took the risk and danced in the middle of this crazy fiesta. It was the perfect way to end the night, and the perfect way to kick off my last week in Cochabamba.
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Love and empanadas!! (I'm going to learn how to make them!),
K
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