The culture

Somehow I got distracted from finishing up my Peru blogging! I'll do my best to get back on track!

Besides only speaking Spanish, the Peruvian culture was very different than the United States! In a word, it was RANDOM! The overall atmosphere was much more relaxed. People kind of came and went whenever they felt like, there was no such thing as "being on-time." Whenever we were making plans to go somewhere we always had to ask if that was going to be Peruvian time or American time! For someone who likes structure and routine, this would be very hard to get used to!

We were able to see Chavin culture at it's finest because we were there for the beginning of the Fiesta del Carmen. This is a week-long celebration of the Virgen de Carmen where the people basically worship this idol with lots and lots of partying and cerveza! Lots of cerveza! It was very cool to see an entire town gather together to celebrate something, but SO sad to see that they were putting their hopes, dreams, and worship in something that wasn't real.

Besides the police patrolling the town on foot with giant machine guns, one of the hardest things to get used to was the random rockets shooting into the sky at all hours of the day and night. At first we thought we had found ourselves in the middle of a war-zone. We soon learned that everyone who claims Chavin as their hometown comes back at some point during this week-long celebration to pay their respects to Carmen. To celebrate the home-coming, the family shoots off a rocket for every person who comes home WHEN they come home...even if it's the middle of the night!

One morning we were awoken very early by this little band with a big sound! They marched around town ALL DAY playing the same song! Being a former band-nerd myself, I have absolutely no idea how they did this!



Merchants took advantage of the festival by setting up "shops" all along the streets and then lived in them for the week. They also included some of the craziest looking mannequins I've ever seen!


Another big part of the festival was a bull-fight! This happened to be the inaugural bull-fight in Chavin's new bull-ring.





I really didn't know that much about bull-fighting before this experience, but I can confidently say that I will probably never attend another one! It was so sad! Here's a little video of the festivities, it does get a little graphic just to warn you!



We learned later that this was definitely a bull fight gone bad...the matador missed a couple times and the bull probably suffered way more than it should have. So sad! This little girl's face pretty much sums up how I felt after the bull died:


Here are some more pictures taken around Chavin that kind of tell their own story about the culture...






Getting to experience another culture that was so incredibly different than America was definitely eye-opening! It not only made me very thankful for what I have and all that God has blessed me with, but it gave me the burden to pray for these people and others like them all around the world who desperately need to hear about Jesus.