A Gold Star

Well folks, I apologize. I have been very lax in keeping you up to date. I mean, the last post was only a few sentences long and had a video of the last year – which if you’ve been keeping up, you already knew about. So I hope to make it up to you with this one. And I know I’m writing about this at the end of April but I want to take us back to March.

So. As you know, I like to tell you what I’ve been up to while at the same time shedding some light on Peruvian customs. And this happenstance in March is no different. One happy Saturday in March, the municipality threw a party. I know, I know. Another party? And the answer is: yes. But this party is different. It’s not to celebrate some National holiday or the anniversary of the town or school. This time, it was to celebrate the works the municipality had completed in the last year. It was an inauguration party! So that Saturday, we visited the sites of all the works and inaugurated them.

At each site, the authorities gave little speeches and then selected community members to be the “padrinos” of the place. Literally, padrinos means godfathers. In this case, it’s more like sponsors. They give little speeches, give a little toast and then break a bottle of champagne with a hammer. After the christening, there is clapping and dancing and a little more celebrating. And then, we moved on to the next site. After the last site, the municipality treated everyone in attendance to a Pachamanca lunch. And if you’ll recall, pachamanca (meat, potatoes, fava beans, sweet potato and humitas) is delicious.

Pretty fun, right? But what projects were we inaugurating? We started with a little trip up the hill to the new trash management complex. This is a really great facility. The landfill is up with all the technology – geo-membrane and everything. There are composting beds and recycling storage. There is a tree nursery greenhouse and a vegetable garden. Quiñual trees border the fence and will soon be providing a lovely decoration. I couldn’t have been more proud of the municipality for getting this project up and running and finished. I was somewhat upset at the municipality for not involving me in the project at all since that definitely falls under my project goals. But, at the same time it’s very good because it means that they are succeeding without my outside help.

Then we loaded back in to the cars and made our way to the new bakery. Let me say that again: bakery! So I don’t think I’ve made mention of this yet but the bread situation in Laraos is pretty sad. Our break gets trucked in from Tomas (about an hour’s drive away) every 15 days. This means that the bread I buy in the stores in Laraos is anywhere between 1 and 15 days old. So, it’s not the most delicious of breads. But now we have a new bakery! And a new bakery means fresh bread! And the day of its inauguration, there were free samples for all and they were delicious.

Unfortunately, the bakery is still waiting to be up and running as a business but I’m sure soon enough, there will be bread coming out daily. And my hope is to be able to try some of my own recipes in the nice bakery oven. Fingers crossed.

We then walked over to the new hotel. The hotel was an abandoned project from the previous mayor when I first got to Laraos. You have to hand it to the new mayor for taking up this project and taking it to its completion. The hotel is beautiful. Eight rooms, all with a grand view of the lake (during and just after rainy season), hot water and a television.  The hot water and television are a sought after commodity here, if you didn’t know. We were all taking in the rooms of the new hotel when one of the authorities asked me if I would like to be the madrina of the hotel. I accepted and then I and the padrino, Jonay, made our way to the front for the formalities of the ceremony. Jonay is a young Spanish guy who works for an NGO in one of our annexes. I thought it was pretty funny that the two foreigners of the town were chosen to be the padrinos of the hotel. But, it was also nice to be recognized and honored in such a way by the community I have been trying to “integrate with” since I first got here. We each gave our little speeches and then, each with a hand on the hammer, broke the bottle of champagne. Never having purposely broken a bottle of anything before, I was a little surprised at just how messy it actually was. Sticky champagne all over my arm and I plucked little bits of glass off of my co-padrino’s hand. Then the band struck up and I danced with the mayor until it was time to go to the next site.

The other works to be inaugurated were the second floor of the municipality building and the newly-installed sidewalks. And as I said, when all the formalities were over, there was Pachamanca for everyone! And the band struck up again and everyone sat around drinking and talking until night fell. I, of course, having lost my patience for the drinking customs of Peruvian parties, made my escape shortly after finishing my lunch.

I walked down later in the evening to see what was still going on. Nothing much had changed…except for the sky. Night had fallen and I marveled at the stars. As you may remember, the last several months have been rainy. This means – cloudy. This means, I haven’t seen the sky at night in a while. And, let me tell you folks, a clear night sky here is incredible. Think about it. What inhibits our viewing of the stars from our homes in the states? Well, the first thing is light pollution. There are just so many lights that the flood out the natural ones. Then, you’ve got the air pollution. There’s usually some amount of smog or general haze over our heads and blocking the stars. And then there’s our life pollution. Sometimes, we are just too busy to take a walk and look up. Luckily for me, living in a rural town at around 12000 meters above sea level and with lots of free time, I am free from all those pollutions and able to see the night sky clearly.

And it was a beautiful view. That night, I looked up and took in the immensity of the night sky, dotted with brilliant stars and was happy with the recognition I had received that day from my community. I may be one little dot in the grand scheme of things but that day I definitely felt like a star in my community.

 

Blessings.