(Day 16) The Painted Lady

“I know I sound like a broken record,” Dr. Rick said, after the last of us quieted down at breakfast, “but it’s going to be tough going finding work this week, at least until the permission comes through from Lima.” Some not-so-unhappy smiles flitted around the room. “We do,” said John, rocking on his heels a bit, “have an optional activity for the day. As you are no doubt too-aware,” and here he looked ruefully out at the street, “Festivál has been upon us. Every year, today, the Virgin of Carmen, which is to say a statue, is brought about the square after Mass. The procession will take the afternoon, and will cut through several carpets.”

As we looked about, puzzled, Dr. Rick continued. “The carpets are made of dyed sawdust, and are made, each year, by town… oh, I don’t know… entities. This year,” and he gave us a fake perky look, “we’ve been invited to share the honor with the INC and the team up at the monument… and make one of our own. So,” he said, rubbing his hands together with a dry sound, “if you are artistically inclined, or otherwise bored, Ivan asks that you meet outside at eight-thirty. Otherwise,” he said, popping up on his heels, “the day is yours.”

A murmur ran through the room as we discussed what we should do. No doubt, without work, the day would be a little boring. It would be better, we decided, to help out where we could. At the very least we’d get some great pictures of the procession.

We spilled out into the plaza after breakfast, chatting in a huge clot. Slowly, we moved towards a crew of workers, surrounded by white buckets and a pile of sage-green pine needles. As we arrived, piecemeal, Ivan and the others put us to work. Peruvian students stretched string tight in a rectangle as Ronald dashed down the line, chalk rasping at the stone. Annika and Ivan sketched a dove in his notebook, embellishing with a Chavín symbol, the initials “I.N.C,” and a great Stanford ‘S.’ The rest of us rolled up our sleeves, and under rapid-fire Spanish instruction, mixed clay pigments into buckets of wet sawdust. Gloved in latex, we were soon stained a rainbow, and had pails and pails of richly colored scarlets, turquoises, and yellows. Slowly, as Chino and Alicho filled in the dove and letters, a form began to take shape on the plaza floor. The rising sun sliced the forming dove’s head in half as the too-ready dusters looked on.

As soon as the last artists cleared the chalk square, we dove on it, sawdust clenched in our hands. With careful bordering and gloved tending, we tossed pile after pile of sawdust between white dividers, smoothing ruffles in slow, even sweeps. As the sun strengthened, the colors really began to pop, too-bright against the dull gray flagstone. As people grew tired or hungry, they spun in and out, snapping off gloves with loud kapops.

As we crouched and cast, the plaza was by no means quiet. Native dancers in heavy headdresses and mirror-spangled outfits whirled in the plaza’s center, dervishing to the heavy rattling beat of two drums. A crowd began to gather between them and us, and it was not unusual for one of us to skive off for a bit to watch a dance or two, or for a dancer, panting underneath his upturned mask, to watch us work from the plaza steps.



The last color to be added was the white, a gypsum powder that had to be sprinkled by the last crouching dusters through a small plastic funnel. Lovingly, they filled in the dove, casting more handfuls over the full chest to complete the shape. As the last crew drew away, the frame was complete – a portrait of a rising sun behind a pinioned dove, high above the symbols of all three teams. Dutifully, we filed in behind our creation, ready for a group photo just as the square was fully lit.

Finished, we were free to watch Chavín shake itself into a tizzy. Bewitched by the spectacle of the dancers and the building parade, scores of Chavinos stood on benches and fenceposts to watch, agape. Clergy in immaculate white and red began chanting at the stoop of the church, while solemn, basset-faced men in black frocks filed into the nave. By lunchtime, a press of people, visible only as tan faces in white colored and floral hats, surged at the doors of the church.

With a cheer like a roar, the crowd suddenly backed up, forming a respectful semi-circle at the church steps. Out of the shadows, bumping slightly on the shoulders of the gloomy-faced men, came the litter of the Virgen del Carmen, a white-gowned figure of plaster. A pudgy man in a black tuxedo, backpedaling in front of the pallbearers, wheezed to a stop, and rang a small silver bell on the Virgin’s litter. The bearers shuffled to a stop, and the crowd fell silent. A very wrinkled bishop stood in front of her, genuflected, blessed the crowd, and then, in Spanish rich with rolling “rrrrrrs,” embarked on a passage of Scripture. After quite a bit, more men in funny clerical hat came forth, and repeating things that Jesus said, and the crowd cheered for that, too.

With another ring of the silver bell, the bearers shuffled on to the next corner, sweat beading furiously on their foreheads. A circle of police kept the villagers at bay as they reached, faces enraptured, towards the Virgin. The procession was a powerful current, sweeping clounter-clockwise around the square in slow, powerful steps. At every corner, the crowd obliterated a sawdust carpet, starting first with the clergy, followed by the Virgin’s village-wide entourage. After we watched the slow march through the Stanford ‘S,’ we left the hubbub for the hostal’s courtyard, content to watch the crucifix pass through the windows.

*

By the afternoon, the crowds had dispersed, well-satisfied as to the Virgin’s renewed favor. We made ready to enjoy that perennial pleasure of the overseas American – cheap shopping. Armed with our favorite Spanish bargaining phrases, we changed our money into small bills (the better to seem poor) and hit the bazaar that had burst into being down the main street into town. For my part, I put in my contacts, took off any brand-name clothes, and tried to walk alone. I found out some while ago that if I do this, I’m addressed first as a Peruvian. Also, the prices are lower.

The market was a narrow alley of tarp-shaded carpets, over which, in folding chairs, wizened Peruvians fanned themselves and watched the crowd hawkishly. When we walked together, we must have looked so helpless. In any case, the calls came thick and fast. “Blanketes! Chollos! Miren, gringos! Amigo!...” The calls came thick and fast. Music, pumped over cheap radios, filled the space between the entreaties, and men with boomboxes often lunged out of the shifting light to twirl necklaces, watches, rings... anything that could be a reasonable copy of more luxe items.

Eager to begin the gift-buying run, I kept a weather eye peeled for things for the family (and, I suppose, friends.) Still, the market was mostly for the Chavinos, and featured less authentic alpaca wall-hangings than absurdly cheap kitchen knives (One sole!? $.40 cents!?). I eventually ended up circling a plump man perched on the back of his truck, in which were piles and piles of blankets. Double-wide and llama-fied, they looked perfect for a dorm room. After some protracted arguments about what would be a proper blanket price, we agreed on thirty-five soles… or, maybe, thirteen dollars. Considering I could have hid my hometown in its wooly folds, I’m rather sure I made out like a bandit.

*

After our first market expedition (we agree there will be more before the Festivál is out), we wended our way lazily to our rooms, content, mostly, to sponge up the flavor of excited Chavín. In place of the sleepy square of most Wednesdays, the plaza was filled with hill people, milling with the vendors of far-off Huaráz. A few sights: a man with a monkey on a chain, clapping a singing to its poor dance; a parade of men in sheep suits; a dog licking at the underside of a porta-potti; fireworks making their own clouds in the azure sky; and, quite literally, the oldest woman I have ever seen, who needed three men to help her crutch to the steps of the church. From the balcony of the hotel, Señora leaned on the railing, tapping her feet lightly to the drumbeats.