Look what I done got myself into this time…

The whole family, Mamita and Papito included, gathered and started walking down the road toward the main town of Tiraque, where the festival was.  After a short while of walking, two cars pulled up and we all piled in for the ride.  In town, we all met up again and headed into Elvis’s godmother’s house, which was also a hopping chicheria, kind of like a bar, but the only thing on offer to drink is chicha.  We also ate chicharrón, a prepared pork product which was highly touted before heading out to the country.  (In curiosity, I just looked it up, and looks like we were eating pork skin fried in butter…anyway, it was pretty good.)

It was during this long chicha-imbibing session where I learned more about the tradition of drinking chicha.  First, you always offer the chicha to someone else…this is kind of like a toast.  In my case, it was a welcoming gesture…everyone was giving me chicha.  Second, to drink it: first, you say something like cheers, directly to someone, looking them in the eyes.  This is kind of like saying, in drinking this, I am drinking with you.  The word in Quechua is tumayqusun, which I botched every time, making everyone laugh…eventually, when I thought I had it, I realized I was saying “toma uno”, which is Spanish for “drink one”…no wonder everyone was laughing at me.  Finally, you spill a little on the floor before you drink and after you drink (the floor was nearly flooded in spots); this is to offer a bit to mother earth (Pachamama).  Finally, I was told by Elvis that you’re supposed to “down in one”, drink it all at once, fast; I found this very hard to do after a while because I had drank so much and was very full (remember my decreased appetite?)…the drink itself is very filling and I think was responsible for giving me lots of gas too.

Where’s the bathroom?  “Back there,” Elvis pointed toward the back, “but it’s pretty nasty.”  I don’t care…I gotta go.  Remember how I said I was peeing more than normal?  Well, with this massive intake of chicha, I was in trouble.  I went back and opened one of the doors.  Huh.  My first squat toilet.  Inside the door, the floor was all concrete, with a hole burrowed in and two platforms for your feet.  No toilet paper.  It was here that I learned how to use a squat toilet as a woman…if you have to pee, face the back; this avoids your pee from splashing out the bottom of the door, eliminating possible embarrassment.  I hope this helps at least one woman in the future.

Back at the table, more chicha.  Family friends were approaching the table, welcoming me and offering me chicha from their bucket.  Oh yeah, that’s the other thing…it’s served in buckets, and you dip this little shell thing (kind of like coconut 1/2 shells) in to drink.  Normally, it’s one bucket per table and everyone shares.  I met lots of people, the majority of them missing teeth (some or all), or with gold teeth.  Lots of people have gold teeth here…I haven’t seen that since Central America.

We went to the main square, waiting for the festival to start.  This is where I first realized there must be some alcohol content in the chicha…I was just slightly buzzed considering the amount I had drank, but I could feel it.  I had asked earlier if there was alcohol and someone told me no, that it was added.  Well, the corn fermentation process must put something in there, albeit a small amount.

In the square, there were a few people playing with water balloons and foam, but nowhere near the scale of the day before.  We sat on the curb for a while and waited for everything to start.  A family friend had some beans and offered me some; I tried just a few, just to try them, but I was really full.  After a while, I came to notice that Elvis and this guy were spitting out the skin of the beans…I hadn’t even noticed there was a skin.  Am I not supposed to eat that part?  “Did you?” they asked.  Yep.  Again, they laughed.

Soon enough, the festival started…it was on a much smaller scale than the day before (that was a city, this was a little town).  Small groups paraded in.  Some were decorated in balloons and crepe paper, others wore masks, and others (men) wore the female traditional clothes.  Two by two, they competed against each other, playing instruments, singing songs and dancing.  Nearly every rhythm was the same and all the words were in Quechua.  After each sing-off (or shout-off…no one was really singing), the crowd voted by applause, and the winners would return later to compete again.  Of course, I understood nothing, though I could tell which was more entertaining to the crowd (usually by laughter), so based my voting as such.

We took the occasional squat toilet break back at the chichería (where I talked with some more locals, including Elvis’s godparents), and headed back to watch the festival.  Every once in a while a whole slew of water balloons would be launched at the crowd…little old ladies, babies, nobody was spared.

