Corso

Yesterday a number of my fellow language students went to Oruro on a day trip to celebrate Carnaval. I opted not to join them on this excursion because you had to leave at 4 a.m. from Maryknoll to catch one of those intercity buses. No sleep, no deal. Also, I felt the cost of the trip was a little high. There will be other excursions in the offering in the weeks to come. When the day trip to Salar de Uyuni, one of the largest salt flats on earth, is announced, I will be there.

Anyway, from where I stand, Carnaval is everywhere this weekend. And this morning all I had to do was walk out the door of the convent, cross one block over from Calle 25 de Mayo to Calle San Martin, go up a couple of blocks toward Plaza Colón and El Prado, the promenade, and behold, there it was.

As you may know by now, Carnaval is not encapsulated in a single spectacle. It is a spectacle of spectacles. We had the feast of Compadres, the feast of Comadres, and the k’oa ritual at Maryknoll, and every city and town all over Bolivia has held or will hold parades and processions. Among these are the corsos, which are a grand spectacle of feasting, dancing, marching, merriment, and pranking. Downtown, the city of Cochabamba sponsors several corsos every Carnaval. This morning was the Corso Infantil, or Children’s Corso. Here’s a brief news article, but let me try in words to show you what I saw.

Babies, boys and girls, teenagers, young adults. Hundreds on the streets. All of them costumed or masked. Bumblebees and butterflies. Fairies and princesses. Clowns and harlequins. Every superhero, every supervillain. Lego figures and action figures. If you can imagine it, you could see it in the Corso Infantil. In additional to the masquerading children, many girls and young women, and boys and young men, paraded resplendent in the traditional clothing of the Aymara and Quechua folk. The children on the corso were accompanied by their parents; by the nursery, pre-kindergarten, or school to which they belonged; by the church they attended; or by other civic, fraternal, or social groups.

Did I mention that the name of the game was Soak and Get Soaked? And more than that: Spray and Get Sprayed. It is the custom for the children to throw water at each other, and you could see both adults and children armed with toy water guns. The weather happily complied with the mischief, as it rained steadily from mid-morning to late morning. But getting wet was nothing compared to getting sprayed with foam. Oh, yes, my friends: this is the highlight, indeed, the point of the corso. No matter what else is going on, whatever groups are dancing or marching up El Prado, the foam is flying everywhere. Everyone is armed with aerosol cans of espuma. The bystanders had espuma. The marchers had espuma. The kids, the teens, the young adults: everyone was a sniper, everyone was a target. (The most popular brand of choice was Rey Momo, which appears to be manufactured just for Carnaval. By the way, Rey Momo means King Momus, who is the king of carnivals in many Latin American countries.) So picture, if you will, the streets sprinkled white with foam; picture the gutters with runnels of white water; picture the espuma vendors keeping clean and dry in their ponchillos, trundling cases of aerosol spray cans. Sometimes the ground looked like the floor of a dirty bathtub or shower stall; and the people, tourists from Niagara Falls.

Does this sound a little like Halloween to you? Yes, I second that emotion. But it’s Carnaval, so it’s also a circus (I saw jugglers), an amusement park (I saw a carousel and dozens of concession stands selling every finger food and every beverage), a soapbox (thank you, dear children, who wore placards to protest violence against youth and promote the protection of water rights) and a concert (marching bands and las chacareras blasting from speakers on trucks). The lines between spectator and player are really thin. Everyone dresses up a little, even if only wearing a ponchillo. The pets were masked or costumed. Even the cars and trucks pacing the corso were masked or costumed. I was expecting to be pelted with water and espuma. Didn’t get a drop on me. Oh well?

Carnaval is a carnival, meaning everything is for sale, including the rows and rows of dirty, wet, plastic chairs lining the sidewalks of El Prado, on which you could have the privilege of sitting for 10 bolivianos. At first, I didn’t understand what the seat vendors were saying to me. Then they were waving a ten-boliviano note in front of me. Huh? Then they pointed the bill at the chair, and my dim bulb lit. I was indignant and thought they were scamming me. I asked a police officer, who confirmed that you had to shell out to sit down. No, thank you.

The sun is shining once again, the music has been silenced, and the aerosol cans are empty. So goes another corso in the city of Cochabamba. Although the sobriety of Lent will soon settle upon the city, and with it a different kind of cycle of spectacles, the corsos of Carnaval will continue for a few more weeks. I’d like to think that the overlap exists, peacefully, to remind us that the joyful mysteries of life have as much staying power, if not in fact more, than the sorrowful mysteries of life; and both of them are ultimately bound up together in the eternal and glorious mysteries of undying life.