There were a few new faces in the dining room. We stole glances at them over our bread and tea, talking in hushed voices about who they might be. With a great clap of his hands and a meaningful glance around the room, Dr. Rick stood up. “You might have noticed a few new people on the team today,” he began, looking mostly at us. “They’re the students from Peru and the last couple people from Stanford. Yeah, actually, if we could have everyone just go around and say their names, we can get started.”
The Peruvians rattled off names too quick for me to catch, though I did count – there were five of them. As the Stanford contingent rehashed its names, a few new ones slipped in – Megan and Stephanie (who is, actually, Jessie Liu in disguise), both graduate students, and one more undergraduate – Beth.
Dr. Rick continued, “and, as we’re about split half-and-half on the project language-wise, we’re going to be doing announcements in both Spanish and English, or alternating.” He turned to the Peruvians and translated quickly, head cocked as he wiggled into Spanish, “Porque nuestro proyecto está mezclado con respeta a las idiomas, vamos a dirigir en ingles y el castellano. ¿Vale?” The Peruvians nodded, and he turned to us. “Alright?” he said, cheerily.
We became temporary experts in everything. Our fortnight here has actually packed in a lot of knowledge about the site, lithics, and theodoliting, so the Peruvian crew needed to be brought up to speed, and fast. Dr. Rick held a Spanish lecture in the lab on lithics, and it was really amusing to watch the Peruvian students scrutinize us as we sipped our tea and tossed stone flakes onto scales.
It was, to say the least, a day of extreme slackery. We couldn’t move forward without Dr. Rick, and he couldn’t go anywhere until the Peruvians got the gist of transverse ridges and bulbs of percussion. Bodie, Aimee, and I basically ate crackers and critically listened to Bodie’s carefully crafted playlist, humming through our tea when we finally heard one we liked.
After lunch, we pretty much did nothing again. Dr. Rick continued to pontificate on how to catalogue pebbles, and we continued to almost work. As the day wound to a close, firecrackers began going off with regularity and the street began to hum with the steps of thousands of people. Festivál was beginning in earnest, and by the time we broke for dinner, the air was thick with the clinking of thousands of beer crates being heaved out of the magical municipal beer truck.
Robert and I resolved to test the waters, and so strode forth after dinner, ready for a good time. The plaza was packed with thousands of shadowy tan people, who stood and shifted, looking up at several bombs. Bombs is a pretty accurate characterization – Chavinos had built a gargantuan wooden structure, not unlike a church steeple, out of bamboo, and festooned it with rockets, firecrackers, fireworks, and explosives on strings and sticks. At the stroke of midnight, to honor Jesus’s mother’s reincarnation’s canonization (or something like that) it was all going to go up in light and smoke and lost fingers.
With an eye to joining the hundreds of stumbling revelers, Robert and I sought out one of those clinking red crate stands. A gap-toothed lady promised us a Cristal cerveza for a sole, and we bit. Bad choice. For reasons I will never understand, in Peru, during a Festivál, the vendor has jurisdiction over the bottle. That is to say that you may have the beer, but you have to return the bottle so they can collect the recycling fee.
Accordingly, the woman screamed over the din that we had to drink the beer in front of her, and return the bottle. I turned to Robert, not sure I understood her, “did she just tell us to down the beer and give the bottle back?” I asked. “I… Yeah I think she did,” he answered. Starting to understand, we promised we would be back with her bottles, and went to join our friends in the crowd. The point wasn’t to get drunk, so we just sipped at it, pulling faces at the taste. The lady chased after us, and began to hector us in Spanish, telling us we couldn’t leave her sight with her bottles. Robert began to argue, reminding her that she sold us the beer – as we used to say in the States – part and parcel.
After more shouted promises (where would be possibly go!?), we foisted her off and turned to watch the fireworks display. At the stroke of midnight, men with glowing sticks ran around the base, poking dangling strings and setting them aflame. Soon the bamboo of the structure let out sharp reports as the fuses inside lit others of their kind. Bright showers of hot metal poured from all sides, scarring the plaza scarce feet from the crowd. Catherine wheels screamed to life on strings, and firecrackers boomed incessantly overhead.
Everything was synchronized in a marvel of rural engineering, producing a light show that ran for at least fifteen minutes. Genuine fireworks exploded overhead in scintillating eruptions of red and yellow, and the plaza was thick with the smell of cordite and smoke. Cheers ran, all around, as people clapped for the climax, an unfurled banner of the Virgin of Carmen. Backlit by the dazzling shower of sparks, the Virgin looked calmly out at her reverent revelers.
We retired to the room to await another fireworks display, gathering our cameras and laughing. Suddenly, before we could return, a knock sounded insistently at the door. The crazy lady from the plaza was there at the doorstep, demanding her bottle back. We still hadn’t finished it – I mentioned we aren’t really drinkers – but were actually shocked she had the nerve to walk into our hotel and knock until she found us. “Look,” Robert told her “no hemos acabado su cerveza, pero prometimos, como prometíamos, que vamos a regresar,” telling her off in rather stern Spanish. She kept squawking on the doorstep, so we just gave her the half beer.
Irritated, but still ready to see the fireworks, we turned out again for the show. Explosions rang out satisfyingly, but it was still bitterly cold, so we eventually gave up the ghost and headed back, this time free of quasi-obligations to crazy shopkeepers
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