Party On

by Alisha

The party is full on in our site this week. Chota's "international fiesta" San Juan Bautisita has a parade, concerts, bullfights, fireworks, beauty pagents, and competitions in horse riding, dance, and moto-cross. Artisans and food vendors line the streets and with thousands of people coming to the fiesta each year, the new plaza is packed with people every night. It is a lot to take in.

My favorite event thus far was the Marinera dance competition even though I didn't make it to the end of the competition. Scheduled to start at 3:00pm, the competition started at 4:30pm. The first round ended at 6:30pm. This left semi-finals and finals to be completed and we made our exit at this point. I'm much more patient than I was when I first arrived in Peru, but the length of events and meetings can still be a shock to my system.


Two days of the fiesta are spent at San Juan pampa (field). A variety of competitions are held through these two days and literally thousands of people (I've heard between 50,000 to 80,000 people) stake out a spot on the field or on the surronding hillsides and sit and sit and sit, all day long. It was fun seeing the girls from surrounding comunities compete to be the "Flower of Chota." Again, my ability to last a full day let alone two days waned.

Here comes the international part of the fiesta. Bullfighters from Spain, Mexico, Columbia, and Peru compete for three days killing a total of 18 bulls. My first and possibly my last bullfighting experience was yesterday. I am somewhat torn on bullfighting. In one respect, I can understand why it is considered an artform full of tradition and spectacle. That being said, it was really brutal. One part of the fight includes a picador (lancer) who comes out on horseback to stab the bull with a large lance. This was in and of itself disturbing along with the killing of the bulls of course, but one of the bulls also took down the horse and the horseman. Both escaped injury, but it was horrifying to watch. More horrifying was when the matador from Mexico was gored, twice. According to news reports he will recover after undergoing surgury.


The party continues on through the weekend and while it is really an impressive event. It is hard not to keep thinking about the amount of money spent this week by the local government. While some parts of the fiesta are sponsered by private companies, the majority of the funding comes from the local government's budget. In addition, after 9 months of work and an obscene amount of money, our new plaza is now complete. It looks generally like the old plaza and its design included the addition of four traffic lights. It is hard to believe that the first traffic lights in town arrived before potable water or the electrification of surrounding communities.