When we met our host families under the canopy of the gazebo in Cayambe, they told us that we would be welcomed to the community of Olmedo con banda. The town of Olmedo celebrates the Fiestas of San Juan, the patron Saint of the town, for about 10 days and we arrived just at the beginning.
The 24th of June is the official beginning of the Fiesta, but the whole weekend before was more or less a warm-up party. And as we learned, nothing much happens on the actual day apart from a special 11am misa (Mass). But, the eve of the 24th is HUGE! My fellow trainees and I arrived home to Olmedo to see vendors setting up for the night and 2 huge piles of brush being built up for bonfires. At about 8:30pm the events started. All of the buses that run north of Cayambe are painted with “el 24 de Junio” signifying the day of the pueblo's fiesta. These buses, 27 in total, paraded through the narrow cobble stone streets of Olmedo honking and spewing their fowl black smoke at a painfully slow pace! When they get to the Church, the priest came out and blessed each of the buses, using local roses to sprinkle holy water on the front of the buses in the form of the cross and then blessed each of the drivers, too. When each of the buses had received their benediction, the community flooded into the church to hear the first Mass of the Fiesta.
After Mass, the real party began. There were fireworks galore, more precisely, bottle rockets that people lite in their hands and released! Oh heavens! The first pile of brush was set on fire in a less than dramatic fashion as the wood was clearly quite green - and Molly and I enjoyed some delicious candied grapes on a stick. (just about in that order too!) There was a live band for the occasion, and in the tradition of more fire, people prepared some very small “hot-air balloons,” for a lack of a better term, that were released into the air. Although these were adorable little, floating globes, I couldn't help but think that they had the potential to start some serious fires! (but that is the Oregonian inside of me, I guess...)
The best part of the event by far involved a tree trunk that had been sanded down and greased. It was set up telephone pole-style, with different prizes hanging at the top. Naturally, the point of the game was to shimmy up the pole and get the stuff at the top. Clearly easier said than done. There was every combination of kids and adults trying to boost each other up to the top, mostly with failure. Nevertheless, it was hilarious to watch, and eventually the right combination of small boys toward the top and strong men at the bottom was achieved at the prizes were had, but not until we had laughed enough to make our stomachs hurt!
The next four days were mostly preparations for Sunday's big fiesta. One of the biggest preparations was the pan de casa. Most bread that you find in the local panadarias is delicious, but white, fluffy bread. For the fiestas, many families prepare delicious, dense, wheat bread, called pan de casa, or bread of the house; two of my favorite breads that they made were the empanadas, which are filled with cheese and green onions, and the pan con pelota mantaquilla, which had a ball of soft delicious butter flavored bread ontop of a whole wheat roll. Outside in my host family's courtyard, they have a large wood burning oven precisely for fiesta preparations. Starting Thursday afternoon through Sunday morning, Edita's oven was occupied with breads and other preparations of all of her family and friends. I gladly sampled all of the bread that was offered to me as it came out of the oven! Que ricos son!!!!!! Saturday to Sunday, family brought over whole chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits and pigs to be cooked in the oven as well. For her family and guests, Edita prepared hornada, a popular fiesta food, a whole pig is seasoned and placed into the oven to cook until done, about 4-6 hours, as well as conejo hornada, roasted rabbit – both were amazingly delicious.
The day of the fiesta I woke up to help Edita with the preparations of the day, but mostly just did dishes for her, and let me tell you there was a monton! (huge pile) I ate breakfast twice- first my usual coffee, bread, fruit, boiled egg breakfast, and second, some tiny, but sweet and tasty corn cobs, called chochlo, and a taste of the hornada that just came out of the oven. At about 10am the desfile (parade) began with all of the local students and surrounding community groups participating and showing their support for the fiestas of San Juan in Olmedo. Each groups was dressed in costumes, either special outfits or traditional clothes. The parade lasted about 3 hours; I met up with a bunch of the other trainees that had gathered for the final fiesta day of Olmedo and mostly we sampled the street fare: cotton candy, fries with fresh salsa, cheese empanadas, litchis, mandarins, and more. Having never become hungry during the parade, on the part of our many snacks and my two morning meals, I of course when home at 1:30 for the fiesta meal. Thankfully, my host mom knows that I never want to eat too much so she gave a modest portion of food and didn't hassle me when I didn't finish my plate!
By 3pm most of the family had come and gone from Edita's house. We cleaned up the kitchen a little bit and she spent the afternoon napping, exhausted from days of preparation and little sleep. I on the other had went to the Plaza de Toros, and event that I found a least a little disturbing. The happenings at the Plaza de Toros is not the usual bullfighting you would expect. It's more like the amateur rodeo, but with only one event and everyone trying to lance the bull at the same time. Imagine an arena filled with about 60 men, ranging in age from 17-70 years old. Only about 12 of them are holding red capes to lance with, and 90% of them are so intoxicated they can't stand up! A bull is released into the ring and just charges around. The 12 men with capes are trying to “trick” the bull and earn points for the competition, but the other 48 are just running around distracting the bull and acting as collateral damage. Of course, these 48 men are often the ones not paying attention to the bull as well, so they get rammed, butted, gored and trampled during the event. The objective of the event is for one of the man to lance the bull five times, and then he receives an embroidered blanket that signifies his winning of the event.
The interesting part of the event is that people are more interested in the crazy men who are not lancing the bull, but running around, rather than the men vying for the prize. It's kind of like a train wreck activity, everyone wants to see blood! I spent a lot of time cringing in horror, but yet I too couldn't look away and stayed nearly to the end. My host mom says she hates the “toro” event in Olmedo because she knows so many of the men that go out into the arena. She can't stand to watch them be so silly and wait for them to get hurt, so she stays at home. But, since this is likely the only time I will get to witness the events of the Fiesta de San Juan, I had to go and experience it all.
The evening events of the fiesta wrapped up with singing and dancing all night long. In the town plaza there was a live band and people danced and drank the night away. And small local groups paraded up and down the streets all night long, dressed in the fiesta costume and singing the local fiesta song and looking for open doors that they could enter and entertain, in exchange from some warm chicha (a local drink made from fermented corn) and bread. Edita closed her store at about 8pm, after many groups had come to serenade throughout the day. We decided it was too cold and we were too tired to make it out to the last night's events. So we ate a dinner of delicious chicken soup and drank tea and chatted. I fell asleep to the strum of guitars and high pitched voices singing about San Juan, and so the fiestas of Olmedo wrapped up for the year...
