It´s (Not) Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Guzman the Merman, and Other Peruvian Christmas Classics

Faithful readers, in the spirit of the season, it´s time for our first annual Christmas sing-along. Or rather, since this isn´t a live performance and I´m not about to upload any videos of me squeaking my way through ¨Silent Night¨ or ¨Joy to the World¨, it´s time for our first annual Christmas sing-in-your-own-head as you read-along.  Only this isn´t your typical holiday special; it´s Christmas done south of the Equator.

I've talked before about how the inversion of seasons south of the Equator has messed up my psyche, and now that the holiday season is upon us, that claim couldn't be any truer.  While folks back home are bundling up in their warmest scarves and sweaters, I've spent my weekends at country clubs and beaches. While they´re browsing the local nurseries for the perfect pines, I´m growing fond of palm trees.

While the local supermarkets, casinos, and department stores have strung festive garlands over their edifices  and stocked their shelves with bearded, bundled Santas and hot chocolate, I just can´t seem to find the holiday spirit amidst the ocean fog and muggy weather. But perhaps my sentiments would better be demonstrated in musical form:

Guzman the Merman

Sing along

Guzman the mermaid is a fairy tale they say/He was made of sand but the betchy girls know/how he came to life one day. Oh! Guzman the merman was a jolly happy soul/with one bottle cap and one lime nipple/and all the rum his gills could hold…

It´s (Not) Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Sing along 

It´s (not) beginning to look a lot like Christmas/Ev´rywhere you go/Take a look at the sand, glistening once again/Beneath the Lima sunset all aglow…

O Palm Tree

Sing along

O palm tree, o palm tree/ much pleasure doth thou bring me.

Where´s The Snow? Where´s the Snow? Where´s the Snow?

Sing along

 

Oh the weather outside ´s delightful/but our beach burns are so frightful/To Chincha and back we go/Where´s the snow? Where´s the snow? Where´s the snow?

Mashup Finale: Up on Diego´s Beach House Rooftop/ We´re a Couple of Misfits/Deck the Halls

Sing along 1, 2, and 3.

Up on Diego´s beach house rooftop Jennie paused/Out jumped Josué Córdova/Down to the kitchen for chips and dogs/All for the little ones Christmas joys. Ho, ho, ho! Who wouldn´t go? Ho, ho, ho! Seriously: Who wouldn´t go? Up on the rooftop beer tops went click!/ Down through the gullets of all us misfits.

Ohhhhhhh! We´re a couple of misfits/ we´re a couple of misfits/ What´s the matter with misfits/ That´s where we fit in. We may be different from the rest/Who decides the test/Of what is really best?

Fast away the old year passes/fa la la la la la, la la la la/ Hail the new,ye lads and lasses/ fa la la la la, la la la la./ Sing we joyous all together/ fa la la la la, la la la la/ We rejoice for sunny weather/ fa la la la la, la la la la.

I´ll be home for Christmas. Expect more caroling. And next time, please, stay on pitch.

Creamfields Wasteland: A Short Parable

Creamfields Perú, 2011: I could tell you about how my roommates and I prepared for the all-night electronic concert by sleeping all day, shoveling heaping forkfuls of pasta in our gullets and smuggling cereal bars into the remotest pockets of our purses.  I could tell you about how David Guetta got the party started with his Top 40 dance hits and spark-shooting robot aides. I could tell you about the performances of other main stage dance DJs—John Digweed, Laidback Luke, Afrojack.  But instead, I want to tell you a precautionary tale.

Entering Fundo Mamacona (the Creamfields venue) on Saturday night was like locating paradise for twenty-somethings along the Panamericana Sur highway: balmy air, well-manicured lawns, skyscraping palm trees and free cigarettes at the entranceway; stands selling beer, Red Pull, pizza and anticuchos (shish-kebab cow heart) to nourish the mobs throughout the night; tarps laid down in front of the staging areas to catch the fallen debris from careless, hungry/thirsty hands.

At first, the tarp ingenuity seemed to work.  When we stole away to the central open area from the bobbing sea of bodies after Guetta´s set, there was plenty of space to accommodate or group.  We sat cross-legged or stretched out on the grass, idyllically sipping on our beers, breathing in the springtime air, and listening to the pulsing music from afar.

But the harmony between man and nature did not last.  The more beers consumed, the more plastic cups disposed.  Garbage cans piled over.  With the constant movement, the tarps did not catch the debris as anticipated. All of the trash migrated to border between tarp and grass, creating junk fences for concert-goers to leap over on their travels to and from the staging area.

The mobs must have gotten hungry during the second and third sets, because the next time we went in search of green space, plates and personal pan pizza boxes littered the lawn. You had to kick the orphaned cardboards out of the way to make a suitable space to sit, while lying down lost its allure entirely.  When the sun came up again, there were no clean spaces in which to sit at all: bodies still rested, but they slept with plastic pillows.

Sure, sure, I know recklessness is the object of any all-night concert, and that teams of cleaning crews would be coming in the next day to restore the garden to its original pristine state; by the following nightfall, there´d be no traces of the Creamfields wasteland at all.  But where would be that garbage´s final destination, and who would be swooping in then to clean things up?

From Noon To Midnight and Beyond

Last Saturday, I danced for 14 hours.  Fourteen hours? You ask. Were you training for some sort of Peruvian salsa competition or the next season of So You Think You Can Dance? Nope. Because apparently fourteen hours doesn´t qualify as marathon dancing in Peru; it´s just a typical Saturday at Embarcadero 41.

Playing card décor.

It all started when my friend asked if my roommates/coworkers and I would like to be put on Saturday´s list at Embarcadero. Having grown accustomed to such lists and their privileges (no covers, no waiting in line), I happily agreed.  He told me the location and the name of the list we´d be on.

¨Great.  And what time should we meet you?¨

¨Around 1PM.¨

¨1PM?¨ I asked, thinking he was surely confusing the abbreviations used to indicate early morning clubbing hours with those of Saturday afternoon napping.  It certainly wasn´t out of the question to arrive at a club in Peru at 1AM, but 1PM?

¨Yeah, 1PM,¨ he confirmed, not seeming to think anything of it. ¨We can spend the afternoon there dancing, then eat something and go clubbing again in the evening.¨

It´s not the idea of daytime drinking that made the 1PM start time sound foreign; most Americans of drinking age have done their fair share of afternoon (and early morning) tailgating for football games and concerts.  It was the intimidating idea that my afternoon hours would be spent inside a jammed packed club, dancing until my muscles ached, rather than in a spacious parking lot with comfortable folding chairs.

How would I make it?

But my friend promised we´d have a good time, and Embarcadero delivered. The day held many surprises, from cover bands and on-stage contests to all the free glow sticks, balloons and felt hats a girl could want. When we were tired of dancing, we refueled with large servings of pollo a la brasa and chaufa at a nearby restaurant.  Then we were back out on the town again (this time at a proper hour) for our second wind of drinks and dancing. 

You know how you hear those Top 40s songs about dancing until 4 o´clock in the morning? As you bop your head to the beat and mouth the words you´re probably thinking, ¨nobody in their right mind actually dances until four in the morning.¨

Make no mistake, my friend.  In Lima they do.