“I learned that people everywhere are basically the same and have similar goals that we do. They want health and happiness and the opportunity to provide for their families.” -Steve Kerr
Leaving my family and friends right before the holidays does not make for the easiest of transitions. However, I am learning to find the balance between sharing traditions from my own home and embracing customs here in my new home.
HALLOWEEN
At Halloween, cultural differences in terms of its significance and celebration were brought up; some of my companions were raised in homes that did not celebrate Halloween on the grounds of its origins as a satanic celebration while others remember it simply as a fun time to wear costumes and walk around the neighborhood. Our leaders opened a space for us to discuss how each of us felt about the day and, for those of us who do celebrate the holiday, to share a little about our traditions. While Halloween is not my favorite holiday, I do enjoy dressing up and eating candy (though I really enjoy those things at any time of year). I have fond memories of carving pumpkins with the entire neighborhood and this was something that I wanted to share with my new friends. Luckily, I found a pumpkin and a Colombian friend who wanted to join me. Simon never had celebrated Halloween before, but he really enjoyed carving a face into the gourd (which he called his son). We also baked some pumpkin seeds and used the pumpkin guts to make pumpkin coffee (which turned out a little gross, but still made me happy) and pumpkin muffins (which turned out really good!)
THANKSGIVING
At Thanksgiving, my Peruvian roommate, and I decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner. Rut was so excited to celebrate a new holiday and kept asking me what we do on Thanksgiving. The morning of, she asked me, “So do I give you a hug this morning to celebrate the day?” Of course, I said yes!
We had a pot luck Thanksgiving with the entire team. We had chicken (Hey! At least it’s a bird!), salad, hard boiled eggs, guacamole, bread, flan, and cinnamon rolls (in my home in Minnesota we always make cinnamon rolls on Thanksgiving morning). Everything was delicious and it was great to spend the evening in a community that we had just formed but already was incredibly tight-knit and caring. To end the evening, we went around the circle saying what we were grateful for and exchanging gifts (since we would be apart for Christmas).
CHRISTMAS
Christmas… I arrived in Libertad, the community that I will be living in for approximately the next two years, five days before Christmas. The community is fantastic and I am very happy to have been placed here. Of all the holidays, the Christmas celebration was the most different from the way that I celebrate at home.
One Christmas tradition in Libertad is eating chicharron. On Christmas Eve morning you can hear pigs being killed all over town and you can see pigs being butchered in the streets. I never have liked chicharrones, but let me tell you, after being invited to a breakfast of chicharron that morning and eating the freshest chicharron in my life (the pig was literally alive two hours before), I have decided that chicharron can be delicious. However, this Christmas I have eaten enough chicharron to last until next year.
Good and fresh for Christmas day!
Preparing...
Finished product: chicharron!
Looks kind of gross, tastes super good!
Libertad is a community known for their music and dancing. Especially Champeta. I think it is fantastic that the community has embraced this part of their culture and I like to learn about it and watch (because they are really good dancers). On Christmas Eve and Christmas day, the main event is the pico (or picof, a word that comes from “pick up,” as in “pick up truck,” because of the tradition of mounting speakers in the back of trucks and bringing their music to other parts of town). In Libertad, they brought two picos to town. One was set up directly in front of the house that I am staying at. We sat on the stoop and watched them set it up, test it out, and watched the people begin to arrive. I spent most of Christmas Eve watching the youth of Libertad walk back and forth between one pico and the other, depending on the song each DJ put on. I went to bed at midnight (the music was even louder in my room because the roof is metal, making the sound bounce around) and when I woke up on Christmas morning at 7:00 am the music was still playing. They finally took a rest around 8:00 am, only to start again at 4:00 pm. The plan was for the same thing to happen on Christmas night, but the beer delivery never came and so the pico by our house was shut down. One of my host sisters and I went to the other pico for a while and danced a little, but as I said, I prefer to watch them dance than to dance myself.
Pico all ready to party!
Pico at night... There's lot of people there, you just can't see them.
Another tradition that they have is to give all of the children new clothes to show off on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It was adorable to watch all of the kids arriving with their new outfits (shoes and all!). When I woke up on Christmas day, my youngest host sister ran up to me to show me her new doll: it was as big as her and could answer certain questions when asked. I was super entertained when the doll could not understand my sister because the Spanish here is so mumbled, letters are dropped, and words are invented. The doll would respond to her questions with, “Are you from Mars? I cannot understand you!” I couldn’t help laughing; at least I understand more Spanish than the doll! On the stoop that day, I observed many children walking the streets – boys pulling their new trucks with the new dolls of their sisters inside. I couldn’t help but notice every doll was white and blond.
New Clothes!
I wanted to share some of my Christmas traditions as well, so I decided to make Fried Cornmeal Mush, the breakfast that my dad makes every Christmas morning. It is really similar to some of the food here so I thought they might like it. Plus it gave me a chance to try my hand at cooking over an open flame like they do here!
Mixing... just guessing ingredient measurements. Dad, you'd hate it!
Cooking up the batter over an open flame.
Getting ready to fry it up...
Frying! (That other pot is coffee, FYI)
Finished product!
New Year is a repeat of Christmas. The pico comes back to town on the 30th and the nights of dancing begin. They dance on the 30th, the 31st, and the 1st. At midnight, everyone goes home and wishes their family and friends a happy new year with hugs and tears and then goes back out dancing. My host mom let me go out with two of the guys from the town leadership team making them promise to watch out for me and not let anyone near me. True to their word, they stood on either side of me like body guards all night. It was fun to get out and be a part of the festivities though!
Another New Year tradition is that everyone goes to the beach to swim on New Year’s Day. They even bring one of the picos to the beach for everyone to keep dancing! My eight year old sister and I swam and splashed about until I was nicely sun burnt and she got a cold. It was fun to see so many people at the beach. Normally, no one but the fishermen go into the ocean here.
One tradition that my family in Minnesota has for New Year is drawing pictures of all the important things that happened in the previous year. I decided to keep that tradition here and invited several people to join. No one accepted, but I did it anyway. It’s been a fantastic year filled with weddings, birthdays, road trips and vacations, a visit from a special Argentine, an MSW, a move across the Caribbean, and the start of a very important and special relationship. :)
Happy New Year everyone!
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