Ecuador

Sunday 6/19/2011 - Afterparty, Inti Raymi celebrations at Lago Cuicocha

Today was my birthday, though we didn't mention it to the family; we didn't want to take any attention away from Sisa during her special sacrament.

Sometime during the course of the morning, Junior’s Band stopped playing. Their music was replaced by a CD which played the same song over and over on repeat. We admitted defeat to the music and decided we may as well get up. We got dressed and went outside at 10 a.m.

We found that Felipe and Maria Jose had already departed. We wished that we had known so that we could have said goodbye! We had really appreciated that they had come to the party.

A couple of die-hard partiers were still here, along with the family. The women were cleaning up, and the men were still drinking. They continued to play the same song on an endless repeat cycle, and kept turning the volume louder and louder. We felt the effects of very little sleep more than the effects of too much alcohol, but the thought of booze (or even breakfast, for that matter) at this point was nauseating. One very inebriated guest pretty much forced us to drink a shot of blackberry wine. We hoped that taking one would satisfy him. Bad idea. It didn't. He was relentless.

We picked up trash around the yard. We played with Sisa and the doll she got as a gift. She was in a much better mood this morning, and was quite playful.

We were stymied by the sheer amount of eggs, soda, and cases of beer and wine piled up in the kitchen. We had expected the soda to be consumed at the party, but there were probably 150 liters of soda left over. And hundreds of eggs. What would the family possibly do with so much food?

Eventually the pounding music and the continued offers of drinks drove us to retreat into our room to nap/rest for a couple of hours.

At 3 o'clock, we emerged from our room, now very hungry. The man who had given us the drink earlier was now passed out, sitting on the bench on the patio. Rosa offered us pulled pork and mote. The pulled pork was phenomenal. She sifted through all of the 3 liter bottles of soda people had brought and took out the best (actual Coca-Cola) for us. The kitchen was piled with offerings from guests: at least 600 eggs and about 50 3-liter bottles of soda. The soda ran the gamut from Coke to Orangina to Otra (Other) Cola, but Rosa insisted that we drink only the best (the Coca-Cola). We weren’t fussy; anything non-alcoholic was just fine.

Friends and neighbors stopped by, and were fed leftover soup, pork, and mote. They were encouraged to pack themselves to-go containers full of food. The family also distributed containers of eggs, bottles filled with chicha, and 3-liter bottles of soda. Now it all made sense. Guests brought food items for the party. Whatever was not consumed at the party was redistributed among the community. This type of collectivism is common in the community, and most often is exemplified by the minga, or collective work day.

If someone had lent the family a cooking pot for the party, their pot was returned to them full of food. Some neighbors wheeled their full puts home in wheelbarrows. It was interesting to us that the whole village contributed to the baptismal bounty, and also that they all benefitted from it.

The inebriated man took a header off the bench and face-planted onto the cement patio. These folks are hard core!

Antonio asked if we wanted to go to Lake Cuicocha for "the festival." Everyone has been talking about it (one of the men last night had asked us if we were going). Despite our lack of sleep, we were feeling better and getting our second wind, so we agreed to go.

The family changed their clothes and we rode in the back of a pickup truck in the rain to the lake (the weather changes quickly around here!). There was a guy in sheepskin leggings passed out in the middle of the road, causing cars to swerve around him.

As we pulled into the parking lot, a parade of community members (including the shaman from last night) were carrying chickens, as well as wooden dowels shaped into a triangle onto which they had hung various offerings of fruit. This wooden rack is known as a castillo (castle), and is involved in rituales de aumento (rituals of increase), through which people receive and repay bounty.

The men were wearing zamarros (sheepskin chaps). These are commonly worn during Inti Raymi festivities, of which this was one. With the solstice rapidly approaching, each day would bring more activities, culminating in the "taking of the square" (toma de la plaza) the following weekend.

We walked to the visitor's center and Antonio chatted with his fellow community members. He bought a plate of potatoes, chicken, and mote, and we all ate some from it. There were many families and all of them were enjoying the plates of traditional food. We were there from 5-6 p.m.; after being there for an hour, we caught another camioneta pickup truck home.

We got back to the house and a few people came over to visit. They were fed buckets and buckets of food left over from last night's party, and, like earlier, they were sent home with bottles of soda, eggs, and chicha. One man rigged up a rebozo (piece of fabric) on his back to carry a dozen bottles of beer, several three-liter bottes of soda, and 5 liters of chicha! There were still twenty 30-packs of eggs left after everyone had gone.

Sisa went to bed with a tummy ache, while the rest of us ate a family dinner of rice and chicken, potatoes, lettuce, and Coke. The chicken was so tender it literally fell off the bone. We learned that Aida wouldn't be working tomorrow. This made us very glad, as we wanted to spend time with her and Yupanqui.

We gave them Sisa's baptism gifts (a bilingual bible and a gold cross) and told them how happy, honored, and humbled we are to be considered part of their family. At 7:30, they suggested that we should all retire. Craig read his book while I wrote up notes from the happenings of the last couple of days. During this time, we heard several more neighbors arrive to collect more food. At 9:30, I was done writing and all had been quiet for a while. Time to get a proper night's sleep after the excitement of the past 48 hours!