We met Elvis’s cousin and a friend and decided to head back to drink more chicha.  “Do you know how to drink?” the one guy asked me.  Yeah, I’ve drank a little in my life.  As we were walking back a short fat lady, all in her Bolivia-wear waved me over.  I walked over, unsure if I had already met her, and she gave me a big hug and a kiss.  I smiled and thanked her and walked back over to Elvis.  “Do I know her?” I asked him, trying to place her.  “No,” he assured me.  Wow!  Gosh, these people are so nice.

And perhaps I spoke too soon…just after this happened we witnessed a guy struggling with a bucket of water and a car door, trying to dump it on his friend in the car.  Well, the guy inside the car won, which left a disappointed man with a bucket of water facing the four of us.  I knew what would come next and started to run away.  Whoosh!  And the four of us were wet.  Of course, this was fun, and it still stands that these people are amazingly cordial and welcoming.

So we drank more chicha, and as Elvis’s friends left, his family returned to drink more chicha.  Mamita sat next to me and kept talking to me in Quechua…I would just laugh and then everyone would laugh.  She would talk slowly and loudly, pronouncing everything, as if that would help, but of course it didn’t.  The best I could do was repeat what she was saying, which also garnered some laughter.

It was quite festive inside – the festival had ended and some of the groups came in and were playing music.  Then, suddenly, it all stopped as a large group of people entered and sat down, filling up the place.  I asked why the music stopped.  “It’s a funeral” someone told me; “they are in mourning.”  As I looked around I noticed that the majority of the people were wearing black, and there were a few crying.  Some drank chicha and others just sat there, but they all did have one thing in common.  “Everyone’s looking at you,” Elvis told me.  Yeah, I definitely knew that.

As we left, I went to say goodbye to Elvis’s godmother for having us, but was stopped by a group of people who wanted to talk to me.  They offered me chicha and asked me where I was from.  Chicago.  United States.  “Ohhhhh” was the reaction I got.  I was pulled away but told them I would return in a minute.  I said my goodbyes and returned, to another offering of chicha.  Elvis’s mother was looking at me quite urgently to leave, so I said my thanks and goodbyes and left.  Apparently these were bad people, but I didn’t really catch why.

Elvis and I had plans to go dancing at the club in town, so we were saying our goodbyes.  All of a sudden Mamita grabbed me and pulled me down the street with her, screaming, “Vamos!  Vamos!  Come on!  Come on!”  The rest followed.  “Don’t you want to go dancing?” Elvis asked.  “Yeah, but…” I said, laughing the whole time (the chicha was really kicking in at this point.)  How could I just pull away from the grips of Mamita?  We walked a few blocks, the whole time Mamita screaming “Vamos!  Vamos!” in her little raspy voice.  We got to an area where a truck was waiting, presumably to take people back out of town.  Elvis explained to her that we were going dancing while Mamita held a tight grip on my arm.  She eventually, reluctantly let me go.  We said our goodbyes and headed to the club.

The club was pretty empty when we got there…we just sat on a bench for a while until more people came in.  The place was just a huge open space with concrete walls and floors (all the better for chicha to be spilled on).  There were basic tables and benches and a band was setting up on stage.  Eventually the band started and a few people started dancing, so we went up.  Soon more people followed, and everyone was dancing in a line, 2X2, facing each other…it didn’t matter which side guys or girls were on; it was just one big double line across the length of the room, everyone facing each other and dancing.

After the first set (which didn’t last all that long), we went and bought a bucket of chicha and grabbed a table with Elvis’s friend and his date.  This chicha was different (well, they were all a little different since they were home brewed).  But this stuff was different than all the rest…it was pink and they sprinkled coconut on top.  It made it a little sweeter, and maybe a little better tasting.  Without fail, I had to go to the bathroom nearly incessantly during the night.  Another hole in the ground, though without the little platforms for your feet.  Didn’t matter.  By this time I was a professional hole-in-the-ground pee-er.

So that was the rest of the night.  The place filled up pretty good, and we had sometimes 3 double lines spanning the room of people dancing.  I remained a popular chicha invitee (people still giving me lots of chicha), which of course kept me visiting the hole in the ground on a very regular basis.  By the end of the night (about 2am, I think), we were both exhausted, having woken up so early.  We eventually found a cab to take us back out to the mud house, which was expensive, though well worth it in lieu of an hour’s walk in the cold.

Tags: Bolivia, Tag Index

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