San Pedro y San Pablo

Monday was the feastday of Saints Peter and Paul. That's a big deal here, because St. Peter is the patron saint of Andahuaylillas. Latin America is big on the saints, so Andahuaylillas did it up big for Saint Peter and Saint Paul. There were dances, a procession of all the saints in the parish (there's about 60), music, lots of food, and games. It was basically a small town fair. Follow the jump, cuz there's lots of pictures.

First of all, we had the day off (this month it looks like we'll be missing Mondays instead of Fridays). But it wasn't a relaxing day off, it was a busy one. We, the volunteers, danced with the parish staff in a dance called sacra. It's pronounced sah-chra, but with the ch sound of challah bread. It means devils or demons. It was one of many traditional dances that were performed on Monday. Another dance, ccapac negras, is choreographed around the idea of what would happen if black slaves had been free and rich. My favorite dance, performed by the 4^th years at the high school (equivalent of 10^th graders), satirizes the hacendados (the owners of the large estates). The dancers ball up cloth under their shirts to look fat and dance with beers that they shake up and spray all over the audience (the 4^th year students used sodas instead of beers).

We danced with colorful costumes, masks, and horns. Before the dancing was the procession of the saints. I had to help carry Jesus Toma el Templo (Jesus Takes the Temple) and let me tell you that it was heavy. Carrying that through the streets was pretty tiring. I was relieved to arrive back at the plaza and put the image of Jesus down.

Me (left) and Vic (right)

Fran, Theresa, Sra. Rosario, and Victoria

One of my 5th grade students dressed up for his dance.

One of my 3rd graders with one of the dancers

Rina, the woman in charge of the Ludoteca (parish play room)

Processing up the streets

This statue is really heavy

One of Theresa's students

San Pedro coming into the plaza 

The sacras up in the bell tower

All the saints lined up in the plaza

Erin Brown, sacra

This is our dance!

Ccapacc Negra dance

The whole group of dancers from the parish

One of my second graders

*The sad coda to the day was that Peru lost to Chile in the Copa del las Americas. The good news is that Peru won third place overall.