It's Christmas Night in Huantar

Boy, have I done you guys a disservice.  Christmas Eve, by family took me to the plaza for the Christmas celebrations.  I was under the impression that it was just going to be a bunch of townspeople hanging out in the plaza de armas (town sqaure)—hardly a photo-rific opportunity.  So I left my camera back in my room (though I took my waterbottle with me.  It’s my signature accessory after all) and we set off for the plaza.  Lord almighty do I wish I had brought my camera. 

Turns out Christmas Eve in Huantar is all about church.  Peruvian Catholic midnight mass is not that different from Chicagoan Episcopalian midnight mass.  The Gospel is read, songs are sung (including one in Quechua!), and communion is taken.  Par for the course.

But then the Christmas Pageant began.  Two of the high schoolers, a boy and a girl, were dressed up as angels and they walked up the aisle singing a carol.  Thirty some little kids filled the aisle behind them.  There were also two guys with furry face masks, apparently representing the viejos (why old men have forehead beards was not explained to me), as well as a real live baby lamb. For this portion imagine your average pageant—proud parents, indecipherable speeches, forgotten exits and entrances.  Until that is, the negritos made their entrance.

The negritos are the teenage boys in blackface.  That’s right, you heard me.  Perhaps you’ve noticed from this blog that political correctness is not an all-consuming concern with Peruvians.  Never has that been so evident as this night.  Pair by pair, the ten negritos made their way up the aisle, doing a little shoulder shimmy-wobble.  Their whole heads were covered in a balck mask, and they were wearing traditional sotumes.  Once they reached the priest seated at the front of the church, they briefly adored the baby Jesus doll nad then began to violently jog backwards, shaking and shimmying and occasionally throwing themselves into the pew to try to kiss one of the abuelitas.  One abuelita straight up slapped one of the boys. After twenty minutes of this, four girls, dressed in white dresses and draped in white veils, slowly hip shimmied their way up the aisle.  Their return up the aisle was far calmer and restrained.  After this the whole church filed outside to watch a negrito-virgin dance that culminated in AN EPIC SWORD BATTLE BETWEEN THE GUY-ANGEL AND A GUY DRESSED UP AS THE DEVIL.  That’s right, the devil and an angel dueled on Christmas Eve. 

I so desperately wish I could show you pictures.  Maybe next year.  But rest easy knowing that in the end, the angel won, Christmas was saved, and Tiny Tim will one day walk.

Besos!