Party all night...and every day

Contrary to what I thought, New Year´s is a bigger holiday here than Christmas. On December 31st, I was incredibly bored during the day. Feeling bored here leads to borderline depression, so it was almost like a repeat of December 24th, except worse because I didn´t have any pants I wanted to get dirty on a hike and the internet site was closed without warning. However, at night things picked up for the best.

At 9:30PM I participated in yet another march, this time to the town´s auditorium. The mayor then gave a 2 hour speech recounting all the public works the Municipality did during 2005 and damn, it took about an hour. I was completely overwhelmed with everything they have done in just a year: installing lighting, paving roads, creating potable water systems, installing drainage systems, improving infrastructure within the soup kitchens and schools, planting trees, building plazas, throwing cultural and academic events, and more. This was really exciting to me because nothing seemed to be a frivolous expense and the Municipality is obviously working with a sizeable budget, which means my ideas may not be limited by money. And then the Mayor got really fired up and talked about how they have been fighting in court against a North American petroleum drilling company that drills within the municipality but doesn´t employ many local people whatsoever. They just won their case, which means this company has to pay them twice as much as they had in the past, which is amazing news that made everyone cheer. There is another drilling company working off the coast of the mangroves, I think Peruvian, that they´re fighting against as well. In addition, I learned that the Municipality isn´t privatizing their entire water system but rather are maintaining ownership of the water system itself. However, they are privatizing the management of the water distribution and fee system. There are 4 different companies competing for the management rights, which is the ideal situation that benefits community members because competition means lower prices for consumers. Having a private company manage the fee system also may lead to greater efficiency of service.

Hearing all of that made me excited as well as nervous: the bar is set pretty high already for me! I have so much respect for this Municipality and the Mayor. It just seems that they´re doing almost everything "right". Then, the Mayor started talking about the future. That is when he talked about how the mangroves are so important an American has come to live with us. "Ingeniera Carolyn Hwang del Cuerpo de Paz y la Universidad de Michigan!" and thus, U of M got a plug down here, and I am now an engineer. Then I got to stand up and wave to the 300+ people from town gathered there, so now more people know who I am. Good stuff.

Then we ran outside and there were hundreds more people gathered there waiting to start the party. A 10-piece band was there to help us ring in the new year. We all received 12 grapes and a little shot of cheap champagne from the Municipality. As it got to be midnight, we ate the 12 grapes for good luck, chugged the champagne and ran around giving everyone and their mother a kiss on the cheek and a "Feliz Año Nuevo." Unfortunately, I didn´t receive the wise advice from our Medical Officer until today. However, next year I am definitely doing the following:

3) If you want to travel more next year, you have to run around your block with a travel bag (a maleta). If you travel with a mochila, you can do it with that (I think). Here in Lima people do that a lot, and you see at midnight many people running around the block with maletas de viaje. Its fun and funny. (I have done it many times).

4)Very Very Important. In Peru, the lucky New Year color is YELLOW. So you have to wear something yellow. Here in Lima people use a yellow underwear. You cant buy your own underwear, someone else has to buy it for you or it wont work.

He later sent this out in response to a few e-mails he received from volunteers:

You have to get a NEW YELLOW UNDERWEAR. Wearing the same underwear for a few days until it gets yellow DOESN'T WORK. Go get a new one.

Anyhow, next, I cursed myself out for forgetting my fully charged camera battery charging in my room so I missed some great photo ops of all the firecrackers we set off and this spinning firecracker thing. Following tradition, there were also many dummies representing the Year 2005 burning in the streets. As you can imagine, I think I have cancer now after inhaling all those carcinogens from the burning plastic. It was a pretty cool sight, and I´ll download photos to flickr soon. For some reason, I´m not getting this blog to upload photos.

To my dismay, my family then left the party. To my delight, we went home to eat turkey, hot chocolate and panetón. As we sat watching an operatic performance on TV I severely missed not watching the ball drop in NYC, hearing Aude Lang Sang and counting down to midnight. Later, we collected the extended family and headed to the huge party. I danced a lot, as the family likes to point out these days. However, the dancing is super tame. You´re apparently not supposed to touch the other person after a few seconds into dancing and then only our feet and arms move, really. We called it a night at 4:45AM.

The next day we ate more panetón for breakfast and at lunch we started drinking again. Then the 70+ year-old man who boards at our house said he wanted to dance with the “Señorita,” by which he meant me. So we moved everyone upstairs and 1.5 hrs later, people started dancing finally with more family members arriving. So that party went until 9:30PM.

And then the next day I went to a small birthday party of a family member. It started with about 11 people sitting around the table listening to my host dad lecture the birthday boy (who turned 18, I think) about the importance of studying to find a decent job. “Or else you´re going to be a fisherman, like me,” he said ridiculing his life´s work. He then proceeded to talk about how hard it is to be a fisherman and how it doesn´t bring in enough dough to satisfactorily raise a family. Well, happy birthday, birthday boy. At least I got to eat the cake this time.

Now it´s back to work. 6 more days until the Festival!!! Wish me luck, I need it.