Claire takes on the world….

It’s theatre season here in Lima, Peru. The ‘Festival Internationales de Teatro’ is underway and I finally know what’s going on! The drama thing I’ve being talking about is a festival with drama groups from different parts of South America and New Zealand performing all over North Lima. One of their stops on the tour is Casa Del Ninos. Which for us means 5 days of performances we don’t understand!
The first of many went on stage in the Casa on Thursday. It was one of the Argentinean entrants called something along the lines of ‘Bruke con problema’. It was about a witch with a problem. The witch must have been good because at one stage I had 4 little girls clinging to me in fear. She held the kids’ attention for almost an hour and even I was entertained with her monologue (with a cameo from Kermit the Frog). She got some of the children up at one stage and I think it was a pulling faces competition, and I also think Cielo, one of the ones I live with, won. She danced around her cauldron and pulled a phone out of it at one stage. To finish she performed what could have been an Argentinean dance with two pieces of cloth. I think Mike got photos; I’ll get them off him when I get a chance.
On Tuesday Michael and I were strolling through the town and passed a cart with different types of brown food. He jokingly said, “Would you ever eat one of those?” And we both had a little laugh at about the mere thought of it. Two days later, we were standing at one of these carts with the nice lady we work for, Elsa, buying us lots of little treats. Even in Ireland I’m not an adventurous eater. Up until I reached 21 my mom had to liquidize spaghetti bolognese so I wouldn’t see that there were vegetables in there!
First I was handed a brown greasy ball with some pink sauce dripping off it. While I was still examining that, I was given an orange square. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with either of them but Michael seemed to be enjoying his. We strolled on down the road and I nibbled at the grease ball. It was actually quite good. I ate most of it. It was doughy and soft. I was more interested in the orange square. I didn’t want to think how they had got the colour so bright. Everyone else had finished theirs when I was still contemplating what to do. I could have slipped it in my pocket and Elsa probably wouldn’t have noticed. But I decided to go for it. I took a bit off and threw it in, like I would do to a tablet. It was like a shortcake. And a damn tasty one at that. I was still a bit ‘weirded-out’ that it came from a cart. I’ve had it beaten into me from a young age that chip vans are bad, and this was like a very mini one. But I may just start frequenting that cart (Update: it is now three days later and I am desperately looking for another cart. I need more cake!).

While I was making some headway on the shortcake we got a taxi into the centre of Lima. We were on our way to the Brazilian Embassy to see one of their entrants in the festival. With us were Elsa, the cake buyer and Betty, the Child Protection Officer who said we can go with her to her next child protection meeting in the city. I have to perfect my Spanish before then. It took us an hour to get to the embassy, but I don’t think we’re an hour outside of Lima. I just think the embassy is very far into the centre. The centre of Lima is all flashy signs and neon lights. You’d never think you were in a developing country. Not a hint of the poverty we saw where we were in the Miraflores area. We arrived almost an hour late, but still got 20 minutes of the performance. As good as it was 20 minutes is enough of anything I don’t understand. The singing and dancing was fun and Michael thinks he maybe got what was going on. Someone got married twice apparently. Afterwards there was a cheese and wine reception, but I swiftly swapped my wine for an Inca Cola after tasting it. Judging by Betty’s reaction the actor guy we met must be a pretty big deal here. I sort of went with the flow and got photos with the people everyone else was getting photos with. I acted as starstruck as I felt I should. I still don’t like that when I talk to people in Spanish they laugh say ‘Where are you from’. I must work on my accent. We met two TV stars and lots of actors from theatre groups. I was sitting next to an elderly Peruvian woman for a bit of it. We made small talk and I attempted to say Peru is very beautiful. Pretty sure I ended up telling her she is very beautiful! Had to throw in a swift ‘No speako Espanol!’
We were particularly joyful that evening after our encounter with the New Zealand group. It was the first time in a week we’d had an easy conversation. They were just as happy to see us. They’re doing a physical drama, with acrobatics and stuff, but no talking. They were due to perform in the Casa on Saturday but had to cancel when half of their crew fell ill. These guys travel all over the world doing their thing, and every time they find a festival like this to perform at they get an all expenses paid couple of weeks there. I’m in the wrong job here!
We heard of a beach party and thought we were on for a crazy night when we got on a multi coloured bus to an “Irelanda, Irelanda” chant.
All the actors looked like they were heading off partying into the wee hours of the morning. But someone mentioned that the bus was just taking them home and after confirming this with the driver we got off the bus again to a “Belfast, Belfast” chant. It seems to be the only place in Ireland anyone’s heard of.
Over the weekend we saw more theatrical thrillers. Some seemed aimed at the under 5s but I still clapped along so as not to offend the locals. Saturday night seemed to be the climax of the festival for the Casa Del. Three shows were put on in what I think is the town square. It’s a basketball court during the day but after we whipped out our brooms and set up the lights and speakers it was a very cosy outdoor auditorium. It seemed the entire village was out to see the performances, they didn’t have much choice really. Like it or not they were going to hear us so they might as well have come out and watched too. The massive stone seating area was packed almost to capacity. Up first was an hour long mime by three female clowns. Every now and then they’d run into the crowd and the terrified children would run up to the back to the last row of seats. That was about the height of the entertainment. The second act was a Venezuelan musician and his two belly dancers. It takes guts to get up in front of a gang of teenage guys in the middle of winter and belly dance. Total respect to those ladies. Lastly was the Brazilian act we’d seen in the embassy a couple of nights previous. It was better the second time, had a slightly better idea what was going on.
Michael didn’t make it to the show so for the hour we had to wait for the performers to arrive (No one seems to know where this place is) I was surrounded by kids from the Casa asking me what various words meant in English. I didn’t have my dictionary with me and just as I was planning my escape I met Kelly, a woman who works with me but who I’d previously not had a chance to speak to. I almost cried when I realized she studies English! Kelly and I will now be best friends, I can just sense it. I also met the sister of another woman I work with who also studies English. We’ve arranged to meet up soon and teach each other our respective languages. They explained to me how in Peru a lot of people have to have full time jobs and study at night because education is so expensive, and a lot of them have to have two jobs. Yikes.
The most entertaining person I met throughout the entire festival was the aptly named toddler Flabia, Kelly’s niece. Flabia knows all the colours, family words (mother, father etc.) and some random words in English. Not bad for a two year old! I´d have taken her as my personal translater had her mother not been keeping such a keen eye on her! Flabia was highly entertaining all evening and even fetched us some food at one stage. She sat on the cold stone steps for four hours watching the shows and at the end proved how amazing polite these children are when she said goodbye. At this stage it was 10pm and we’d been there since 5.30. She was crying because she was cold and hungry. Her mother told her to go say goodbye to me. She toddled up and in between sobs gave me a kiss on the cheek. I was expecting a grumpy wave. I should have got a photo of her but there’s just no non-creepy way to photograph kids you don’t really know. Hopefully we’ll meet again.
It was a great night and the first time I really felt like I could someday feel at home here. Up to then I wasn’t sure if I’d even return, which is no reflection on the people who couldn’t be nicer if I paid them. But we live in what I think is a shanty town with not much chance to get out. But now after getting to know some of the people I don’t want to get out and go back to the rich side of Lima. The rich poor contrast is crazy here and for now I’m happy in 3 de Mayo.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2007 at 2:45 am and is filed under 2 - Peru. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.