Dance Party

Wednesday night will be one of those nights I will never forget, I don't think I could of dreamt of a better experience in Salasaca..

Somehow Etty and I where invited to accompany Elizabeth (a young Salasacan teacher) to Chilcapamba, a local festival, in Salasaca.

Elizabeth took us to her house (a 3 room, cement block type with no kitchen or running water, she pays 20 a month for).  We had spoken very little to her at school but once inside her home she immediately opened up showing Etty and I pictures of her daughter (who currently lives in Mass. awaiting ear surgery-something she could not get in Ecuador). 

Elizabeth and an older lady then spent about an hour dressing us from top to bottom in traditional clothes.  These have been some of the most generous and kind people I have ever met.  We wore:

-Blouse with sparkles and embroidered flowers

-Black skirt tied tight with an embroidered wrap belt

-Red and purple shawl (purple for the region of Ecuador and red for something I couldn't understand)

-The shawl was fastened with a large broach

-and then two necklaces

Etty even got to wear the cool woven sandals but surprise, surprise Elizabeth didn't have size "bigfoot" for me.  We asked how much each piece cost and were shocked at how much the fabric alone cost.  After the three of us were dressed, we stopped at a few other houses for random items.  Everyone here seems to be someone's cousin.

(Etty was right I looked more like Heidi than any Salasacan)

We walked to the center of town where a few hundred were gathered around a court yard type place passing around food and drinks but mostly just watching the group of men in the center dancing and getting really really drunk. 

Once it got dark Elizabeth and her two cousins (?) took us by camieneta (hitch hike type ride in the back of truck) about two miles out of town down a steep dirt road to thereal festival.  There where over a thousand Salasacans and then there was Etty and I, it was pretty surreal.  A lot of staring, but still everyone was very friendly.  I don't really know how to explain the festivities.  It was centered around 20 young men dressed in white with sailor like hats, sunglasses, huge knives on horses getting more wasted then I have ever seen anyone in my entire life.  There was this ¨captain¨ dressed in pink with a cone type hat built of small mirrors, on his back were metal wings with bike reflectors attached.  They all drank, blew whistles and danced in the center while thousands just watched.  The strangest part to me was that no one, not one person in the crowded even tapped their foot to the music, they just watched.

Etty and I were just standing in a crowd of hundreds when the captain walked through the crowd and gestured for us to come to the center, we did (I felt we had no choice), as i walked through to the center I thought, was this all a plan and was I about to be a sacrificed? Instead we danced with the drunk captain and his white sailor friends until a break in the music where we could run back into the crowd.

A band played and more dancing and drinking while everyone just watched...and then this huge iron sculptor starting shooting fireworks into the crowd (stuff people lose eyes from).  After, we went into a church where baby Jesus was wearing the same sailor hat and I could barely fit in the pew.

It was finally time to head home, we literally climbed up the side of a mountain in pitch black holding onto each others shawls until we reached the road and hitched another ride back into town.

There are volunteers that have been here for over 3 months that haven't been a part of the local culture like we experienced that night.  Pretty crazy.

Hopefully one day I will understand what the heck they were celebrating and drinking all night....