Desafiar

It is summer changing into autumn in Bolivia. The harvest is coming in. And Carnaval is well under way here. It is a celebration rooted in indigenous Andean customs. This is the time when the people give thanks to Mother Earth (Pachamama) for the blessings of a good harvest and pray for harmony, peace, and tranquility in their homes and society.

With Carnaval comes parades, feasting, dancing, and all sorts of merriment. It will continue all the way until Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. (Think of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, also a season of unbridled festivity.) We will have our own Carnaval at the Maryknoll Mission Center next Friday.

But we got a taste, literal and otherwise, of some Carnaval customs today at the language school.

This day, the penultimate Thursday before the conclusion of Carnaval, is the celebration of Compadres. Its origin lies in the comradeship between fathers and godfathers, whose bonds were solidified in their mutual care for the father’s child. It has developed into a day of revels for men, who eat and drink the rich fare of traditional Bolivian cakes, fruits, meats, and beverages. The women attend to the men. The following Thursday, the feast of Comadres, reverses the scenario, and the men attend to the women, whose own solidarity is feted.

Our Compadres celebrations at Maryknoll began with the customary practices. The women brought the men cinnamon-flavored drinks and meat sandwiches (I had a cheese-filled empanada). They wrapped a ribbon around our necks and then gave each of us a collar, a necklace strung with puffs of harina. Then there were a few rounds of circle dancing and handkerchief dancing to guitar and bombo legüero (an Argentinian drum).

After this, the women had their opportunity to desafiar, or subvert, the male sex and the cultural codes of masculinity. They sang numerous coplas, or verses, teasing the men, and playfully cutting each of them down to size. No man escaped his moment of humiliation. When my turn came, all the women, surrounding me, dancing back and forth, sang

El hermano Antonio es nuestro el más nuevito (2x)
Pero hoy no lo salva ni San Francisquito (2x)

(According to my teachers, roughly translated: Brother Anthony is our newest one/But today St. Francis will not save him.)

I must have blushed as deeply as I ever have.

It’s curious. I enjoyed the teasing part most of all, because I’ve attempted, over the last 20 years in my religious seeking, to leave behind the conventional cultural codes forming male behavior. Being served, receiving ribbons and necklaces, made me uncomfortable. But it seemed the Bolivian women enjoyed all of it equally—the waiting on the men as well as their turn to tweak some noses.

Want to see the celebration? Have a look.

Next Thursday, for the Comadres celebration, I would like to try my hand at the bombo. It’s probably the best way for me to bring an offering to the merriment. I enjoy setting a rhythm to which others can move.

Cantar cantaremos, bailar bailaremos. Estos carnavales bien la pasaremos.