Horas Locas

Joshy, Me, Flor, and Juanita

Lately I’ve been quite the social butterfly here in Poroto, and after a weekend full of graduation bailes and a wedding my dancing legs are ready for a break. Each graduating class hosts a “baile de la promoción,” which is a huge party to celebrate the culmination of their years in high school. The baile is a sort of glorified prom with families and friends, speeches, dinner, and dancing until 6am. On Saturday morning I accompanied my host sister, Joshy, and her friend, Flor, to Trujillo to pick up her dress and primp for the big event. All graduation bailes have coordinated theme colors, so for the Virgen del Carmen dance each girl wore a fuscia dress adorned with varying degrees of sparkles, ruffles, and rhinestones. As per usual, we were running behind schedule with the day’s activities and when 6:00 rolled around Flor was still in the middle of getting her hair done. They’ve been doing work on the main road for months, so the typical hour long trip back from Trujillo can take up to 2 hours. The baile was scheduled to begin at 7pm, so we luckily found a friend with a taxi to take us back to Poroto. The trip felt more like a safari than a taxi ride, as we were driven on rocky roads, across a small river, and through surrounding fields in order to avoid construction and make it back quickly.

The graduates were introduced as they walked pair by pair through the door and along the red carpet. A series of speeches and individual dances followed the grand entrance, where the professors, students, and the madrino and padrino were honored. Madrinos and padrinos, which are essentially godparents with more extensive financial responsibility, are incredibly important in Peruvian culture. Not only does each Peruvian child receive padrinos, but padrinos are also selected for major celebrations and milestones (as well as not-so-major events). The night continued with dinner, dancing, the infamous hora loca, a live band, and more. At one point in the night I was selected to sit in the middle of the entire dance floor and be personally serenaded by the mariachi band, which was sufficiently embarrassing. The nights festivities lasted until after 5am, and this was only the beginning of the weekend. My host family at Joshy's promocion baile- me, Sr. Maximo, Joshy, Sra Pasquala, Max

The following day I was invited to a wedding with my host family. I was excited to see a Peruvian wedding and realized I hadn’t been to an American wedding in several years. The wedding was held in a beautiful location in Poroto, with perfect weather and lovely scenery. Many of the traditions are similar; bridesmaids, flower girls, throwing the bouquet, etc. The wedding was a lot of fun, and I even got a picture with the bride and groom.

Immediately following the wedding I went to the promocion baile for the other graduating class, which was similar to the previous nights activities. I sat at a table with teachers who had also attended last night’s baile and we were all struggling to stay awake. Before I could drift off to a deep sleep in my plate of pollo I was pulled onto the dance floor by the clown on stilts and managed to summon enough energy for la hora loca.