When
Becca told people in the states before her departure about her impending
adventure, the topic of the holidays always seemed to come up. The holidays are
going to be really hard. When she met people in Cruz del Medano and the
surrounding area, the topic came up again. You’re here for two years, but are
you spending Christmas here? What about your family?
For
as long as she could remember, Christmas had been Becca’s favorite holiday.
Surrendering to her least favorites like Thanksgiving and even to the more
beloved like Fourth of July and President’s Day, even to her own birthday,
Christmas was in short, the bomb. When she was a little kid, she adored the
candle-light singing at church on Christmas eve, spending time with her family,
opening presents, and sitting around all day on Christmas doing a whole lot of
nothing. In high school, every day from December first to the end of school,
she wrote out cheerful notes to her closest friends and included little treats
and presents. In college, she braved the icy mountain passes year after year to
make it home for singing, present, and more than anything else, her family. But
this year, Christmas was very different.
Noche
Buena (Christmas Eve), which was always the more celebrated of the two days in
her family, started decently. She woke up feeling well for the first time in a
week, at least well enough to shower. Of course then she got stung by a bee.
Luckily after that came breakfast with her
host family and helping to make the final Paneton.* As the afternoon
wore in she became increasingly less sure of the day’s plan and purpose and got
different answers from everyone. But evening she returned to her home to find
her family milling in and out of the kitchen to the front of the house. Making
a crucial error in stopping where some of them had crowded by the oven, she
found the chanchito* she thought was missing from the back yard, though she
didn’t at first recognize it without fur or skin...
The
evening brought a lot of...well, waiting around and confusion. Around eight
they had a small dinner, around nine Becca’s sister, Sandra, and her dad fell
asleep, around ten, she found herself in the living room watching the news
while her family either slept or ran around with cousin. At eleven, her sister
Mireli and her cousins brought her to a misa (mass) in the church by the park.
The service was a little confusing but she was happy to spend time with her
family and see a lot of her friends from the community.
After
the mass they walked home and found a house of sleeping family members, which
they promptly woke up because it was officially midnight and la navidad!
Confusion struck again as Mireli grabbed three baby figurines and led Becca
into the front room to be the Madrina. She quickly learned that this meant
placing each baby on each level of the nativity scene. Her father prayed
afterward, dedicating the moment to their newest family member and they all
clapped.
Fifteen
minutes later they had moved the table outside near the giant Christmas tree,
filled it with food, and taken their places around it. The ate, the talked,
they slept sitting upright at the table, Becca had her first taste of jonki*
and then the kids (Becca included) went inside to take a few pictures. By three
AM, Becca was relieved to hear Mireli say that she was going to bed and so was
their mom, Becca took herself off to slumber as well.
Sitting
in her bed the next morning at six, listening to the silent house around her,
she couldn’t help but feel like something was entirely off. Usually by six, she
was feeling guilty about being in bed while her mom cooked downstairs and her
dad started making the bread. This guilt typically roused her by 6:30 (7 on a
rough morning) but on Christmas Day, everyone slept until 9. They had a
breakfast that included her mom downing another shot of jonki, which she
lovingly rose in toast to Becca.
The
rest of the day was quiet, so quiet that Becca had to ask more than once what
they were going to do today. Each time the reply was the same: it’s Christmas.
In the afternoon she watched 17 Again with her sisters and sitemate, overjoyed
that they found it funny and commented on just how guapo they think Zac Efron
is. Evening brought dinner and a visit to a friend’s house and by 10 Becca
found herself climbing the stairs up to bed once more, her first Peruvian
Navidad behind her.
*See: Peruvian fruit cake, except everyone loves
it...
*Baby pig
*Possibly some form of grain alcohol
No comments:
Post a Comment