I have now been in Peru about three months and I’ve been exposed to a wide variety of cultural differences, some more stark than others. After reflecting on some of the differences I realize that at first there were some things that caught my attention right away but after a little while I’ve just come to accept them and not really notice them anymore.
An easy place to start with this entry is the concept of Guinea Pigs. Yes, Peruvians eat guinea pigs and they are more or less a delicacy. When I or my fellow volunteer’s tell others here that we have them as pets in the states is always good for a laugh. Here they have been eaten for centuries dating back to the Incans and will undoubtedly continue to do so. Peruvians love to go on about how healthy meat is, citing the fact that is has no cholesterol or fat. This may be true but in my experience, there also isn’t much meat. Compared to other food here it’s very expensive and only eaten from time to time. In addition to eating, it’s also used for another purpose, to diagnose illnesses. Now when I first heard this I just thought it was folklore but I’ve come to realize it is still practiced, particularly in the mountainous regions of the country, where they have curanderos (healers more or less) more frequently. The idea behind the ‘ritual’ is to take a live cuy and ‘pass it’ over the sick person’s body. After it is thoroughly passed over the body, it is then cut open. Now the idea is to examine the body of the cuy and if it has a bad liver, the patient has a bad liver or bad heart and so on. There is also a similar practice called passing the egg, where they do the same procedure, then crack the egg into a cup of water, then the curandero will ‘read’ the way the egg is displaced by the water and diagnose the person. Now, these are probably on the more extreme end of the beliefs I’ve come across and not necessarily representative of the country, but thought they were interesting.
Moving on, there is the topic of Peruvian parties, from birthdays to town religious festivals. From what I’ve seen they take their fiestas seriously and rarely miss the opportunity to do so. For birthday parties for example, it is customary for the person having the birthday to throw a party, inviting all the guests, provide all the drinks, and even provide a dinner for everyone. Needless to say this can be a big investment and the exact details will vary depending on each individuals or families economic status. But either way they like to start it off with an hora loca. This is where the birthday guy or gal will stand in the middle of the room with the other guests forming a circle around them and then have an hour of dancing, confetti, masks, jester hats, silly string, you name it. The guests are supposed to take turns dancing the lucky guy or gal and keep it up for the hour. After that people will start (or continue) drinking and wait for the food. After food is more drinking, followed by some obligatory dancing, followed by some more drinking most likely. Also in all of Peru, parties or casual get-togethers there is the concept of a drinking circle. Now this was something we were told to get down right away to start our cultural adaption off right. It starts off with one beer and one cup. The first person serves themselves, passes the bottle to the right, drinks their serving and passes the cup to the next person who then repeats this process. So yes there is one beer (maybe bottle of liquor) going around at once with one cup for everyone in the circle. After you’re done with your beer it is customary to shake the glass out, as an effort to keep it sanitary. Also if a man has a woman to his right he is obliged to serve her first before serving himself and if there is more than one he should serve them all before taking his turn. This seemed very strange to me at first but now just seems normal and drinking from my own bottle feels weird.
And the last thing I’d like to add to this entry is that, so far I’ve noticed that Peruvians have been extremely amiable overall. I was worried coming in that I might receive some inhospitable welcomes or negative sentiments towards North Americans in general, but overall everyone has been very friendly to me and my fellow volunteers. People we haven’t even known have readily offered their advice, recommendations, and even cell phone numbers and addresses should we ever get into trouble.
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